Occupational Safety

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Do Not Pass go: The New York Times reports that “the owner of two Brooklyn construction companies was charged with manslaughter on Wednesday because the authorities said he ignored complaints about a poorly maintained retaining wall that collapsed at a work site in 2015, killing an 18-year-old laborer and injuring two others.”

U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta says the fiscal year 2018 budget request for the U.S. Department of Labor he released last week will “help American workers develop the necessary skills to meet the demands of a 21st century economy and get good, safe jobs, provide working families access to paid leave, assist employers in meeting their responsibilities under worker protection laws, and restore fiscal responsibility.”

A Florida woman has been convicted of workers’ compensation fraud after footage from a surveillance camera showed her trying to fake a workplace injury. Sheyla White, an employee of Cinque Terre Energy Partners in Fort Lauderdale, claimed a sprinkler head from a ceiling emergency sprinkler system fell, bounced off her desk and struck her in the head in 2015.

The Chamber of Commerce is nothing if it’s not consistent. Consistently opposed to each and every new protection issued or contemplated by OSHA, consistently challenging every new OSHA initiative in court, consistently (and drastically) overestimating the cost of every proposed OSHA standard, consistently opposed to any action by OSHA that would expand (or even maintain) workers’ rights.

Thousands of Canadian high schoolers are learning about safety in the classroom – thanks to a program founded by a grieving father. Rob Ellis formed an organization called My Safe Work after his 18-year-old son David was killed on his second day on the job at an industrial bakery.

I’m not sure that was their intention, but what could make hiring undocumented workers more attractive than passing a law that “prohibits undocumented workers from receiving payments if injured on the job?”