The GOP’s decision to drop “labor” from the name of a House committee is being interpreted by some union officials as the curtain-raiser to their efforts to pressure the Obama administration on workplace laws and regulations.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 oil rig workers and resulted in the largest oil spill in U.S. history, was a preventable catastrophe that occurred due to the missteps of the various companies involved, according to a presidential commission’s investigation.
A series of rules have been proposed recently by the National Labor Relations Board that improve the rights of workers on the job. The rule changes by the NLRB have been hailed by organized labor as great triumphs that will promote the right to organize. But some question whether the regulations go far enough.
Years of demonizing public employee unions as part of a right-wing assault against the labor movement now seems about to pay off. That’s due in part to state budgets that have been driven near bankruptcy largely by the Wall Street-led crash, and the political cover provided by otherwise liberal Democrats such as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. He is seeking a reasonable-sounding one-year pay freeze that adds a bipartisan patina to the growing union-bashing.
In a Jan. 5 Web chat to discuss the 2010 fall semi-annual regulatory agenda, OSHA Administrator Dr. David Michaels and staff asserted that the potential Injury and Illness Prevention Program (I2P2) is the agency’s highest regulatory priority with “the greatest impact in terms of preventing workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities.”
A Meriden man who works for Metro-North Commuter Railroad in New Haven has been awarded $75,000, plus attorneys’ fees, because managers suspended him for 30 days for complaining to the federal government about retaliation after an on-the-job injury.
The U.S. Department of Occupational Safety and Health Administration has proposed to fine MillerCoors $63,500 for an ammonia leak last July that sent two workers to the hospital.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued citations to Newark-based Discovery Construction Corp. for not protecting its workers against fall hazards at its Monroe, N.J., worksite. Proposed penalties total $58,080.
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health has launched an investigation into Tuesday’s construction accident in Moorpark in which a worker suffered first- and second-degree burns when a backhoe struck an underground power line, knocking out electricity to about 3,300 Southern California Edison customers.
