Safety of female foreign correspondents, napping on the job & alleged discrimination from Rahm aide

• Night shift air controllers often flout no-napping rule

Recent revelations about napping nighttime air traffic controllers have sparked concern among American travelers and caused regulators to snap into action, but industry insiders say that the nodding off is not a matter of lazy workers loafing on the job.

• Workplace safety measures to speed up under new law

If a business in Washington has unsafe working conditions, state safety officials can force it to quickly remove the hazard. But if the owners of the business appeal that decision, they can keep operating what may be a dangerous facility for months or even years. That’s expected to change today.

• Law regulating handling of toxic drugs signed

Bills that would improve safety for workers who handle chemotherapy and other toxic drugs on the job, as well as establish a way to track occupational links to cancer, were signed into law this week by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

• A Post reporter shares her perspective on hazards for female journalists abroad

Female correspondents deployed to countries such as Egypt, Pakistan or India might be better served by instruction in handling less extreme but more pervasive challenges: what to do if a stranger grabs your buttocks while you are reporting on the street, or if a male hotel worker enters your room while you are showering. How to deflect the chai wallah who insists on clicking photos of you to show his friends, or the flirtatious fixer who wants a good-night kiss.

• Two Western journalists missing in Libya; three spotted in Tripoli detention camp

The last time editors at the Atlantic magazine heard from correspondent Clare Morgana Gillis, she was somewhere in eastern Libya, covering the fighting between rebels and government troops. That was Monday, April 4. Since then, the sound at the end of her cellphone has been an ominous one: silence.

• Michael Bromwich answers your questions – Part one

In this week’s readers’ Q&A session, Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, answers your questions. In the first of two posts, he discusses how his organisation balances safety concerns with political ones, what technological improvements have been made since the BP oil spill and whether new regulations on blowout preventers (BOPs) will delay the issue of new permits.

• OSHA fines Wolf Creek ski area in connection with death of ski patrol director

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has levied $17,000 in fines against the Wolf Creek ski area after finding “serious” workplace violations following the death of the area’s ski patrol director in an avalanche last November.

• SeaWorld OSHA hearings postponed until September

Court hearings in SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment’s appeal of workplace-safety violations stemming from the February 2010 death of a killer-whale trainer have been pushed off for another five months.

• Top USDA official, leaving to work for Rahm Emanuel, accused of discrimination

The Agriculture Department’s outgoing communications director — leaving Friday to serve as Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel’s spokeswoman — and her top aides have faced at least nine federal personnel complaints, according to documents and interviews with current and former USDA employees. The allegations include age and gender discrimination and the promotion of employees supportive of the Democratic Party.

• What caused 2 to fall to death still a mystery

Questions still lingered Thursday about the deaths of two workers who fell 340 feet from a radio tower they were working on in Tippecanoe County. The sheriff’s department indicated Wednesday that the victims were wearing safety cables at the time of the fall, but the device those were attached to fell along with the two men.

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Ch- ch- ch- changes at the FAA, dangers of working in hotels & hair product that could harm you

• FAA ends single-controller overnight shifts after alleged sleeping incident at Nevada airport

A Nevada air traffic controller allegedly fell asleep early Wednesday as a medical flight carrying a sick patient tried to land, leading federal authorities to order an immediate end to the practice of leaving one controller on duty during overnight shifts.

• FAA’s air traffic control chief resigns, administrator says

The Federal Aviation Administration official in charge of operating the air traffic control system has resigned amid revelations that several controllers have fallen asleep on the job this year, FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said Thursday.

• Salazar, Bromwich visit rig awarded first deepwater drilling permit under new safety rules

The Obama administration’s top officials overseeing offshore oil and gas got an up-close view of the deepwater rig that was the first to receive their approval to return to drilling after last year’s BP disaster.

• Two coal mines receive POV notices

The Mine Safety and Health Administration announced April 12 that it has issued notices of a pattern of violations to two coal mining operations under Section 104(e) of the federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977. Bledsoe Coal Corp.’s Abner Branch Rider Mine in Leslie County, Ky., and The New West Virginia Mining Co.’s Apache Mine in McDowell County, W.Va., are the first mines in the act’s history to be subject to the full effect of this enforcement action, which targets mines with chronic and persistent health and safety violations.

• Does the Army’s comprehensive soldier fitness program violate the Nuremberg Code?

There is new criticism of the Army’s high-profile effort to train mental toughness into soldiers so they can better handle the stress of repeated combat tours. This time, the critique comes from a group of psychologists who say the program appears to be scientific research without consent.

• Hotel housekeepers: Hazardous duty in luxury suites?

Sen. Kevin De Leon, D-Los Angeles, wants the Legislature to direct the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board to draft standards for hotel housekeepers — and that, at a minimum, those standards include the use of fitted bottom sheets on hotel beds and that hotels make available long-handled mops that would reduce the need for housekeepers to scrub bathtubs and tile floors on their hands and knees.

• Scared straight: Dept of Labor issues ‘hazard alert’ for Brazilian Blowout

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a ‘hazard alert’ about the dangers of formaldehyde-containing straightening formulas. They used the information from the various state and federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) investigation to compile its report. The Superior Court of California has filed a preliminary injunction against the makers of Brazilian Blowout, after almost 8% formaldehyde was found in the recipe…the same amount found in embalming fluid used by funeral homes in the U.S.!

• Napa State Hospital fined in slaying of worker

California workplace safety officials have issued $100,000 in fines against Napa State Hospital in connection with the October slaying of a psychiatric technician, contending that the facility neglected to restrict the movements of violent patients — including the man charged in the strangling.

• Health worker dies after assault

A state mental health worker from Bourne died Friday after a patient at a Cape Cod hospital assaulted him about two weeks ago, authorities said yesterday. The cause of death is still being investigated, however, and no direct link has been made with the attack.

• OSHA cites Columbus, Ohio-based Buckeye Radiation Oncology for failing to protect workers from lead, cadmium exposure

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued Buckeye Radiation Oncology, an outpatient radiation therapy treatment facility in Columbus, 14 serious safety citations for failing to ensure employees who worked with lead-cadmium alloy were protected from respiratory, ingestion and absorption hazards. The company faces penalties of $58,200 as a result of a December 2010 inspection.

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Another air traffic controller asleep on the job, college student dies in chem lab accident and why IKEA factory workers are sad

• Another air traffic controller allegedly caught asleep at the switch

The FAA is investigating yet another case in which an air traffic controller apparently fell asleep while on duty, a source says. The incident occurred Wednesday morning at Reno-Tahoe International Airport. It would be the third incident this year involving a sleeping controller.

• New York runway collision raises safety questions about giant jets

The runway collision this week between an Airbus superjumbo A380 and a commuter jet at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport has renewed aviation experts’ concerns about safety on the tarmac with massive new aircraft.

• Offshore regulation could grow

The Obama administration is exploring whether to expand federal oversight of offshore drilling beyond oil and gas companies to rig suppliers, oil field services providers and other contractors now outside regulators’ reach. Michael Bromwich, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, told reporters Tuesday that the existing system imposes artificial limits on what his agency can do to make offshore drilling safer. Its enforcement power now ends with oil and gas companies that hold leases to drill in U.S. waters.

• Reforming key regulations to increase drilling safety in the Gulf

There are a few conceptually simple steps that the federal government could take to improve rig safety and oil spill prevention, response and containment. Whether those steps are politically feasible in today’s Congressional environment is another question. At the Congressional level, there are three positive changes we recommend that were also proposed by the National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.

• Government to stop requiring veterans to ‘prove’ PTSD

The government is making it easier for combat veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder to receive disability benefits. The Veterans Affairs Department plans to announce Monday it will no longer require veterans to prove what might have triggered their illness. Instead, they would have to show that they served in combat in a job that could have contributed to post-traumatic stress disorder.

• ‘Critical’ shortage of army neurologists for troops

The Army is facing a “critical” shortage of neurologists, partly because of recent policy changes designed to improve diagnosis and treatment of mild traumatic brain injuries, according to a new military medical memorandum.

• Spending cuts take $49 million from OSHA

The U.S. House Appropriations Committee has released a chart listing the amount cut from each non-defense line item involved in the Continuing Resolution that averted a shutdown of the federal government last week. The chart shows that OSHA will have $49 million less in FY2011, which is half over, than it was given for its FY2010 appropriation.

• City Attorney says L.A. can’t enforce condoms on set

Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich’s office has recommended to City Council to leave language regulating permitted porn shoots unchanged because it lacks jurisdiction to control them further.

• Ikea’s U.S. factory churns out unhappy workers

When home furnishing giant Ikea selected this fraying blue-collar city to build its first U.S. factory, residents couldn’t believe their good fortune. But three years after the massive facility opened here, excitement has waned. Ikea is the target of racial discrimination complaints, a heated union-organizing battle and turnover from disgruntled employees.

• Yale student dies in chemistry lab accident

A federal official says a Yale University student died after her hair was pulled into a piece of equipment in a chemistry lab machine shop. Kang Yi of the U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration says the university informed his agency that Michele Dufault was operating the machinery for a senior project at the time of the accident Tuesday night.

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How does Congress mark one-year anniversary of BP oil spill? More drilling – Workplace Health & Safety Digest

• Congress marks 1-year anniversary of Gulf oil disaster by forcing more drilling

As the 1-year mark of the nation’s worst offshore oil spill fast approaches, you might be surprised to learn that rather than taking action to prevent another deadly spill, Congress is instead proposing to expand offshore drilling while sidestepping environmental laws to do so. On Wednesday, the House Natural Resources Committee will seek to pass three bills that irresponsibly accelerate the very processes that the President’s National Oil Spill Commission found led to the BP Gulf oil disaster nearly one year ago.

• Washington lawmakers must provide a safety net for injured workers

If you believe that our workers’ compensation system, the safety net for workers injured on the job, is broken beyond repair, stop reading. However, if you believe, like we do, that we have a system that is fundamentally decent and fair to both workers and employers, but is struggling to regain its financial footing because of the Great Recession, read on.

• White House transparency doesn’t apply to industry meetings on worker safety rules

President Obama received an award last week for his efforts to improve openness in federal agencies. John Stewart poked fun at it and I actually thought it might have been an April Fool’s joke because of what I’d learned earlier in the week. The President’s own Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has hosted two meetings with industry representatives who are opposed to an OSHA regulation on crystalline silica, but OIRA fails to disclose these meetings on its website. This is the second time in as many occasions that this OMB office has failed the transparency test when it comes to extra-curricular meetings on OSHA rules.

• Why are men’s paychecks still bigger than women’s?

Today is the national observance of Equal Pay Day, symbolizing how far into 2011 women must work to earn what men earned in 2010. However, it offends me that we still talk about gender pay inequity even though the Equal Pay Act was signed into law almost 50 years ago.

• Right to work: The law that brings you falling wages, 80-hour weeks

Twelve state legislatures are seeking to pass right-to-work bills, which allow workers to get the benefits of union representation without joining or contributing. That weakens the union’s ability to advocate, eventually hurting the whole workforce—including those who thought they could get a free ride.

• Study links welding fumes to brain damage

The manganese in fumes from welding may cause neurological damage similar to what is found in the brains of people suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

• OSHA issues alert to hair salons for possible formaldehyde hazard

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is issuing a hazard alert to hair salon owners and workers about potential formaldehyde exposure from working with some hair smoothing and straightening products.

• Probers examine Nebraska nuclear workers’ exposure to radiation

Federal regulators have launched an investigation into the accident last week that exposed three employees of a Nebraska nuclear plant to radiation.

• 2 US servicemen mistakenly killed by drone attack in Afghanistan

A U.S. Marine reservist and a Navy corpsman were killed in a drone airstrike in Afghanistan last week in an apparent case of friendly fire, U.S. military officials tell NBC News.

• At least 3 hurt in Illinois ethanol plant fire

Federal workplace safety officials are trying to pinpoint what caused a reported explosion and flash fire that injured three people at a southwestern Illinois ethanol plant.

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Sports columnist had right to enter Masters locker room – Workplace Health & Safety Digest

• Md. Senate derails transgender anti-discrimination bill

The Maryland Senate has killed a measure that sought to extend anti-discrimination protections to transgender people.

• OSHA photo gallery: risking your life at work

Gravity appears to be the theme in the updated “Best of the Worst” photo gallery from the Minnesota Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MNOSHA). Inspectors take these pictures to document workplace safety violations, and they’re typically shared internally at the agency. But MNOSHA now puts a number of them online, minus any information that identifies the employer. They provide an alarming record of the risks that workers, particularly those in construction, sometimes take.

• Masters spokesman: Female reporter should not have been denied access; guard acted improperly

Masters officials apologized to sports columnist Tara Sullivan of The Bergen (N.J.) Record on Sunday evening after a security guard denied her entry to a locker room for a post-tournament interview. Augusta National spokesman Steve Ethun said the guard acted improperly in stopping Sullivan, since club policy is to provide equal access to all reporters.

• OSHA: Burned workers lacked right gear

No one can say whether better safety gear would have saved steel worker Bridgette Geist’s life following a catastrophic eruption of molten iron at a Lower Macungie Township foundry a year ago. But Geist and co-workers exposed to 2,000-plus degrees of heat on a foundry platform should have been better protected while doing their jobs, according to investigative reports compiled by the U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

• OSHA cites 5 companies for exposing workers to hydrogen sulfide at Eustace, Texas, work site

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited five companies for serious safety and health violations following a combustible dust flash fire that released hydrogen sulfide at the Eustace Gas Processing Plant in Eustace and hospitalized five workers. Proposed penalties total $125,300.

• UP fined for intimidation, employee to be rehired

After a long investigation, Union Pacific has been fined $213,000 and ordered to re-hire an employee who reported an work-related injury.

• 5 firefighters trapped, hurt as D.C. roof collapses

A special team of investigators will review how five firefighters became trapped and injured when the roof of a burning home in Northeast Washington collapsed, a spokesman for Fire Chief Kenneth B. Ellerbe said Friday.

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Labor Secretary calls on Congress to improve mine safety – Workplace Health & Safety Digest

• GOP NLRB cuts would lead to backlog of 18,000 cases

In Fiscal Year 2009, the federal government budgeted $515 million for sports fishing programs, but gave only $263 million to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the board with deciding workers’ rights violation cases—which frequently arise during union organizing drives.

• Solis: Do more than just think about mine safety

I went to the Upper Big Branch Mine the day after the explosion, while rescue efforts were still underway. I went not only as the nation’s Labor secretary — the top cop on the workplace safety beat — but also just as Hilda, someone who wanted to be at the side of family members as they waited for news, who could perhaps carry a little bit of their tremendous grief with them. In times like these, one thinks two things: First, why is this even happening? The conversations, the phone calls to wives and mothers, fathers, children? Mine accidents are preventable. No one should have to go through all this. And second: What more could we have done?

• McAteer: Coal mine disasters not inevitable

The U.S. coal industry needs to adopt more effective dust-control measures and comprehensive monitoring for explosive gases to avoid disasters like the one that killed 29 miners a year ago at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine, an independent investigator said Thursday. Davitt McAteer, a longtime safety advocate who leads an independent team of experts, also said that criminal mine-safety statutes need to be broadened and federal regulators need to abandon closed-door investigations after major accidents.

• Study: Job discrimination hits low-income women hardest

Discrimination lawsuits brought by working professionals tend to draw public attention, but it’s low-wage workers who suffer the harshest consequences in those circumstances, according to a report by the Center for WorkLife Law at University of California Hastings College of the Law.

• New report shows workplace violence declined from 1993-2009

The Justice Department Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) has released a new publication, “Workplace Violence, 1993-2009,” that shows a decline in both workplace homicides and nonfatal, violent crimes in the workplace over the last 16 years.

• At California mental hospitals, fear is part of the job

The tipping point for major change is often tragedy. That may be the case in California at the state psychiatric hospital in Napa, where an employee was killed last October, allegedly by a patient — one of thousands of violent acts committed at the hospital that year.

• Division of labor: Funding for state labor inspectors must be restored.

The Missouri House of Representatives last week docked $375,000 from next year’s budget for the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. The cut is aimed at eliminating nine jobs at the Division of Labor Standards, which essentially would wipe out the entire staff charged with investigating complaints of violations of the state’s child labor, minimum wage and prevailing wage statutes.

• Work problems from arthritis may come and go

Many people with arthritis have periodic difficulties on the job, but the problems might not make them less productive, a new study suggests. And in many cases, simple changes in the workplace can be helpful.

• Declan Sullivan investigation: Notre Dame contests OSHA ruling

In a move sure to do nothing to improve their standing in the public eye following the death of student football videographer Declan Sullivan last fall, Notre Dame is contesting an Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration ruling handed down in March that detailed multiple instances of irresponsible safety practices. University and OSHA officials speaking to the Chicago Tribune characterize this development as a benign move on the part of the school.

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Rand Paul: Regulating black lung could be too pricey for Big Coal #regulations #budget

• FAA moves to fire Knoxville controller it says was napping

The Federal Aviation Administration is moving to fire an air traffic controller who it says decided to nap on the job while working the midnight shift in the radar room at a Tennessee airport in February.

• Rand Paul: Regulating black lung could be too pricey for Big Coal

With American miners still succumbing to black lung disease, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has proposed a plan to reduce the number of such deaths through the stricter regulation of mining sites. But at a congressional committee meeting last week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) voiced concern that the new regulations may not be worth the cost to coal companies — even though pockets of his state have been designated black lung “hot spots” by the federal government.

• Senators re-introduce bill to protect whistleblowers and save taxpayer dollars

The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) strongly supports the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2011 (S. 743), a bill re-introduced in the U.S. Senate today that will ensure legitimate disclosures of wrongdoing will be protected, increase accountability to the public and save billions of taxpayer dollars by helping expose waste, fraud and abuse.

• Labor panel to press Reuters over reaction to Twitter post

In what would be the first government case against an employer involving Twitter, the National Labor Relations Board told Thomson Reuters on Wednesday that it planned to file a civil complaint accusing the company of illegally reprimanding a reporter over a public Twitter posting she had sent criticizing management. The board asserts that the company’s Reuters news division violated the reporter’s right to discuss working conditions when her supervisor reprimanded her for posting a message on the Twitter service that said, “One way to make this the best place to work is to deal honestly with Guild members.”

• Wal-Mart v. women

The employment discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart, which the Supreme Court heard last week, is the largest in American history. If the court rejects this suit, it will send a chilling message that some companies are too big to be held accountable.

• Secondhand smoke in casinos poses ‘acute’ risks, study says

Air pollution levels from secondhand smoke in some casinos are so high that less than two hours of exposure could put nonsmoking casino patrons and workers at acute risk of heart disease, a new study says.

• Health impacts of Gulf oil spill still unknown

One year later, a study of workers involved in the cleanup is barely under way, researchers say, and will likely not be able to gauge all the effects on people or the environment.

• Atlantic reporter captured in Libya

Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi captured four journalists on Tuesday at around 1 p.m. local time a few miles outside of Brega, which is currently under government control. One of the reporters, Clare Morgana Gillis, has reported extensively for TheAtlantic.com from Libya during the civil war.

• OSHA cites NY rehab center after worker slain

The US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited The Renaissance Project, Inc. in Ellenville for failing to provide its employees with adequate safeguards against workplace violence as well as other alleged hazards. The citations come following an investigation into the stabbing death of a security guard at the facility and the carjacking and injury to a nurse, allegedly by the same man, Richard Giga.

• OSHA cites Fremont Beef in amputation of employee’s finger

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it has cited manufacturer Fremont Beef Co. in Fremont after an inspection in response to a report of the accidental amputation of an employee’s finger.

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#Govtshutdown could freeze investigations by OSHA – Workplace Health & Safety Digest

• Government shutdown could freeze investigations, inspections by SEC, OSHA

A government shutdown could freeze investigations by federal regulators. Steve Crimmins, former Chief Litigation Counsel of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, tells Compliance Week that a shutdown could impact the agency’s enforcement and investigative functions.

• Honoring 29 miners

The last few weeks have been filled with reminders of the dangers Americans face at work – from the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire to today’s sad anniversary of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster, where 29 miners were killed. These tragedies remind us that preventable workplace accidents are still all too common in this country. In 2010, 4,300 workers died on the job in this country.

• We remember: One year after Upper Big Branch explosion

Within days of each other, two landmark workplace safety tragedies were commemorated: March 25 marked the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York, in which 146 garment workers died, and April 5 marks the one-year anniversary of the explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, in which 29 miners died.

• National Public Health Week: Injury prevention starts in the workplace

Safety is everyone’s job, but what exactly does that mean? Creating a safe work environment is the responsibility of yourself, your employer, and your coworkers. There are laws and guidelines for making your workplace safe and healthy, but there are some things that you can do for yourself to make sure that your workday doesn’t turn into an unforeseen injury or accident.

• CDC’s NIOSH says WHAT about asbestos???

It was almost too much to believe. Here I was attending the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization’s (ADAO) annual meeting, and I hear that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has just issued its treatise on asbestos. That document, called a “current intelligence bulletin” is supposed to convey the most up-to-date scientific information on a hazard and risk of harm from exposure to it. The NIOSH subtitle actually says it’s a “state-of-the-science” report.

• Lawmaker renews fight for safe parking options for truckers

As Congress continues to work toward developing a new highway reauthorization bill, one lawmaker used his testimony to highlight the importance of providing truck drivers with safe parking options while they are out on the road.

• How storm wise is your workplace?

If you live in Middle Tennessee you probably know where your home’s ‘safe place’ is, as it is often referenced during emergency-storm coverage on TV. Monday afternoon, however, a potent line of storms moved in quickly in the middle of the work day. As many businesses did, Nashville Business Journal employees rode out the storm for about 20 minutes in the ground-floor parking area beneath our building.

• Hustler to appeal Cal/OSHA citations

Hustler Video attorneys have indicated to Cal/OSHA that the company plans to appeal recent health citations stemming from an investigation into the company that found it violated various workplace safety regulations.

• OSHA fines North Central Farmers Elevator in Ipswich, SD, $378,000 for exposing workers to grain engulfment

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited North Central Farmers Elevator in Ipswich, S.D., with six willful violations for exposing workers to being engulfed by grain. Proposed penalties total $378,000.

• OSHA cites steel pipe manufacturing company for multiple safety and health hazards in Houston, proposes nearly $125,000 in fines

OSHA has cited Tex-Tube Co. with 12 alleged serious, four alleged repeat and 10 alleged other-than-serious violations following an investigation at the company’s Houston facility. Proposed penalties total $124,740.

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Anniversary of Upper Big Branch explosion, but little has changed; and why you shouldn’t log so many hours at work – Workplace Health & Safety Digest

• One year anniversary of Upper Big Branch mine tragedy – what’s changed?

On this day, just a year ago, 31 workers descended into the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia. Only two of these workers would live to tell of the explosion that rocked the mine later that afternoon. As we found last month when we looked back on the century since the Triangle Factory fire and saw that not much has changed, there has been too little progress towards making mines safer.

• A year after the deadly Upper Big Branch mine disaster, not much has changed

Today marks the one-year memorial of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster, which killed 29 workers. Massey Energy Co., which ran the Upper Big Branch mine, will idle production at its 60 underground mines today — but as safety reports and lawsuits pile up, it becomes increasingly clear that a one-day shutdown is not enough.

• Mine-blast probe to detail failures

One year after a massive explosion killed 29 West Virginia miners, an independent investigator is preparing to release a report detailing failures of company safety systems and regulatory oversight.

• Deadline extended for comments on POV changes

Stakeholders have a little more time, until April 18, to submit comments about the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s important proposed rule to revise its Pattern of Violations regulation. Assistant Secretary Joe Main has testified recently about the necessity of changing the current requirement that only citations and orders that have become final are to be used to identify mines with a potential pattern of violations.

• One year after tragedy, agency urges oil refineries to invest in safety

One year after an explosion killed seven workers at Tesoro Corp.’s oil refinery in Anacortes, Wash., the government is urging the industry to make the safety investments that might prevent similar tragedies. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency that is investigating the Anacortes blast, chose the anniversary to urge oil companies to take more aggressive action to improve refinery safety. “Serious incidents at refineries continue to occur with alarming frequency,” said the board’s chairman, Rafael Moure-Eraso.

• Working long hours is bad for your heart

People who regularly work long hours may be significantly increasing their risk of developing heart disease, the world’s biggest killer, British scientists said Monday.

• Federal investigation: Pr. George’s owes foreign teachers millions

Labor Department officials ruled Monday that Prince George’s County schools shortchanged more than 1,000 teachers recruited from foreign countries and ordered the district to pay $5.9 million in back wages and penalties. School officials recruited the foreign instructors for classes such as math and science that were hard to fill but then required that the teachers cover thousands of dollars in expenses related to getting temporary work visas — expenses that, Labor Department officials said, should have been covered by the system.

• Lake Oswego HS students win $500 prize for safe driving video

Four Lake Oswego High School students won first place on Saturday for a public service announcement on the dangers of texting while driving. The students and their school both received $500 for the winning video, which shows what happens when a young pizza delivery driver is texting with his friends. The 45-second video was part of a contest sponsored by the Oregon Young Worker Health & Safety Coalition that tasked students to create videos increasing awareness of safety for young people.

• Tennessee sewage plant spill: 2 workers missing after millions of gallons of wastewater spill from Gatlinburg plant

Two workers were missing Tuesday after a wastewater treatment plant in a Smoky Mountains tourist town failed and spilled millions of gallons of sewage. The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said a holding tank at the Gatlinburg plant gave way Tuesday morning, sending possibly millions of gallons of sewage into the Little Pigeon River.

• New details in Paul Bennett pizza delivery man slaying

Sunday night, Paul Bennett was gunned down as he delivered Domino’s pizzas and chicken wings to an address in Seat Pleasant. Now, Ricardo Barton, Desmond Garner and Gregg Starks, all in the early 20s, are charged with the murder. Authorities allege that the trio killed Bennett for food that’s on sale from Domino’s for less than $6.

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On Transocean bonuses, BP’s proposal to resume drilling, govt amnesia and “burdensome” black lung

• As Transocean touts its best year in safety, government has amnesia about deepwater drilling

It’s like they took a tip from the Wall Street banksters after they crashed the economy. Only this time, it’s the oil execs. Transocean decided to pat itself on the back for a job well done in 2010 and touted its “best year in safety.” Yes, for 2010. For those keeping score, that was the same year that its oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and killed 11 workers.

• Rand Paul: Preventing black lung too “burdensome” to energy companies

Republican Senator Rand Paul has made it repeatedly clear that he sides with businesses when it comes to absolutely any sort of financial policy or regulation — be it taxes or toilets. Still, even his own home state of Kentucky seemed somewhat shocked when he stated that there is no reason to continue with any policies to help decrease the instances of black lung among coal miners, declaring any intervention or government regulation too “burdensome” on companies in comparison to the amount of lives it could potentially save.

• Taking Big Coal to task is difficult

Despite years of environmental problems and dozens of mining deaths, Massey and its corporate officials — including now-retired CEO Don Blankenship — have mostly escaped any serious, direct punishment.

• Lawsuit: Massey employees ignored seven injured miners

The wife of a miner killed in an April 2010 blast inside Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch mine contends that several men on their way out initially survived but died after two company employees, who spent hours underground after the blast, walked past them without rendering aid, according to a Boone County, W.Va., lawsuit filed against Massey and the two employees.

• New reality show is Ice Road Truckers for coal miners

The Spike network is set to run a show about coal miners, in the mold of Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers — gritty dudes fighting their way through the world’s hardest jobs. This has the potential to expose coal’s seamy underbelly, or to glamorize it beyond repair (at least in the minds of Spike-watching meatheads). According to the New York Times’ Virginia Heffernan, it sort of does neither and both.

• After deadly blasts, U.S. pipeline safety push announced

Responding to three deadly pipeline accidents in the past seven months, the federal government has announced a push to improve the nation’s aging pipeline network. As the Associated Press reports, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is promising to revamp regulation of oil and gas pipelines around the country, toughening inspection and reporting requirements, and making more information available to the public.

• DoD OIG: “Possible sub-standard” care of service-members in traumatic brain injury research trial

The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG) posted: “Results in Brief: Assessment of Allegations Concerning Traumatic Brain Injury Research Integrity in Iraq.” The results in brief confirm that a mild traumatic brain injury clinical trial (mTBI) in Iraq was “inconsistent with military standards for human subject medical research.” The two other findings by the OIG are that there was “possible sub-standard patient care” and “weaknesses in the process used to review and approve medical research in Iraq.”

• Who’s exposed – and what can they do about it? Biomonitoring for consumer products and workplaces

But listening to the presentation I was struck by how occupational chemical exposures were absent from the discussion of environmental chemical exposures and by how, as we pay closer attention to previously poorly understood or overlooked sources of chemical exposure, workplace exposures are often left out of the conversation or are considered entirely separately. They are without a doubt important, though; according to OSHA, an estimated 60,000 deaths and 860,000 occupational illnesses per year in the U.S. are attributed to occupational exposure to chemicals.

• Sea World’s killer whale back to performing after drowning three people. Is this the right decision?

The Sea World Killer Whale that’s taken the lives of three people is back performing. An article NBC Today Show’s website states that OSHA had deemed the whale unfit to perform. The report states, “An investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency charged with overseeing workplace safety, found that SeaWorld had exposed its workers ‘to struck-by and drowning hazards interacting with killer whales,’ and fined the park $75,000. But park administrators have disputed OSHA’s findings, and last week, they returned Tilikum to the pool.”

• OSHA blames Univ. of Utah in 400-degree steam pipe blast that sent 12 workers to hospital

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited the University of Utah in a Nov. 1 steam blast that sent 12 workers to the hospital, some in critical condition. Twelve employees for two subcontractors were sprayed by 400-degree steam that erupted from the end of a pipe opened during upgrade work. At least three initially were in critical condition.

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