Articles by Jordan Barab

While the new headlines are all about Hurricanes, health care, North Korea and tax “reform,” chickens around the country are getting more and more nervous as the foxes quietly move into the government agencies that are supposed to be protecting them.

Normally, I’d say anyone with half a brain and a bit of a moral compass would see this as a problem in need of a humane solution:

OSHA has engaged in a furious flurry of press activity over the past month. Well, “furious” by Trump-OSHA standards. By anyone else’s standards, it’s still pathetic. OSHA has issued an astonishing total of six press releases since the beginning of August.

A couple of comments before we get to this week’s list. We’ve written about OSHA’s unfortunate decision to remove the names of workers killed on the job from their webpage. Jennifer Gollan of Reveal News interviewed a number of family members of workers killed on the job who felt that OSHA’s decision was wrong and reduces their loved ones’ deaths to a statistic.

Today the full Senate Appropriations Committee reported out the FY 2018 Labor-HHS Funding Bill. The bill maintains OSHA, MSHA and NIOSH funding at the FY 2017 levels. That means that there are no cuts from the agencies’ current (FY 2017) budgets.

As deaths in coal mines rise, President Trump last Friday nominated retired coal mining executive David Zatezalo to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

Cable news and newspapers across the country are headlining the continuing explosions at the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby, Texas, that was flooded by Hurricane Harvey.

Last week in the workplace: Of note, three fatalities related to forklifts. Also, while OSHA removes workplace fatalities from its homepage and buries them on their website without victims’ names, you’ll continue to find them here.

While it may go without saying, there’s probably no President in American history more reviled by worker advocates than Ronald Reagan.