Highly hazardous pesticides should be phased out in developing countries

Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.fao.org

The tragic incident in Bihar, India, where 23 school children died after eating a school meal contaminated with monocrotophos, is an important reminder to speed up the withdrawal of highly hazardous pesticides from markets in developing countries, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

Monocrotophos is an organophosphorus pesticide that is considered highly hazardous by FAO and the World Health Organization. Experience in many developing countries shows that the distribution and use of such highly toxic products very often poses a serious risk to human health and the environment.

The incident in Bihar underscores that secure storage of pesticide products and safe disposal of empty pesticide containers are risk reduction measures which are just as crucial as more prominent field-oriented steps like wearing proper protective masks and clothing.

The entire distribution and disposal cycle for highly hazardous pesticides carries significant risks. Safeguards are difficult to ensure in many  countries.

N.Y. AG announces $600,000 agreement with masonry contractor

Employer fraud continues to be a major problem. NY State has enforced workers' compensation laws actively. Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com

Eric Schneiderman

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Thursday an agreement with a masonry contractor and its owners for allegedly underpaying masonry workers on a publicly funded senior housing facility project.

Masonry Services Inc. and its owners, James Herrera and Jaime Herrera, allegedly paid masonry workers between $8 and $23 an hour for work on the St. Marks Project, far below the applicable prevailing wage rates.

MSI also allegedly failed to pay overtime to workers despite the workers regularly working more than 40 hours per week.

“My office will continue to pursue contractors who illegally underpay workers, whether it’s on a small scale or in a larger settlement like this one,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “Contractors who work on publicly-funded affordable housing projects must comply with all applicable laws, plain and simple. MSI will be held accountable for failing to meet its obligations to hard-working New Yorkers, in addition to paying back the wages owed to its workers.”

Plaintiffs’ expert says lead paint abatement could cost $1.4 billion

Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com

Kleinberg

Research director Dr. David Jacobs of the National Center for Healthy Housing and an authority in abatement procedures testified for plaintiffs Thursday that the cost of a lead paint abatement program could exceed $1.4 billion in the 10 California jurisdictions pursuing a “public nuisance” case against paint manufacturers.

The trial taking place in Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg’s court is now into its fourth week. The case is expected to continue next week when plaintiffs introduce their last witness and defendants take the stand to argue that no public health threat exists, and that for what little exposure does exist in California, lead paint is not the primary source.

The plaintiffs, including Los Angeles and Santa Clara Counties and the cities of San Diego and San Francisco, are asking one time lead paint and pigment manufacturers to pay for the abatement costs of eliminating lead paint from homes to protect public health. Defendants NL Industries, the Sherwin-Williams Company, ConAgra Grocery Products, DuPont and Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), claim the suit is without merit, that blood lead levels in California are close to zero and that other exposures, such as gasoline, are more likely to elevate blood lead levels than lead paint.

South Lakeland nurse killed himself after being wrongly accused of inappropriate contact with patient, inquest hears

Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk

Suicide: South Lakeland nurse killed himself after being wrongly accused of inappropriate contact with patient, inquest hears

10:21am Friday 12th July 2013 in News

A NURSE was found hanged at his South Lakeland home after being wrongly accused of inapporpriate contact with a female patient, an inquest heard.

Christopher Milnes, 50, was fully exonerated but at the hearing his family hit out at Morecambe Bay NHS Trust for taking so long to inform him he was in the clear.

The false claim was made while Mr Milnes was working at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary in May 2012.

He was found dead at home in Chestnut Close, Holme, near Milnthorpe, on December 16.
A pathologist gave the cause of death as hanging and found no alcohol, drugs or underlying health conditions.

Respirators Are Not Enough: New Study Examines Worker Exposure to Silica in Hydraulic Fracturing Operations

Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from ehstoday.com

A new study, “Occupational Exposures to Respirable Crystalline Silica During Hydraulic Fracturing,” found respirable crystalline silica, a human lung carcinogen, to be an occupational exposure hazard for workers at hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations. Researchers also found that the most commonly used type of respirator – the half-mask air-purifying respirator – might not provide enough protection for workers.

The study, published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene (JOEH) July issue, is the first systematic investigation of worker exposure to crystalline silica during directional drilling and fracking operations, a process used to stimulate well production in the oil and gas industry.

Field researcher from the NIOSH Western States Office (WSO) and the Division of Applied Research and Technology (DART) collected 111 personal breathing zone samples at 11 sites in five states over a 15-month period to evaluate exposures to respirable crystalline silica during fracking operations.

“Certain work in this industry requires employees to be in areas where respirable silica levels may exceed defined occupational exposure limits like the OSHA Permissible Exposure Limit or the NIOSH Recommended Exposure Limits [RELs],” said researcher Michael Breitenstein, who is with the NIOSH DART in Cincinnati. “However, our study found that in some cases, full shift personal breathing zone exposures exceeded 10 times the...

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Unpaid Intern? You Probably Aren't Protected Against Sexual Harassment

Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

This story first appeared on ProPublica.

In 1994, Bridget O'Connor began an internship at Rockland Psychiatric Center, where one of the doctors allegedly began to refer to her as Miss Sexual Harassment, told her that she should participate in an orgy, and suggested that she remove her clothing before meeting with him. Other women in the office made similar claims.

Yet when O'Connor filed a lawsuit, her sexual harassment claims were dismissed because she was an unpaid intern. A federal appeals court affirmed the decision to throw out the claim.

Unpaid interns miss out on wages and employment benefits, but they can also find themselves in "legal limbo" when it comes to civil rights, according to law professor and intern labor rights advocate David Yamada. The O'Connor decision (the leading ruling on the matter, according to Yamada) held that because they don't get a paycheck, unpaid interns are not "employees" under the Civil Rights Act—and thus, they're not protected.

Federal policies echo court rulings. The laws enforced by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, including the Civil Rights Act, don't cover interns unless they receive "significant remuneration," according to commission spokesperson Joseph Olivares.

"At least with respect to the federal law that we enforce, an unpaid intern would not be legally protected by our laws prohibiting sexual harassment," Olivares said in an email to ProPublica.

It's unclear how many interns are sexually harassed at work....

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Walmart Gets Desperate | The Nation

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

Walmart today went on the attack against The Nation for its alleged hypocrisy over the pay of interns, as some kind of excuse for their own failure to pay tens of thousands of Americans a decent wage. 

About the Author

Some background: In the fall of 2012, The Nation Institute—which runs and administers the program—began a campaign to better fund its internship program. In the spring of 2013, interns asked for an increase to their stipend to help attract a more diverse pool of applicants. As of next month, The Nation Institute will be able to pay interns New York City minimum wage. (For more on this read here.) Additionally, The Institute will continue to help interns in need with additional funding for housing and travel, and The Nation pays interns as contributors if they write for the magazine or website.

This afternoon, The Daily Beast repeated Walmart's PR spin that The Nation "live[s] in glass houses," and that somehow the interns’ compensation disqualified The Nation from its vigorous reporting about Walmart's near-poverty wages, including an open letter that asked Wamart—the single largest employer in America—to increase wages to $12 per hour. The Huffington Post reported last year that “a cart pusher who started out at $8 per hour, for instance, can expect to be earning about $10.60 per hour after six years and a...

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