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Saturday, December 20, 2014

Group gives US states middling marks on disease readiness


USA map

Today's post is shared from cidrap.umn.edu/

Citing the bumpy response to Ebola as an illustration, a public health advocacy group asserted today that many US states have a mediocre level of preparedness for infectious disease threats.

The nonprofit group Trust for America's Health (TFAH) said half the states met 5 or fewer of 10 key indicators of the ability to prevent, detect, diagnose, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks. The measures pertain to things like public health funding, childhood vaccination rates, healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), and reporting of HIV data.

The nation has achieved dramatic improvements in state and local capacity to respond to outbreaks and emergencies in the past decade, said TFAH Executive Director Jeffrey Levi, PhD, in a press release.

"But we also saw during the recent Ebola outbreak that some of the most basic infectious disease controls failed when tested," he added. "The Ebola outbreak is a reminder that we cannot afford to let our guard down.

Five states—Maryland, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia—tied for the top score by achieving 8 of 10 indicators, while Arkansas had the lowest score, at 2 of 10, according to the report.

Thirteen states achieved 6 of the 10 indicators, making the largest score group. Seven states achieved 7; nine states and Washington, DC, scored 5; eight states scored 4; and seven scored 3.
Key preparedness findings

TFAH highlighted scores on several of the key indicators in its press release.

On the positive...
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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com  have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

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McDonald’s Is Charged With Punishing Workers

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com

The National Labor Relations Board announced on Friday that its general counsel had brought 78 charges against McDonald’s and some of its franchise operators, accusing them of violating federal labor law in response to workers’ protests for higher wages around the country.

The general counsel’s move immediately drew outrage from a variety of national business groups because the labor action deemed McDonald’s a joint employer, a status that would make the fast-food titan equally responsible for actions taken at its franchised restaurants.

The labor board’s complaint asserts that McDonald’s and numerous franchise operators in more than a dozen cities illegally retaliated and made threats against workers who had joined national protests pushing for a base wage of $15 an hour in the nation’s fast-food restaurants.

Business groups vigorously attacked the general counsel’s complaint, saying that it was wrong to consider McDonald’s a joint employer and seek to hold it jointly responsible for the actions of its franchise operators. The labor board’s complaint, if successful, could disrupt many longtime practices in the fast-food industry — as well as other industries — and ease the path for unionizing fast-food restaurants nationwide.


Representatives of the United States Chamber of Commerce, the International Franchise Association, the National Restaurant Association and the National Retail Federation denounced...
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Workers Assail Night Lock-Ins By Wal-Mart

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com

Looking back to that night, Michael Rodriguez still has trouble believing the situation he faced when he was stocking shelves on the overnight shift at the Sam's Club in Corpus Christi, Tex.

It was 3 a.m., Mr. Rodriguez recalled, some heavy machinery had just smashed into his ankle, and he had no idea how he would get to the hospital.

The Sam's Club, a Wal-Mart subsidiary, had locked its overnight workers in, as it always did, to keep robbers out and, as some managers say, to prevent employee theft. As usual, there was no manager with a key to let Mr. Rodriguez out. The fire exit, he said, was hardly an option -- management had drummed into the overnight workers that if they ever used that exit for anything but a fire, they would lose their jobs.

''My ankle was crushed,'' Mr. Rodriguez said, explaining he had been struck by an electronic cart driven by an employee moving stacks of merchandise. ''I was yelling and running around like a hurt dog that had been hit by a car. Another worker made some phone calls to reach a manager, and it took an hour for someone to get there and unlock the door.''

The reason for Mr. Rodriguez's delayed trip to the hospital was a little-known Wal-Mart policy: the lock-in. For more than 15 years, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, has locked in overnight employees at some of its Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores. It is a policy that many employees say has created disconcerting situations, such as when a worker in...
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Apple 'failing to protect Chinese factory workers'

Today's post is shared from bbc.com/

Poor treatment of workers in Chinese factories which make Apple products has been discovered by an undercover BBC Panorama investigation.

Filming on an iPhone 6 production line showed Apple's promises to protect workers were routinely broken.

It found standards on workers' hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were being breached at the Pegatron factories.

Apple said it strongly disagreed with the programme's conclusions.

Exhausted workers were filmed falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts at the Pegatron factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off.

Another reporter, whose longest shift was 16 hours, said: "Every time I got back to the dormitories, I wouldn't want to move.

"Even if I was hungry I wouldn't want to get up to eat. I just wanted to lie down and rest. I was unable to sleep at night because of the stress."

'Continuous improvement'

Apple declined to be interviewed for the programme, but said in a statement: "We are aware of no other company doing as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions.

"We work with suppliers to address shortfalls, and we see continuous and significant improvement, but we know our work is never done."

Apple said it...
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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com  have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.
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Friday, December 19, 2014

Guardrail Maker Trinity Industries Conducts More Tests for Malfunction

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.nytimes.com



Trinity Industries on Tuesday conducted the second of eight crash tests of a potentially dangerous guardrail system, as questions grew over whether some of the units being evaluated were different than those previously installed.
The testing in San Antonio, overseen by the Federal Highway Administration, continued Tuesday with a pickup driven squarely into one of the suspect guardrails, known as the ET-Plus, which is made by Trinity. Tony Furst, the federal agency’s associate administrator for safety, told reporters afterward that “there was nothing remarkable” about the results, which appeared to indicate the unit functioned normally.
Critics have said that crash tests should be done from an angle of about five degrees, instead of zero, which they say better represents the types of crashes in which the guardrail malfunctioned. Mr. Furst has said that the tests were instead intended to confirm results from 2005, and that further tests could come later.
Guardrail systems work by collapsing when hit from the front, absorbing the impact of the crash and pushing the metal rail away from the vehicle. Because of design changes introduced in 2005, but not reported to the federal government, Trinity’s ET-Plus can malfunction, sending the rail into a vehicle and potentially injuring occupants.
Other questions have been raised about the tests, including whether the guardrails have been modified a second time.
Joshua Harman, the federal whistle-blower who prevailed...
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Asbestos scare puts tiny O.C. school district on financial brink

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.latimes.com


Oak View Elementary School

A small Orange County school district that was forced for close campuses and bus students elsewhere in the wake of an asbestos scare is now reeling under a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall.


"You went from being a stable district to a district that's facing insolvency," Wendy Benkert, assistant superintendent for business services at the Orange County Department of Education, told trustees for Ocean View School District.


Benkert said the district has run through $2.9 million of $4.3 million in general fund emergency reserves and faces an additional $9.2 million in costs related to asbestos removal and a modernization project at 11 schools.

Should the Huntington Beach school district fail to close its $7.8-million shortfall, it might need emergency funding or could be taken over by the state, Benkert warned.

"But I believe with prudent decisions you can turn this around," she said.

Asbestos was detected in some classrooms during the modernization project that began in July. The cleanup has closed three schools and left many parents furious as they have watched their children — more than 1,600 in all — be temporarily bused to classes at eight schools in four districts.

As the crisis has unfolded, district officials have remained in close contact with the Orange County Department of Education, which has oversight responsibility.

Benkert proposed several options for school board...
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NHTSA Building Legal Case to Force Takata Air-Bag Recall

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.bloomberg.com



U.S. regulators investigating failures of Takata Corp. (7312) air bags are preparing for a legal fight in case the Japanese parts maker doesn’t comply with a request to expand a recall.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is working as quickly as possible to sort through tens of thousands of pages of documents from Takata, Honda Motor Co. (7267), and other automakers to build its case, David Friedman, the agency’s deputy administrator, said in an interview.
“This is a serious safety issue, and Takata needs to move forward,” Friedman said in a Dec. 12 interview. “If Takata fights us all the way to the end, I want to be able to walk into a courtroom with as close to a slam dunk as I can get.”
Takata rejected NHTSA’s request earlier this month for an expanded recall to replace drivers’ side air-bag inflators beyond about 8 million cars in high-humidity areas, where four motorists have died. The company says a recall is up to the automakers and even if it weren’t, regulators don’t have the safety data to support their decision.
NHTSA has cited data that shows humidity is less of factor than first thought in the malfunction risk for driver’s side air bags. NHTSA is hiring an independent expert to conduct more air-bag tests, Friedman said at a Dec. 3 Senate hearing.
In the interview, Friedman declined to commit to a timetable for the next step in the legal process to force a recall, which would be a...
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