Government Safety Regulations

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The Kentucky legislature this week passed a bill to exclude radiologists from the types of doctors who can diagnose black lung disease among miners seeking workers’ compensation for their illness. A radiologist uses x-rays to diagnose disease. Black lung disease is diagnosed through x-rays and an occupational history.

New York City may ban those after-hours work emails, congressional funding for public health programs gets a nod of approval and regulatory moves on premium cigars and e-cigarettes don’t. These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.

A group of U.S. senators are hoping that the 16th attempt will be the charm for legislation that would include more workers in federally mandated protections, increase OSHA civil penalties and toughen criminal penalties for unsafe employers.

A bill proposed in New York City would prohibit employers from emailing or texting their workers during non-work hours. The effects of an increasingly connected workplace have been a frequent focus of psychological studies.

California has adopted the first ergonomic standard in the nation written specifically to protect hotel housekeepers. The new workplace safety and health regulation to prevent and reduce work-related injuries to housekeepers in the hotel and hospitality industry was approved March 9 by the Office of Administrative Law and will become effective July 1.

They say that those who forget history are forced to repeat it. But when it comes to workplace and environmental disasters, that’s not exactly true. Because while the politicians and their corporate supporters are doing the forgetting, it is the workers, the environment and surrounding communities that ultimately pay the price when the inevitable — and preventable — tragedies come home to roost.

Fewer than half of all employers required to send their injury and illness information into OSHA last year sent in the information. “The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was expecting about 350,000 summaries to be submitted by Dec. 31, the agency numbers provided to Bloomberg Environment March 7 show. Instead, employers required to participate submitted 153,653 reports, OSHA said.”

Yesterday’s House Appropriations hearing on the Labor Department’s FY 2019 budget was a fairly low key — mostly boring — rendition of how well Alex Acosta thinks things are going in Trump’s Department of Labor. I had intended to “live tweet” the hearing, but the Committee’s website was having “technical difficulties.”