House Budget Attacks Job Safety for Rooftop Workers
This just in from the Center for American Progress:
HOUSE GOP BUDGET LAUNCHES FULL ON CLASS WAR – Dave Jamieson: “In addition to blocking President Obama’s health care law and slashing funding for job training, the budget plan presented by House Republicans for health and labor programs this week would scuttle several worker safety protections put forth by the Department of Labor…The budget also takes aim at an obscure but notable Labor Department rule intended to reduce the death and maiming of construction workers who toil on rooftops. The department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had planned to ramp up the enforcement of harness rules for roofers working on residential construction sites. In a move that will likely please the construction lobby, the Republican plan forbids the agency from doing so.”
Flight Attendants, FAA Offer Travel Season Safety Tips
 |
With the Memorial Day holiday and summer travel season approaching, Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) President Veda Shook and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Randy Babbitt kicked off the summer travel season with some helpful tips to educate passengers on how to make air travel as safe as possible.
Shook told a Washington, D.C., press conference this week:
As first responders in the cabin, a Flight Attendant’s foremost responsibility is to help protect the safety and security of our passengers. Through comprehensive training and extensive experience, Flight Attendants are well equipped to ensure passengers arrive at their destination safely and securely.
President Calls on Americans to Honor Triangle Fire Anniversary
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire March 25, President Obama issued a proclamation in honor of this day and is calling on ”all Americans to participate in ceremonies and activities in memory of those who have been killed due to unsafe working conditions.” The president recognized the nation’s continued need for job saftey and collective bargaining a century after the disaster that killed 146 young, mostly immigrant women.
Despite the enormous progress made since the Triangle factory fire, we are still fighting to provide adequate working conditions for all women and men on the job, ensure no person within our borders is exploited for their labor, and uphold collective bargaining as a tool to give workers a seat at the tables of power. Working Americans are the backbone of our communities and power the engine of our economy. As we mark the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, let us resolve to renew the urgency that tragedy inspired and recommit to our shared responsibility to provide a safe environment for all American workers.
Saying that the fire “was a galvanizing moment” that called on American leaders “to reexamine their approch to workplace conditions and the purpose of unions,” Obama said the tragedy ”strengthened the potency of organized labor, which gave voice to previously powerless workers.”
A century later, we reflect not only on the tragic loss of these young lives, but also on the movement they inspired.
Hyatt Hotel Housekeepers in 12 Cities File Injury Complaints with OSHA
 |
|
When you check into a luxury hotel, you expect a clean room and a nicely made bed. But the work it takes to make that room sparkle often is back-breaking and dangerous for the housekeepers who do it.
Today, housekeepers at 12 Hyatt hotels in eight cities across the United States, with the assistance of UNITEHERE!, filed injury complaints with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for repetitive motion and other kinds of injuries sustained on the job. Complaints were filed by workers in Hyatt hotels in San Antonio, Chicago, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Honolulu and Indianapolis. In a telephone press call, the housekeepers pointed out that some of the hotels do not have union contracts. Having a union would be one way to get safety issues resolved, they said.
Fox Admits It: Union Members’ Work Is ‘Awesome’
 |
|
Looks like we got the attention of Stuart Varney at Fox News. After we challenged as grossly false his assault on the ability of union workers to produce high-tech products, Fox this morning ran a list of the “awesome” things unions build.
The talking heads there then tried to backtrack on their attacks on union members, denying they said union workers were not highly skilled—but that they think that unions bog down corporations with too many rules.
Rules like safety and health to ensure workers stay safe—and alive—on the job. And getting paid for overtime. And then there’s the weekend….
Watch Fox backtrack here.
Thanks to the unions who sent us some of the other highly-skilled jobs their members perform every day, adding to the top-notch list the Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) originally helped us put together.
BP to Pay Record $50.6 Million OSHA Fine for Texas City Blast
 |
||||
|
||||
BP agreed today to pay a fine of $50.6 million to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for violations related to the 2005 explosion at its Texas City, Texas, refinery that killed 15 and injured 170. The company also must pay another $500 million to protect workers at the plant, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said this afternoon during a press conference call.
Last October, OSHA proposed fines of $87.4 million after it found that the company had failed to correct problems at the Texas City refinery under a previous settlement following the 2005 explosion and more than $30 million for some 439 new violations the agency found in 2009. BP had contested those penalties.
As part of today’s settlement, BP has agreed to what Jordan Barab, OSHA’s deputy assistant secretary, called “unprecedented oversight” from OSHA on its safety procedures, including monthly meetings between BP and local OSHA officials, detailed quarterly reports, third-party verification and high-level meetings between OSHA and BP officials of safety.
USW: Oil Safety Issues Must be Negotiated
The United Steelworkers (USW) wants to sit down with the oil industry to discuss health and safety issues.
The public’s awareness of the lack of oil industry safety has been heightened by the tragic BP/Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers, set off the largest oil spill in Gulf history and put thousands of people out of work. But the reality is that safety has been an ongoing problem.
During April and May, there were 13 fires, 19 deaths and 25 injuries in the oil industry, USW says. This year, refineries have averaged one fire per week. These figures reflect only reported incidents. There could be more because refineries have no legal obligation to report every incident.
USW Vice President Gary Beevers, who heads the union’s oil sector, said in a statement:.
I’ve asked the industry to sit down and have an honest discussion about handling safety effectively. Let’s conduct a thorough analysis, then negotiate a signed agreement that addresses the alarming deterioration in safety throughout the oil industry.
The same loose attitude toward risk and willingness to put cost ahead of safety that led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster exist throughout the oil industry. It’s not just offshore drilling and it’s not just BP.
Seventh Worker Dies from Refinery Blast
A seventh United Steelworkers (USW) member has died after an April 2 explosion at a Tesoro refinery in Anacortes, Wash.
Matt Gumbel, 34, died Saturday after fighting for his life for three weeks. The other USW members killed in the blast were Lew Janz, 41; Matthew C. Bowen, 31; Darrin J. Hoines, 43; Daniel J. Aldridge, 50; Kathryn Powell, 29; and Donna Van Dreumel, 36.
Gumbel’s death, and that of another miner killed on Friday, comes just days before we commemorate Workers Memorial Day, which honors workers killed or injured on the job and also highlights the need for tough and effective workplace safety laws.
We’re Still Mourning the Dead and Fighting for the Living
 |
||||
|
||||
A century ago, many immigrant coal miners worked long hours at low pay in jobs that threatened their lives and limbs.
George F. Baer didn’t care. As he said:
“They don’t suffer. Why, they can’t even speak English.”
Baer was the chief spokesman for the Anthracite coal trust in 1902, when Pennsylvania hard coal miners, immigrant and native-born went on strike. The miners sought a pay hike, shorter hours, safer working conditions and recognition of their union, the Mine Workers. The strike was settled after President Theodore Roosevelt intervened.
The coal trust was made up of a group of railroad and mining companies that controlled nearly all of the Anthracite mines. Baer was president of the Reading Railroad.
He rates only a few lines in most history books. Even so, Baer is worth remembering.
Court Upholds OSHA’s Power to Protect Workers
In a major win for workers’ safety on the job, a federal appeals court upheld the power of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to determine how to craft and enforce workplace safety rules.
The saga began when Eric Ho, a contractor in Houston, hired 11 immigrant workers in 2003 to remove asbestos from a building but did not train them or provide them with respirators. After a city inspector issued a stop-work order because of asbestos violations, Ho directed employees to work at night behind locked gates.
OSHA cited Ho for 22 separate violations—11 for not training each worker and 11 for not providing a respirator for each worker. Amazingly, the Bush administration’s Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission overturned the majority of the citations, saying Ho could only be cited once for not training workers and once for not providing respirators. That meant Ho only had to pay two fines, not 22.
