Green Job Hazards: Wind Energy

Today's post was shared by US Dept. of Labor and comes from www.osha.gov

<< Back to Green Job Hazards Green Job Hazards: Wind Energy Wind turbines generate electricity from wind, and are being manufactured and installed all across the nation. Wind energy employers need to protect their workers from workplace hazards and workers should be engaged in workplace safety and health and need to understand how to protect themselves from these hazards. While this is a growing industry, the hazards are not unique and OSHA has many standards that cover them. This page provides information about some of the hazards that workers in the wind energy industry may face. Hazards and ControlsFatalities/Incidents Wind Energy workers are exposed to hazards that can result in fatalities and serious injuries. Many incidents involving falls, severe burns from electrical shocks and arc flashes/fires, and crushing injuries have been reported to OSHA. Some examples are given below: On August 29, 2009 at 08:30 hours a 33-year-old male lineman was shocked as he grasped a trailer ramp attached to a low boy trailer containing an excavator. The excavator was being operated in anticipation of being off-loaded from the trailer. The trailer was parked on a rural aggregate road adjacent to an access road for a wind turbine generator. The excavator operator rotated the upper works of the machine prior to moving the machine from the trailer. During the rotation the boom contacted a 7,200 volt primary rural power line. The power line was approximately 12 feet from the road with the trailer... <<

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Democrats Jump on the 'Death Panel' Bandwagon

Many workers' compenssation systems strickly control medicsl care.Will workers' compensation insurace companies buy into the "death panel" consequence just to cut costs? Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

Rod Lamkey Jr./ZUMAPress

In 2009, Sarah Palin claimed Obamacare would create "death panels," or bands of bureaucrats who would decide whether old or disabled Americans were worthy of medical care. That notion turned out to be a figment of her imagination. But now, a growing cohort of Democratic lawmakers is cozying up to the idea, charging that the cost-cutting board that Obama's health care law creates will indeed hurt people on Medicare, The Hill reports.

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Reps. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.), Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.) have all signed onto bills repealing the powers of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel created by the Affordable Care Act that will make recommendations on how to reduce Medicare spending once Medicare cost growth reaches a certain level.

The lawmakers have said they oppose the board because it would limit care for Medicare patients, even though the health care law says that any cuts would have to affect doctor reimbursement rates or the prices for certain drugs, not patient care.

All five lawmakers are worried about losing their seats in 2014. Barber, Kirkpatrick, Sinema and Esty have also voted with Republicans to delay the law's individual and employer mandates—the requirements that Americans purchase insurance and that employers of a certain size offer coverage, respectively.

The Democratic death panel fear-mongering follows an editorial that former Democratic...

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Why unions are turning on Obamacare

The Affordable Care Act continues to generate controversy. There are obviously many paths to the same destination. Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from tv.msnbc.com

 (Photo by David Kohl/AP)

President Barack Obama speaks at the AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic at Coney Island in Cincinnati Sept. 7, 2009. Some labor unions that initially backed Obama’s health care overhaul are now frustrated and angry about what they say are unexpected consequences of the plan that could hurt their members.

“Repeal and replace” is the Grand Old Party’s oft-repeated mantra regarding Obamacare, which House Republicans voted to repeal for the 40th time on Friday. But in April, an organization in the president’s base echoed the refrain.

On April 24, the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers, and Allied Workers released a statement demanding “repeal or complete reform of the Affordable Care Act.” While no other union has yet called for an outright repeal of the health care law, a growing number of them argue that serious reform is needed.

“We continue to stand behind real health care reform, but the law as it stands will hurt millions of Americans including the members of our respective unions,” wrote the presidents of three major labor unions in a July letter to Congressional Democratic leadership. The subsequent three and a half weeks have not assuaged their fears.

“There are members of Congress who have met with us who have been somewhat responsive and concerned about the situation,” said a spokesperson for the hospitality union UNITE HERE, whose president signed the letter. “But...

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Physician Payments Sunshine Act Goes Into Effect Without Initial Concerns

Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org

The Physician Payments Sunshine Act, an Affordable Care Act provision requiring doctors and medical companies to disclose their financial relationships, went into effect Aug. 1. Physicians say they are now working to find a balance between necessary transparency and what some perceive to be burdensome filing.

“We want to spend our time seeing patients, not doing paperwork,” said Dr. Jason Mitchell the director of the Center for Health IT at the American Academy for Family Physicians.

The Sunshine Act requires drug companies and medical device makers to report payments, gifts and investments to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Though the act is now in effect, a complete set of records are not due until March 2014 and will not be made public until September 2014.

Consumer advocates and other stakeholders favor openness when it comes to the large amounts of money medical and pharmaceutical companies spend to influence a doctor’s choices, according to a Pew Health Center statement from 2012. Holding both parties accountable with a clear reporting system would allow consumers to spot potential bias.

Mitchell, who is also a practicing family medical physician in Missouri, does not anticipate many immediate changes for doctors – aside from fewer lunches with pharmaceutical representatives.

He predicts that because of the increased attention placed on these small meetings that make up a majority of the reportable interactions,...

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A Conservative Re-Envisioning Of The Health Care Overhaul

Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org

Tired of hearing policy experts and politicians debate the 2010 health care law?  What if you took the Affordable Care Act out of the conversation?  If you could scrap the nation’s current health care system and build a new one, what would it look like?

A group of health care experts from Stanford University, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the University of Southern California, among other institutions, has compiled a report with their answer to that question.  Funded by the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute’s National Research Initiative, the document offers a variety of ideas that its authors say would achieve universal coverage, protect the poor and the sick and restrain health care cost growth, among other priorities.

“In many ways, the ACA has been a distraction, because people think that all of the health care debate boils down to ‘do you support the ACA or do you oppose it?’ ” said Darius Lakdawalla, one of the authors and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, as well as a  professor of pharmaceutical economics in the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy. “To us, that is really a very narrow and misleading question.”

The report’s proposals include allowing health insurers to charge premiums that reflect consumers’ health care costs and providing generous subsidies to help the poor obtain...

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Texas Pointing Way to Healthy Market

Today's post was shared by WorkCompCentral and comes from daviddepaolo.blogspot.com

The health of the workers' compensation industry has direct ties to the health of the economy.

This makes absolute sense - an employer's premium is calculated in large part by the size of an employer's payroll, modified by the type of jobs that are being performed by the employees represented by that payroll.

Texas' had not been as hard hit by the recession as the other large states, and now it appears that the state is really taking off, economically, if the adage that workers' compensation reflects the economy is to be believed.

Here's the good stats:

Written premiums increased 13.1% from 2011 to 2012 according to the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas.

The state's dominant carrier, Texas Mutual, saw its share of the market increase by 3.3% over the same period, from 33.8% in 2011 to 37.1% in 2012.

The even better news for Texas is that, based on Texas Department of Insurance statistics, Texas Mutual wrote $244 million in premium during the fourth quarter of 2012, with the residual market accounting for only $1.4 million in premium. According to the same report, Texas Mutual's residual market premiums have stayed relatively stable since 2007, the first year in the report.

Texas is an optional state. I take this information two ways: either more employers are opting in and qualifying outside of the risky, residual market underwriting standards, or those with high risk and, ergo, high potential premium, are going bare and never entering the work comp market.

But the kicker is...

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Chevron pleads no contest to criminal charges stemming from Richmond refinery fire

Today's post was shared by FairWarning and comes from www.contracostatimes.com

Click photo to enlarge

MARTINEZ -- Chevron will pay $2 million in fines and restitution after pleading no contest Monday to six misdemeanor criminal charges stemming from a fire at its Richmond refinery last year.

Chevron attorneys accepted the terms, including 3 1/2 years of probation, $1.28 million in fines, and more than $720,000 in restitution payments to three different agencies.

The penalties resulted from joint charges filed Monday in Contra Costa Superior Court by state Attorney General Kamala Harris and Contra Costa County District Attorney Mark Peterson. The terms of the plea had been agreed to by both sides before Monday's hearing.

"This criminal case achieves our goals of holding Chevron accountable for their

conduct, protecting the public, and ensuring a safer work environment at the refinery," Peterson said in a news release. Peterson also praised Chevron for its "commitment to do more than what is required by law" to prevent future accidents.

Chevron committed six violations of labor, health and safety standards, according to the complaint. The violations included failure to "correct deficiencies" in equipment, negligent emissions and failure to prevent employees' exposure to hazardous conditions.

The Aug. 6 fire knocked out the refinery's No. 4 crude unit and sent more than 15,000 people to area hospitals complaining of respiratory discomfort and other symptoms. Subsequent investigations have revealed that the fire was caused by a corroded pipe that failed,...

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