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(c) 2010-2026 Jon L Gelman, All Rights Reserved.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Beleaguered League

Today's post is shared from newyorker.com
For several years now, sports fans of a certain cast of mind have been declaring their intention to quit watching professional football, on moral grounds. What cast of mind is this? A rare or, perhaps, hypocritical one, to judge by the numbers, which show ever-higher TV ratings for the N.F.L., in spite of the drumbeat of grim news from neurological labs, trainers’ tables, and police blotters. Evidently, unease has emboldened only those whose allegiance to the gridiron was notional in the first place. Either that or all the discussion of modern-day gladiators has produced a rubbernecking effect, in which we keep tuning in to see if the decline of the nation’s most popular form of entertainment is finally upon us. (It is not—yet.)
The trouble with football-related brain injury is one of abstraction. The real damage is separated by years from the jarring (but thrilling) impact that we watch in real time—and, even then, it’s a game of odds. Nearly thirty per cent of players, by the league’s recent admission, will suffer from accelerated cognitive impairment. Yet, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, N.F.L. veterans still live longer, on average, than the general population. (They are wealthier, for one thing, and in some senses healthier—less prone to respiratory and digestive diseases, less likely to commit suicide, even.) Those retired linebackers who report...
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A Capstone in a Career Spent Fighting for the Rights of Domestic Workers

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



Ai-jen Poo jumped into a taxi after her flight from Chicago touched down at La Guardia Airport last week, hurtling straight into Manhattan for four days of back-to-back meetings devoted to improving the lives of domestic workers.
Soon, she was hammering out strategies to help expand access to health care for undocumented immigrants. She was planning a state-by-state legislative push to provide tax credits to people who pay living wages to home health care aides. She was discussing potential pathways to legal status for millions of foreign-born nannies, babysitters and housekeepers.
All the while, Ms. Poo managed to keep her secret. No one knew. Not her staff, not her donors and not her partners at other nonprofit organizations.
“I felt like a pipe that was going to burst,” recalled Ms. Poo, the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the advocacy group based in New York that represents 43 affiliates in 26 cities across the country.
Just after midnight on Wednesday, the news finally broke: Ms. Poo had won a 2014 MacArthur “genius” grant. The fellowships, presented by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, come with a stipend of $625,000 and are among the nation’s most prestigious prizes for artists, scholars and professionals.
Within minutes, the calls, texts, emails and tweets started pouring in. “It was wonderful and overwhelming,” said Ms. Poo, 40, who got her start as a volunteer working with immigrant women...
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Italian Appeals Court Upholds Guilty Verdict in Historic Eternit Asbestos Case


Todays's post is sahred from http://globalvoicesonline.org/
An appeals court in Turin, Italy has affirmed a previous court's landmark ruling [en] finding Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny [en], former owner of cement manufacturer Swiss Eternit Group, responsible for nearly 3,000 asbestos-related deaths.
The court, presided over by Alberto Oggè, even upped the damages on June 3, 2013 that Schmidheiny must pay to the victims and local authorities.
There should have been two defendants, but the very day that the first conviction was handed down, the other defendant, the Belgian Baron Louis De Cartier De Marchienne [en], died aged 92 – a matter of days before the end of the appeal process. For this reason, the court declared his case settled.
Many sources have called [en] this the biggest trial for environmental damage in the history of Europe with more than 2,890 injured parties – both workers and citizens – of whom more than 2,000 have died or are suffering from serious illnesses.
Biagio Chiariello wrote on the community blog fanpage.it:
La pronuncia della sentenza d’appello era attesa con trepidazione da almeno 500 persone, arrivate a bordo di sette autobus. Le parti lese sono circa seimila tra familiari dei lavoratori morti per tumore o semplici cittadini residenti nei luoghi in cui c’erano le fabbriche che producevano le fibre di amianto a Casale Monferrato, in provincia di...
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Illinois: Employer Convicted of a Felony for Failure to Have Workers' Compensation Insurance

The Illinois Worker’s Compensation (IWCC), in conjunction with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office Special Prosecutions Division and the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, has secured the first felony conviction for failure to secure workers’ compensation insurance.
Mr. Ahmed Ghosien, d/b/a Ghosien European Auto Werks, refused to comply with Illinois law despite having been given several opportunities to become compliant.  After aggressive enforcement efforts, on July 25, 2013, Mr. Ghosien entered a guilty plea to the Class 4 felony (People v. Ahmed Ghosien, 12 CR 20949).  This is the first felony conviction against an employer for failure to obtain workers’ compensation insurance since the penalty increase, from a misdemeanor to a Class 4 felony, was introduced in 2005 and remained a critical part of Gov. Quinn’s reforms to the Worker’s Compensation Act in 2011.
“Employers who refuse to obtain workers’ compensation insurance put their employees at risk, gain an unfair advantage over law-abiding competitors, and ultimately shift the cost of their business to Illinois taxpayers,” said Michael P. Latz, Chairman, Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission.  “I commend the diligence of our investigators and this cooperative effort to help protect workers.”
Mr. Ghosien operates a large European auto repair shop at 4001 1/2 Southwest Highway, in Hometown, Illinois.  IWCC...
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Labor rights group accuses Apple suppliers of violating labor laws

Today's post is shared from jurist.com
A New York-based labor rights group alleged Monday that a Taiwanese company that produces iPhones for Apple [corporate website] has violated labor and environmental laws in China. China Labor Watch [advocacy website] accused Apple company, Pegatron [corporate website], which assembles products including the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPhone 5, of withholding employees' pay and imposing excessive working hours at factories in mainland China. In its report, China Labor Watch reported at least 86 labor rights violations while investigating three Pegatron factories from March to July. Most of the workers are working 66 to 69 hours a week, which far exceeds China's statutory limit of 49 hours. The group also reported that Pegatron engaged in discriminatory hiring practices, including refusing to hire applicants older than 35 or members of ethnic minorities. The group also reported that employees were required to dump hazardous water in sewers. In a company statement, Apple said that it was "committed to providing safe and fair working conditions" and would investigate the claims about Pegatron.
Conditions in Chinese factories that produce iPhones and other popular Apple products have been under continued scrutiny. In 2012 China Labor Watch accused another Taiwanese supplier, Foxconn of violating labor and environmental laws [JURIST report] in its factories. Apple became the first...
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WellPoint Sees Small Employers Dropping Health Coverage

Complicating the health insurance scene is the fact that injured workers who been denied workers' compensation benefits might have no safety net under Obamacare. As the system rolls out, in those situations, the states with slow disposition rates of workers' compensation claims will become fertile jurisdictions for workers' compensation reform to remedy this injustice. Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org

As the nation prepares to roll out the next phase of Obamacare, the second biggest medical insurer said Wednesday that it expects to lose members in health insurance plans sponsored by smaller employers.
“I would not call it an academic assumption at this point,” WellPoint chief financial officer Wayne DeVeydt said on a conference call with stock analysts. “We continue to see small group attrition accelerate even more as we get to the back half of the second quarter. And we expect that to continue.”
The lost customers aren’t just signing up with WellPoint rivals, according to DeVeydt. “Some of it is going into the uninsured ranks,” he said. At the same time, WellPoint expects membership gains in self-insured employer plans and in the kind of individual plans that will be sold in subsidized exchanges starting Oct.
The Obama administration recently postponed enforcement of a requirement that employers with 50 employees or more offer health coverage next year or face fines. But the...
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Former Senior Executive of ArthroCare Corp. PleadsGuilty in $400 Million Securities Fraud Scheme

Today's post is shared from justice.gov
A former senior executive of ArthroCare Corp., a publicly traded medical device company based in Austin, Texas, pleaded guilty for his role in a scheme to defraud the company’s shareholders and members of the investing public by falsely inflating ArthroCare’s earnings, announced Acting Assistant Attorney Mythili Raman of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman of the Western District of Texas. The plea was taken under seal on June 24, 2013, and unsealed late yesterday.
John Raffle, 45, of Austin, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Lane in Austin to conspiracy to commit securities, mail and wire fraud and two false statements violations.  Raffle was the senior vice president of Strategic Business Units at ArthroCare, overseeing all sales and marketing staff at the company.  Raffle admitted that he and other co-conspirators falsely inflated ArthroCare’s sales and revenue through a series of end-of-quarter transactions involving ArthroCare’s distributors and that he and other co-conspirators caused ArthroCare to file a Form 10-K for 2007 and Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2008 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that materially misrepresented ArthroCare’s quarterly and annual sales, revenues, expenses and earnings.  As part of his plea, Raffle agreed that his conduct and the conduct of his co-conspirators caused more than $400 million in losses to...
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Sunday, September 21, 2014

Interesting Lawsuit in Tampa about a California Comp Claim

ABC News affiliate WFTS is reporting that Brad Culpepper, a former Tampa Bay Buccaneer has been sued by an insurance company claiming "fraud and deceit."
According to NFL.com he played for two seasons with the Vikings, six seasons for the bucs and one season for the Bears. According to WFTS, he "parlayed fame on the field into success as a personal injury attorney."  They say that in 2010 he filed a California workers' compensation claim. They note that California had "no statute of limitations and any player who had ever played a game in the state was eligible to file."
The story also says that Mr. Culpepper "was the lead plaintiff in the recent NFL brain injury lawsuit, which was tentatively settled for $765 million."
WFTS says that an insurance company has filed suit regarding the California claim, which was settled in 2011 for $175,000. The "suit says he told doctors pain interfered with his daily activities, concentrating and thinking 'a lot, or most of the time.'" The suit also alleges that in 2012 Mr. Culpepper "earned a black belt in mixed martial arts," and that "last year, both Culpeppers (he and his wife) competed on 'Survivor'" (a reality television show).
Mr. Culpepper's attorney, Scott Shutzman, commented to WFTS. He affirmed that Mr. Culpepper's responded to "questions honestly." He addressed the activities with mixed martial arts (MMA) and the television show, saying...
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OSHA: D & J Ironworks cited for inadequate workplace safeguards following fatal fire in Boston's Back Bay

Guiseppe Falcone and Daniele Falcone, doing business as D & J Ironworks, failed to follow safety precautions, which fire officials indicated led to a fire that cost the lives of two Boston fire fighters, an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration determined.

The fire on March 26, 2014, in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, was caused because the Malden-based welding company allowed its employees to install railings using arc welding equipment during high wind conditions. Fire officials said sparks from welding railings at 296 Beacon St. ignited clapboards on an adjacent shed at 298 Beacon St., which led to the fire.

"OSHA found that the company lacked an effective fire prevention and protection program, failed to train its employees in fire safety, did not have a fire watch present and did not move the railing to another location where the welding could be performed safely," said Brenda Gordon, OSHA's area director for Boston and southeastern Massachusetts. "This company's failure to implement these required, common-sense safeguards put its own employees at risk and resulted in a needless, tragic fire."

The company also failed to protect its employees against respiratory and chemical hazards associated with welding, cutting, drilling and painting operations. It failed to evaluate employees' medical fitness to wear respirators or train employees how to clean, store and maintain respirators; evaluate respiratory hazards for workers; inform employees of chemical hazards associated with welding and how to address them; and maintain safety data sheets on hazardous chemicals.

OSHA cited D & J Ironworks for 10 serious violations of workplace safety standards. A serious violation occurs when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known. The citations can be viewed here*.

D & J Ironworks, which faces $58,000 in fines, has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA's area director, or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety & Health Review Commission.

To ask questions, obtain compliance assistance, file a complaint, or report workplace hospitalizations, fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, the public should call OSHA's toll-free hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742) or the agency's Braintree office at 617-565-6924.

Occupational Injury and Illness Recording and Reporting Requirements--NAICS Update and Reporting Revisions

OSHA is issuing a final rule to update the appendix to its 
Injury and Illness Recording and Reporting regulation. The appendix 
contains a list of industries that are partially exempt from 
requirements to keep records of work-related injuries and illnesses due 
to relatively low occupational injury and illness rates. The updated 
appendix is based on more recent injury and illness data and lists 
industry groups classified by the North American Industry 
Classification System (NAICS). The current appendix lists industries 
classified by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC).
    The final rule also revises the requirements for reporting work-
related fatality, injury, and illness information to OSHA. The current 
regulation requires employers to report work-related fatalities and in-
patient hospitalizations of three or more employees within eight hours 
of the event. The final rule retains the requirement for employers to 
report work-related fatalities to OSHA within eight hours of the event 
but amends the regulation to require employers to report all work-
related in-patient hospitalizations, as well as amputations and losses 
of an eye, to OSHA within 24 hours of the event.DATES: The final rule becomes effective January 1, 2015.

Not an “accident”: Ernesto Rodriguez, 41, suffers fatal work-related injuries at southern Oklahoma oil rig site

Ernesto Rodriguez, 41, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Wednesday, September 10 while working at an oil rig site in southern Oklahoma. Local news reports provide some initial information on the worker’s death:
  • The incident occurred at an XTO Energy well near Mannsville, OK (about 2 hours north of Dallas, TX). Rodriguez was employed by Mercer Well Service. The company’s headquarters is in Gainseville, TX, which was also Rodriguez’s hometown.
  • Sheriff John Smith reported “that a pipe was somehow forced out of a well hole and struck Rodriguez.”
  • “Rodriguez was operating a workover rig drilling out frac plugs” when the blowout occurred. The sheriff reported that “the victim was knocked about 10 feet down a stairway due to the force of the blast.”  Two workers, who were in a rig basket situated just above where Rodriguez was working, witnessed the event.
Mercer Well Services has a history of violating worker safety regulations. Since 2009, the company has been the subject of 17 OSHA inspections, primarily in Texas (but none in Oklahoma.) For more than 20 violations, including four repeat and six serious, OSHA proposed $169,200 in penalties. (As a result of settlement agreements, the firm actually paid $83,925 for those infractions.) Following a November 2011 inspection at an oil drilling worksite in the Midland, TX area, Mercer received a citation for five repeat violations. OSHA said in a news release announcing...
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Curcumin, special peptides boost cancer-blocking PIAS3 to neutralize cancer-activating STAT3 in mesothelioma


Click to enlarge

Malignant mesothelioma has received widespread notoriety because it occurs frequently in the lung linings of people exposed to asbestos. However, asbestos does not always cause this particular cancer that kills 43,000 people worldwide each year. Many mesothelioma patients were never exposed to asbestos.
"Mesothelioma is a disease that continues to have a significant burden worldwide, and the treatment option is really suboptimal. We must find better ways to treat it," said senior author Afshin Dowlati, MD, Professor of Medicine -- Hematology/Oncology, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and member of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. "We now understand the mechanisms that drive cell proliferation and growth in malignant mesothelioma."
The culprit in sparking many cancers, particularly mesothelioma, is the intracellular protein and transcription factor STAT3 (signal transducer and activator of transcription 3). A signal transducer and activator is a pathway for instructing the growth and survival of cells, and a transcription factor is a protein that controls genetic information directing cells how to perform. STAT3 is notorious for sending signals to trigger the onset of human cancers and to fuel their continued growth. The great neutralizer of STAT3 is PIAS3 (protein inhibitor of activated STAT3). PIAS3 possesses the strength to inhibit and block STAT3's ability to cause cancer.
In this study, investigators assessed...
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A New Way Insurers are Shifting Costs to the Sick



This story was co-published with The New York Times' The Upshot.
Health insurance companies are no longer allowed to turn away patients because of their pre-existing conditions or charge them more because of those conditions. But some health policy experts say insurers may be doing so in a more subtle way: by forcing people with a variety of illnesses — including Parkinson's disease, diabetes and epilepsy — to pay more for their drugs.
Insurers have long tried to steer their members away from more expensive brand name drugs, labeling them as "non-preferred" and charging higher co-payments. But according to an editorial published Wednesday in the American Journal of Managed Care, several prominent health plans have taken it a step further, applying that same concept even to generic drugs.
The Affordable Care Act bans insurance companies from discriminating against patients with health problems, but that hasn't stopped them from seeking new and creative ways to shift costs to consumers. In the process, the plans effectively may be rendering a variety of ailments "non-preferred," according to the editorial.
"It is sometimes argued that patients should have 'skin in the game' to motivate them to become more prudent consumers," the editorial says. "One must ask, however, what sort of consumer behavior is encouraged when all generic medicines for particular diseases are 'non-preferred' and subject to higher co-pays."
I recently...
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Workers’ Compensation changes found unconstitutional in Florida and may effect California injured workers

Anyone that has been following California Workers’ compensation over the last few years has seen medical care and wage replacement benefits slashed.  It is to the point where the Workers’ Compensation system is causing more problems than it is fixing.  The same thing is happening in several other states including Florida.  Thankfully a judge has finally taken a stand and said the Workers’ Compensation system changes have gone to far.  Workers’ Compensation has a purpose; it is supposed to get workers’ healthy and compensate them for the time they missed from work and the permanent disability they now suffer.  The changes in Florida limited treatment, stopped workers’ from getting wage replacement, and did not compensate people that lost their ability to work.
As judge Cueto stated “The purpose of a workers’ compensation act is not for it to be used as a weapon in an economic civil war, its purpose is to provide adequate compensation for on-the-job injuries in place of a worker’s ability to sue in civil court.”
The same arguments made in Florida apply to California where a simple doctors request for treatment takes an average of 7 months to get approved.  For example, a person that twists their knee at work may have to wait over 6 months for an MRI, where a person not hurt on the job will have that same MRI within a day, a week at the most.  This delay slows down the recover of...
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Medical Treatment Denials

Medical treatment denials are SOP now thanks to the workers’ compensation reforms signed into law by Governor Brown. Currently, there is no appeal to an independent judge for denied treatment. The medical reviewing companies are making millions of dollars to deny necessary care. As a consequence, if injured workers have other insurance coverage, Medicare or MediCal, these programs are the only hope; and even then many other coverage plans may deny the treatment because they think it is work related medical cost. Injured workers and their families are caught in a vicious Catch 22. Anyone who is denied treatment should write the Governor and demand an end to these unconstitutional and unconscionable laws.
Read the article here.
http://https://www.caaa.org/index.cfm?pg=URDenied_Kathryn_Donahue#.U_SzwAC8jLU.facebook
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Left and right agree on something at last: Tipping is a management scam

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

"In this hyper-polarized world, it's rare to find liberals and conservatives agreeing on anything -- and especially surprising to find them agreeing that hotel housekeepers deserve a raise.

But that's the response to news of a misguided publicity campaign in which California's former first lady, Maria Shriver, has joined with the huge hotel chain Marriott International to urge hotel guests to tip their room maids and housekeepers.

As part of the campaign, dubbed "The Envelope Please," Marriott will leave tip envelopes in guest rooms as unsubtle hints. The suggested gratuity is $1 to $5 a night. Studies indicate that no more than 30% of hotel guests tip the maids.

The reaction to Marriott's campaign from left and right has been roughly the same: They have some nerve.

Here's Mark Krikorian in the conservative National Review Online: "If the housekeepers’ exertions warrant that money — and I’m sure they do — why doesn’t Marriott just raise their pay by $1 to $5 per room per night? The company’s press release has the gall to describe 'Gratitude Envelopes' as though women making beds and cleaning bathrooms to make ends meet are engaged in a charitable activity."

At the liberal Think Progress blog, Bryce Covert reports that hourly pay for nonunionized housekeepers averages about $8.32 an hour. "Tips...

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Related articles

Income inequality last year rose in 15 states

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

The nation became more unequal last year.
The Gini Index, a measure of income inequality, was higher, in a statistically significant way, in 2013 than in 2012, rising from 0.476 to 0.481, according to a new Census Bureau report. A score of zero suggests perfect equality where all households have equal income, while a score of one suggests perfect inequality, where one household has it all, and the rest have none.
Alaska was the only state to see its Gini Index score decline, while 15 states posted increases. D.C. and the remaining 34 states saw no change. The 15 states that saw income inequality rise last year were: Arizona, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington.
Those results reflect a multi-year trend: Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve reported that “[o]nly families at the very top of the income distribution saw widespread income gains between 2010 and 2013.”
And income inequality can have cascading effects. In a Monday analysis, credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s concluded that income inequality acted as a drag on state tax collections.
“The findings from our research indicate that tax revenue growth slows as income inequality rises, especially for the sales tax-dependent states,” the report’s authors wrote. “This suggests to us that inequality is having a detrimental effect on economic growth.”...
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Saturday, September 20, 2014

Safety Groups, Teamsters Sue FMCSA over Training Standards

Today's post was shared by Trucker Lawyers and comes from www.insidefmcsa.com

Safety advocacy groups and the Teamsters have launched a lawsuit asking a federal court to order FMCSA to issue rules mandating new entry level training for commercial drivers.
Alleging the agency has disregarded congressional and court mandates spanning many years, petitioners want the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to order it to issue new proposed rules within 60 days, and final rules within 180 days of a court order.
The suit argues that FMCSA’s failure to meet congressional deadlines, most recently in the MAP-21 highway bill passed in 2012, constitutes “agency action unlawfully withheld” and “not in accordance with law” under the Administrative Procedures Act.
The groups bringing the suit are apparently unimpressed by FMCSA’s recent announcement that it is considering a “negotiated rulemaking” to address the training issue. On August 19, the agency said it would “investigate the feasibility” of using a “reg-neg” to try to unravel what has proven to be one of its most intractable issues. A reg-neg is a consultative process that tries to reach consensus among stakeholders. Petitioners noted that the announcement included “no time frame” for completion of a rule and said that FMCSA had “a clear duty to act.”
The agency has been trying for many years to bring a new training rule to fruition. It began researching the issue in the early 1980’s and has been working on developing...
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Lawsuit Seeks Stricter Rules for Truck Driver Training

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



WASHINGTON — Despite being ordered twice by Congress to come up with training requirements for commercial truck drivers, the Transportation Department has yet to do so, leaving Americans sharing the road with big-rig operators who spend only 10 hours in a classroom before hitting the highways.
On Thursday, a group of safety advocates and the Teamsters union sued the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in federal court, saying the agency had dragged its feet on the long-overdue rules, breaking deadlines since 1993, most recently last year.
“There’s just no excuse anymore,” said Henry Jasny, general counsel at Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, one of the groups filing suit. “This should be basic stuff. People are dying because of the lack of training out there.”
While overall automobile fatalities in the United States have been down in recent years, deaths and injuries involving large trucks have been rising. Fatalities were up 4 percent in 2012, and injuries by 18 percent, for a total of about 4,000 deaths and roughly 70,000 injuries. According to Transportation Department data, an additional 200,000 accidents with large trucks caused damage but no injuries.
Mr. Jasny said new drivers spend barely more than a day in the classroom for training after they complete the relatively simple process of getting a commercial driver’s license.
“They pass a written test, drive a truck around the parking lot for 10 minutes to get...
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