Daily Roundup, Thursday, September 30

• BP’s new chief puts stress on safety

Acting to restore BP PLC’s reputation in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, incoming Chief Executive Robert Dudley unveiled big changes designed to improve safety and announced the departure of the senior executive who oversaw drilling operations.

• New offshore drilling rules coming Thursday

The Obama administration is set to release new rules for offshore oil drillers as it prepares to lift a ban on deepwater drilling.

• Senate Republicans block Dems’ effort to pass mine safety bill

Senate Republicans on Tuesday shot down a Democratic effort to pass legislation strengthening safety protections for the nation’s miners.

• House approves help for 9/11 rescue workers (WP)

A bill to give up to $7.4 billion to workers sickened during the cleanup of World Trade Center site after the Sept. 11 attacks passed in the House on Wednesday after a passionate floor debate in which supporters said they were standing up for heroes.

• Big business backs anti-worker amendment 1 in Georgia

A group of Georgian corporate executives want to make it easier for companies to freeze their ex-workers out of their industries. They are pushing an amendment to the state constitution to make it easier to enforce so-called “non-compete agreements.”

• OSHA: State has mixed safety record

Arizona’s worker-safety program needs improvement but requires no specific federal intervention, according to an evaluation of fiscal 2009 agency performance released this week by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

• Lawsuit targets Census for shutting doors on workers of color

When the Census Bureau mobilized thousands of workers to survey neighborhoods around the country, it prioritized job creation as well as outreach to historically undercounted communities. Months later, the statistics are rolling out, and so is a stream of evidence that for all the talk of a more inclusive census, the government’s hiring practices systematically discriminated against people of color.

• McDonald’s denies report that it will drop worker health coverage

McDonald’s denies reports it’s considering dropping health care coverage for some employees in response to a provision of the health care overhaul.

• Off-the-charts levels of formaldehyde found in salon treatment

A toxicology lab in Oregon uncovered a high-end salon treatment labeled “Brazilian Blowout” that contains 10 percent formaldehyde, raising serious safety questions about extremely high levels of the potent carcinogen. The solution is used in dozens of salons nationwide that advertise the popular hair-straightening treatment.

• B.G. graphic arts firm fined $13,600 by OSHA

A Bowling Green, Ohio, graphic arts company has been fined $13,600 by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration after inspections in April found safety violations involving a failure to properly lock out electrical equipment.

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Daily Roundup, Wednesday, September 29

• Lame duck Congress may consider bill to toughen OSHA

For an agency so widely feared and demonized by American business, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is a relative pushover.

• Rockefeller, Goodwin want comprehensive mine safety legislation

Both of West Virginia’s U.S. senators spoke on the Senate floor Tuesday about the need for new mine safety legislation.

• Drilling agency, facing decision on ban, gets lobbied

U.S. offshore-drilling regulators, on the verge of making a decision on when and how to lift a deepwater drilling ban imposed after the BP PLC (BP, BP.LN) oil spill, are coming under pressure to act quickly and resume issuing new permits.

• Feds: Cal/OSHA needs speedier complaint process

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health needs to speed up its complaint process and do a better job training inspectors, among other improvements, according to federal labor officials.

• State Labor Dept. gets harsh critique

A sobering assessment came out this week of the North Carolina agency responsible for ensuring that workplaces in the state are safe. The 41-page report and audit of released Monday by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational and Safety Division took N.C. Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry’s department to task on several worker safety issues.

• When “I don’t know” is the only answer

In the nine years since 9/11, more than 238 scientific studies and medical reports in peer review journals have tried to measure the impact of the dust, smoke and ash of the collapsed World Trade Center on the health of the thousands who were exposed to the contaminated clouds.

• Inspector General slams giant utility for 2008 coal ash spill

The inspector general of the Tennessee Valley Authority is faulting the utility’s management culture and coal ash control procedures for the disastrous 2008 coal ash spill in the Emory River in East Tennessee.

• Grappling with the “gray zone,” feds focus on nano workers’ health

How do you protect someone from something they can’t see? That’s the trick for researchers trying to ensure that workers in the growing business of nanotechnology aren’t threatened by their livelihood.

• Mad Men, madder women: Have roles really changed in the workplace?

A recent episode of “Mad Men” (aired on 9/12/10) particularly intrigued me, as a psychologist and author who writes about women’s issues in contemporary society. The episode brilliantly illustrated a cultural phenomenon that I have called “the beauty paradox.”

• Man hurt at GE when molding equipment ‘opened unexpectedly’

A General Electric employee was transported to Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Somersworth, Maine, at about 2:51 a.m. Monday, Sept. 20, after he was hit by a large piece of molding equipment that “opened unexpectedly,” according to a GE spokeswoman.

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Daily Roundup, Tuesday, September 28

• BP gets a break over its 2005 case

The U.S. Department of Justice will not seek to revoke BP’s criminal probation for allegedly failing to make safety upgrades at its Texas City refinery following a deadly 2005 explosion, despite pleas from victims’ families to reopen the case.

• Safety gaps worry feds

The U.S. Department of Labor is threatening to yank the state’s authority to oversee safety and health in Hawaii’s workplace, in light of “serious performance problems.”

• Violence towards home care staff drastically increases long term pain in caregivers

We all know that stress can lead to problems in one’s health, both physical and mental. However in a very specific case, it has been proven that symptoms of musculoskeletal pain triple in healthcare professionals that endure in home abuse from patients or even in nursing homes.

• Sleepy transportation regulators are slow to fix deadly fatigue hazards, analysis finds

Fatigue has played a role in airline crashes that have taken nearly 750 lives over the past four decades, and it also has figured in deadly truck and train accidents, an analysis has found.

• Offshore drilling verdict coming soon

The Obama administration is edging closer to a decision to end the moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling that industry and Gulf Coast lawmakers have attacked since its imposition after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

• U.S. Labor Department orders Cal/OSHA to fix appeals process

The U.S. Labor Department on Tuesday issued a report that strongly criticized the enforcement of workplace safety in California and ordered the Division of Occupational Safety and Health to fix myriad problems, including a failure to sufficiently train inspectors and to respond promptly to complaints.

• OSHA needs organization, training help

More and more these days, revelations of government laxity or corruption are divulged by insiders — employees who see the problems from within and report them to investigators.

• CT worker illness rates falling

The number of Connecticut workers getting sick on the job is falling, but still ranks higher than the national average, a new study shows.

• Worker burned at tomato packing plant

A 23-year-old man received serious burns in an industrial accident Monday at a tomato packing plant, the Merced County, Calif., Sheriff’s Department reported.

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Daily Roundup, Monday, September 27

• Diesel dangers: Mining companies get first look at government cancer study

A long-delayed government epidemiological study of possible ties between diesel exhaust and lung cancer in miners may finally be published this fall — but only after a mining industry group, represented by the Washington lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs, finishes a pre-publication review of the study’s drafts.

• 28 miners killed this year in accidents besides the Upper Big Branch disaster

In addition to the 29 miners who died in West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in April, another 28 miners were killed in the U.S. during the first eight months of the year in less publicized accidents, according to a safety alert from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

• Mine explosion suppressant lags in U.S.

At first, “passive barriers” to prevent the spread of underground coal-mine explosions sound a bit like the old practical joke where you balance a bucket of water on a partly opened door, and the first person who walks through gets drenched.

• Large study will examine oil spill’s health effects

Doctors, scientists and public health experts began sketching the outlines Wednesday of a large-scale study of the health effects of the BP oil spill on cleanup workers and the public, hoping to include thousands of people in a review funded by BP.

• Reported leak rate for PG&E’s ‘high-consequence’ gas lines far exceeds national average

The operator of a Bay Area gas pipeline that exploded in a lethal firestorm earlier this month has reported leaks on similar lines in populated areas at a rate more than six times that of other large pipeline systems across the country, according to a Times analysis.

• Stephen Colbert to Congress: The invisible hand of the market doesn’t want to pick beans

Stephen Colbert, host of the satirical Colbert Report on Comedy Central, last Friday testified in character before a House Judiciary subcommittee on his experience as a temporary migrant farm worker.

• Tight budgets risk firefighters’ safety, violate standards

Unable to meet certain national staffing standards, some area fire chiefs are sounding the alarm. Four firefighters should be on each truck per response call, no matter how large the municipality, according to the National Fire Protection Association’s standards. But budgetary constraints mean usually only two or three firefighters are on each truck, and that tests both efficiency and safety.

• BP, lawyer spar over claims of plant leak

A Houston lawyer is threatening to seek a court order to force BP to shut down and repair a unit at its Texas City refinery that the attorney alleges is leaking flammable material.

• Oil companies fined in death of Hebron man

After months of investigation following the death of a man on an oil rig near Killdeer, N.D., in April, two area companies have been issued thousands of dollars in proposed penalties.

• Worker loses part of finger at firm cited for safety violations

Another employee has lost part of a finger at Bimbo Bakeries, a company with plants statewide whose record of workplace accidents was highlighted by The Times last year as an example of inaction by California health and safety officials.

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Daily Roundup, Friday, September 24

• Claims alleging job bias rise with layoffs

As the sagging economy triggered massive layoffs, companies have grappled with a rising number of claims that they illegally fired workers on account of age, race, gender or medical condition.

• Exposed to burn pits, Iraq veteran fights for disability benefits

Air Force veteran Tim Wymore has three lesions on his brain, a blood disorder, a damaged esophagus and other health problems, which he believes stem from his exposure to toxins at open-air burn pits where he was stationed in Balad, Iraq.

• Oil and gas industry may sue OSHA over flame-resistant clothing requirement

Oil and gas drilling groups are so upset over a new federal policy requiring workers to wear flame-resistant clothing on well-drilling rigs that they may sue the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

• Encourage whistleblowers, Metro told

Metrorail is safer than it was before the fatal June 2009 Red Line crash, but the transit agency can’t build an effective “culture of safety” unless it convinces employees that they can report problems and close calls without fearing discipline, a top federal safety official said Thursday.

• Official death toll at 7 in San Bruno blast as state orders investigation

With the death toll from the Sept. 9 gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, Calif., now confirmed as seven, state utility regulators announced the creation of an independent review panel to investigate the blast.

• Food distribution company, OSHA investigating death of worker at company’s Oklahoma warehouse

An Illinois food distribution company is investigating the death of a warehouse employee at its facility in Ardmore, Calif.

• OSHA cites Kinney’s Commercial for excavation hazards

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Kinney’s Commercial Inc. in Austin, Texas, with alleged willful, serious and other-than-serious violations for exposing workers to possible excavation cave-ins. Proposed penalties total $40,750.

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Daily Roundup, Thursday, September 23

• Labor Secretary Solis tells coal industry: ‘We will not tolerate mines that cut corners on safety’

Here is the text of remarks given by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis to the National Mining Association Executive Board Meeting earlier today:

• Gulf oil spill study on worker health

The BP oil spill not only affected the economy of much of the Gulf Coast, but also the health of the Gulf of Mexico. But what about the health of workers who had to clean up the mess? A new study is designed to look at just that.

• Chemical danger: Industry’s greed is putting millions of Americans at risk

Responsibility for chemical security may be shared among federal, state and local governments, as well as the private sector, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s online factsheet on that fearsomely vulnerable area of critical infrastructure. But right now they’re all epically failing us, which make us sitting ducks if there is a catastrophe.

• Study: 2010 has been deadly year for plane crashes

A study of fatal plane crashes released Wednesday found that 2010 has been a deadlier year than normal in Alaska.

• Struggling postal service seeks wage concessions

Faced with declining mail volume and an unsustainable business model, the USPS is asking for wage and benefit concessions for employees who enjoy better benefits than other public-sector workers.

• Plant injuries still undisclosed

Nearly two decades ago, I wrote about how refineries and chemical plants along the Gulf Coast avoided reporting their lost-time injuries to federal safety and health regulators.

• Fire dept. under state investigation

A representative of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Division of the North Carolina Department of Labor inspected High Point’s Fire Station 4 on Wednesday, Sept. 15 to investigate a complaint of safety violations, in what is apparently an escalation of a conflict between some High Point firefighters and the administration of Fire Chief David Taylor.

• Golf course worker files OSHA whistleblower charge against Southwestern Oklahoma Development Authority

On September 15, 2010, Gy Bennar, a former landscaping and maintenance worker for the public golf course at the Clinton-Sherman Industrial Airpark (“CSIA”), filed a whistleblower retaliation charge against the Southwestern Oklahoma Development Authority (“SWODA”), which manages the course, for terminating him in violation of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (“Clean Water Act”) and the Safe Drinking Water Act.

• Michigan City whistleblower to get $215,000

In a settlement with the state, the Michigan City, Ind., Sanitary District agreed Wednesday to pay a former employee and whistleblower $215,000.

• OSHA investigating after worker killed at Phoenix recycling plant

Phoenix Fire Department officials said a man was operating a forklift at Hendrix Recycling near Ninth Street and Broadway Road when it collided with a front loader. The forklift rolled over, trapping the driver.

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Daily Roundup, Wednesday, September 22

• Committee seeks to ban ‘gas blows’ at plants

Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced Tuesday that she will use an executive order to ban the so-called “gas blow” procedure — thought to have been the cause for the deadly Kleen Energy Power Plant explosion in February — in the state until new national standards are put in place.

• Harming the healers

The public was stunned to learn of the shooting of a physician by a patient’s family member at Johns Hopkins Hospital last Thursday, but what many people don’t know is that violence in hospitals has become an everyday occurrence.

• Wrestling with racial bias, New York firefighters resist reform

New York City’s firefighters have been embroiled in racial and ethnic politics throughout their history, and the Fire Department’s latest civil rights controversy has stoked a political standoff and a hiring freeze.

• Anger, disgust, blame

During yesterday’s Board of Trustees meeting, speakers lambasted officials over comments made on Sept. 9 that appeared to blame Anthony Ruggiero and John Kelly, firefighters who died after entering a manhole, for failing to follow confined space protocol. At the press conference, the village administrator said that neither of the men were supposed to head into the manhole that day.

• Two workers burned at BP Texas City refinery

Two workers on Tuesday suffered burns while working at BP Plc’s (BP.L) (BP.N) 475,000 barrel per day (bpd) Texas City, Texas, refinery, a company spokesman said.

• Columbia Forest Products hit with 15 safety violations after worker dies at Maine mill

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Columbia Forest Products Inc. for 15 alleged willful and serious violations of workplace safety standards following the March 22 death of a worker at the company’s mill in Presque Isle, Maine.

• OSHA cites Georgia paper manufacturer following worker amputation injury

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited McDuffie Box Company Inc. in Thomson, Ga., for alleged safety violations. Penalties total $47,550.

• OSHA cites safety lapses at Smackover, Ark., plant

An oil refinery owned by a Texas company has been cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for lapses in safety measures at the plant, with proposed fines totaling $165,600.

• OSHA investigates Merrill explosion

OSHA is now investigating the events leading up to an explosion at a Merrill, Wis., manufacturing plant that sent two workers to the hospital.

• Man dies after touching live wire

A man doing electrical work at a Port Orange warehouse was reportedly killed when he touched a live wire.

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Daily Roundup, Tuesday, September 21

• Feds blitz mines, turn up hundreds of safety violations

An inspection blitz triggered by the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in April has turned up 2,660 violations at 111 U.S. coal and metal mines, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration announced.

• MSHA to publish emergency temporary standard for rock dust

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration today announced that on September 23 the Federal Register is expected to publish an emergency temporary standard that revises the existing federal standard on maintenance of incombustible content of rock dust.

• Lawmaker fights unfair working conditions, store closes for repairs

Richland County Representative Leon Howard has been urging customers to stop shopping at the Dollar General store on Oak Street in Columbia, S.C., until conditions improved.

• Standing tall: Overcoming ‘laptop-itis’: Exercises can improve posture

From the health screenings she conducts, Stamford chiropractor Dr. Beverley Marr knows there are few people who consider their posture peerless. Many can probably pin the blame on too much screen time, combined with a poorly designed work space.

• It’s best to avoid repetitive stress injuries

Maureen arrived at the weekly game a bit damaged, both wrists strapped into something that resembled a medieval torture contraption. But she’d refused to hear a single word about trying an ergonomically correct keyboard and office equipment for her job.

• Seaman sues after injuring back while moving underwater jacks

A commercial diver has filed a Jones Act lawsuit after allegedly injuring his back while trying to move underwater jacks.

• Evanston’s Spartech fined for safety violations

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration levied $54,500 in fines against an Evanston-based plastic maker, saying it violated 16 “serious safety violations” by exposing employees to unguarded machinery and “electric shock hazards.”

• Acadia board supports CEO despite claims

In recent weeks, leadership at The Acadia Hospital has come under fire, following confirmation of an ongoing investigation into working conditions at the psychiatric facility by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

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Daily Roundup, Monday, September 20

• Safety director claims SeaWorld ordered her to obstruct whale death investigation

Linda Simons, SeaWorld’s former safety director, claims she was fired for not following the orders of park officials to impede the federal government’s investigation of a trainer who was killed by an orca earlier this year.

• Mich. hasn’t issued fine for gas safety in years

The state of Michigan hasn’t fined a natural gas company for a pipeline safety violation in at least a decade, although the companies are sometimes warned about possible infractions.

• Could pipeline explosion happen here?

As federal investigators investigate why a fatal explosion occurred involving a gas pipeline in San Bruno, Calif., many individuals wonder if something like that could happen here in Ohio.

• Alaska takes DOI to court

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell said Sept. 9 that the State of Alaska has filed a lawsuit against Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to overturn a federal moratorium on offshore drilling on the Alaska outer continental shelf.

• Complaints lead to OSH safety inquiries

State workplace safety regulators are conducting two investigations at Oregon State Hospital following employee complaints.

• Artesia refinery fined $707,000 for safety lapses associated with deadly blast

The Navajo Refining Company has been fined $707,000 for after state investigators found the company knowingly failed to correct safety problems before a deadly March 2 storage tank explosion and fire at the company’s plant in Artesia, N.M.

• Norwalk meat processing plant receives 38 safety and health violations

Norwalk, Wisc.,-based meat processing plant VPP Group was cited with 38 alleged violations, carrying a $369,500 proposed fine. The citations include: failing to perform hearing tests on employees exposed to extremely high noise levels and failure to record more than 125 injuries that occurred from 2007 through 2009 in the required OSHA 300 injury log.

• PG&E fined $176,000 in fatality

Pacific Gas & Electric has been fined $176,000 in response to the electrocution of a utility worker in Benicia, Calif., earlier this year.

• Gaby Iron cited by OSHA over lead, arsenic

A Chicago Heights metals recycler has been cited by OSHA for 17 health and safety violations and fined a total of $135,850.

• Penalties sought by OSHA for cave-in risks, other violations

Federal authorities are seeking $112,000 in penalties from a Florida contractor accused of willfully exposing employees to cave-in hazards during work on a storm water project in Lake Mary near Orlando.

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Daily Roundup, Friday, September 17

• Report blows the whistle on OSHA’s whistleblower protection

Whistleblowers are supposed to be protected from reprisals when they report safety hazards or other law violations by their employers. But for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, whistleblower protection is a sideline from its main focus on job safety — and critics say it shows.

• OSHA’s Michaels comments on GAO whistleblower protection program report

The U.S. Government Accountability Office on September 16 issued a report titled, “Whistleblower Protection: Sustained Management Attention Needed to Address Long-standing Program Weaknesses.” In response, Occupational Safety and Health Administration Assistant Secretary of Labor Dr. David Michaels issued the following statement:

• Spate of hospital shootings spurs reassessment of security

Health officials nationwide are reassessing security precautions at hospitals and emergency rooms following high-profile attacks on health workers like Thursday’s shootings at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore that left two people dead and a doctor in critical condition.

• “From ship to shore” – Reforming the National Contingency Plan to protect oil spill response workers, Center for Progressive Reform weighs in

In mid-June, while reporting from the Gulf Coast, I asked the Deepwater Horizon Incident’s Joint Information Center (JIC) who the federal on-scene coordinator had appointed to serve as site safety officer, and for a copy of the Regional Contingency Plan’s health and safety plan. Both are requirements under the National Contingency Plan – developed in the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill – that establishes the framework for the emergency response to an oil spill.

• Cal/OSHA launches investigation of Larry Flynt Productions after AHF condom complaints, says AHF

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) has learned that Cal/OSHA (California’s Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Occupational Safety and Health), the state’s workplace health and safety regulatory and watchdog organization, has opened a formal investigation of Larry Flynt Productions (LFP), the adult entertainment empire headed by porn impresario Larry Flynt.

• Sea World installs barriers

Sea World has added safety barriers around the killer whale pools at the stadium where a trainer was killed earlier this year.

• A day in the life of a warehouse warrior

It’s a stifling hot day in June, and Tory Moore, 37, is pounding the pavement outside a currency exchange in Bolingbrook, a Chicago suburb. Wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with the words Warehouse Workers for Justice, sweating but full of energy, he paces back and forth while mopping his face with a yellow washcloth, looking for the tell-tale signs of warehouse workers.

• Agreements to advance uranium cleanups on Native American lands

Federal officials have announced settlements aimed at reducing uranium contamination from abandoned mines and waste sites on Navajo and Hopi lands.

• City fined $280,000 for health violations at wastewater treatment facilities

For the second time in three weeks Hawaii state officials have fined the city of Kailua $140,000 for “willfully violating” state law at one of its wastewater treatment facilities.

• Man killed after being hit by runaway paving machine

A 36-year-old man died Tuesday after he was struck by runaway paving machine in unincorporated Livermore, the Alameda County, Calif., Sheriff’s Office said.

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