Sure, to some people #LaborDayIs about barbecues and fashion rules. But #LaborDayIs also about, you know, labor. Today, workers across the country are struggling for decent wages, safe workplaces, affordable healthcare, and even basic civil rights. North Carolina’s Moral Monday
North Carolina's Moral Monday
Learn more about Moral Monday and check out some sweet protest photos. Oh and thanks to @sherierb for the thumbnail photo. The Wisconsin Solidarity Singers
The Wisconsin Solidarity Singers
After the huge protests in 2011 against Wisconsin’s new collective bargaining restrictions, Gov. Scott Walker and his allies changed the rules at the state Capitol Building in Madison, requiring protesters to have permits. His reasoning? Um, none. |
Sunday, September 1, 2013
14 Worker Struggles To Pay Attention To This Labor Day
A Labor Day Opportunity
Ed. note: This is crossposted from Work in Progress, the official blog of the Department of Labor. See the original post here. Learn more about the history of Labor Day, and the history of the U.S. Department of Labor. Labor Day 2013 is special. This year marks the centennial of the U.S. Department of Labor – 100 years of working for America’s workers. And this past week, our nation reaffirmed the ideals of the 1963 March on Washington. This transformational event, exactly 50 years ago, was just as much about labor rights as it was about civil rights. For me, just like so many others then and now, these two movements are inextricably intertwined, their interests converging time and time again, their goals united in creating opportunity for all. Watch this video on YouTube For a guy like me who grew up in an immigrant family from Buffalo, the past few days have been pretty heady. At the Lincoln Memorial Wednesday, I couldn’t help but wonder if The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. ever imagined that half a century after he stood on these steps, another African-American man would stand there – as president? |
Study: Air Pollution Causes 200,000 Early Deaths in US
| Air pollution causes about 200,000 early deaths each year in the United States, according to a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Researchers at MIT’s Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment, say emissions from road transportation are the leading single cause of pollution, contributing 53,000 premature deaths, and that electrical power generation causes another 52,000. “In the past five to 10 years, the evidence linking air-pollution exposure to risk of early death has really solidified and gained scientific and political traction,” says Steven Barrett, an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. “There’s a realization that air pollution is a major problem in any city, and there’s a desire to do something about it.” |
In California, Renewed Debate Over Home Care
An important struggle over home health care is playing out in California, the nation’s most populous state, including nearly five million residents age 65 and older. Unions and organizations representing the elderly have joined together to push for legislation that would license agencies, certify workers and create a publicly accessible caregiver registry. Home care agencies are pushing back, saying they favor regulation but oppose the measures under consideration. The legislation, Assembly Bill 1217, has already passed the State Assembly and was passed out of the State Senate’s appropriations committee on Friday. It will be up for a vote on the Senate floor next week. An estimated 1,400 home care agencies and 120,000 paid caregivers would be affected by the proposed legislation, which is essentially an effort to bring consumer protections to an industry that has been likened to the Wild West. “It’s just not right that I can check the license status of an air-conditioning repairman but I can’t do so for someone coming into my home to care for a loved one,” said Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, a Democrat and the bill’s sponsor. |
American Thoracic Society Welcomes OSHA’s Proposed Lower Silica Exposure Standard
The American Thoracic Society welcomes today’s release by the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration (OSHA) of a proposed lower standard for crystalline silica exposure.
“This needed adjustment is long overdue,” said Tee L. Guidotti, MD, MPH, chair of the Department of
Environmental and Occupational Health at the School of Public Health and Health Services of the George
Washington University Medical Center in Washington DC and a member of the American Thoracic
Society’s Environmental Health Policy Committee involved in the Society’s efforts to establish a lower
exposure standard. “The current OSHA standard of for respirable crystalline silica of 0.10 mg/m3 8 hour
time weighted average has remained the same for 40 years and has been shown in numerous studies not to be
protective.”
“We support the proposed lower standard of 0.05 mg/m3 time-weighted average for up to 10 hours during a
40 hour work week, which will protect hundreds and possibly thousands of workers from silica-related
health effects at almost no cost, as silica exposure can be easily prevented with simple and inexpensive
technology.”
Crystalline silica has long been recognized as a serious occupational health hazard, affecting workers in
industries such as granite workers, industrial sand workers and gold miners. Overexposure to respirable
crystalline silica can cause irreversible, progressive lung disease, known as silicosis, and is also associated
with lung cancer, chronic renal disease, and autoimmune disorders. It is estimated that 1.7 million U.S.
workers are regularly exposed to this serious health hazard and that about 200 workers die each year from
silicosis. As many as 7,300 new cases of silicosis occur annually among U.S. workers.
Exposure levels and death rates from silica-related diseases in the U.S. far exceed those of comparable
developed economies around the world. Silicosis has been virtually eliminated in the European Union with
the use of simple and inexpensive measures such as adequate ventilation, wetting rock before it is cut, and
banning sandblasting with silica sand in favor of readily available alternatives.
OSHA first submitted a draft revised standard on respirable crystalline silica to the Office of Management
and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on February 14, 2011, but a review was not
completed until recently.
“The proposed revised standard should be implemented in conjunction with a mandated periodic surveillance
program to ensure that the measures taken to control exposure are adequate and to identify and mitigate
disease in those workers who are exposed,” said Dr. Guidotti. “Silicosis and the other diseases caused by
crystalline silica exposure are entirely preventable and this new lower standard is an important step toward
this goal.”
and Health Administration (OSHA) of a proposed lower standard for crystalline silica exposure.
“This needed adjustment is long overdue,” said Tee L. Guidotti, MD, MPH, chair of the Department of
Environmental and Occupational Health at the School of Public Health and Health Services of the George
Washington University Medical Center in Washington DC and a member of the American Thoracic
Society’s Environmental Health Policy Committee involved in the Society’s efforts to establish a lower
exposure standard. “The current OSHA standard of for respirable crystalline silica of 0.10 mg/m3 8 hour
time weighted average has remained the same for 40 years and has been shown in numerous studies not to be
protective.”
“We support the proposed lower standard of 0.05 mg/m3 time-weighted average for up to 10 hours during a
40 hour work week, which will protect hundreds and possibly thousands of workers from silica-related
health effects at almost no cost, as silica exposure can be easily prevented with simple and inexpensive
technology.”
Crystalline silica has long been recognized as a serious occupational health hazard, affecting workers in
industries such as granite workers, industrial sand workers and gold miners. Overexposure to respirable
crystalline silica can cause irreversible, progressive lung disease, known as silicosis, and is also associated
with lung cancer, chronic renal disease, and autoimmune disorders. It is estimated that 1.7 million U.S.
workers are regularly exposed to this serious health hazard and that about 200 workers die each year from
silicosis. As many as 7,300 new cases of silicosis occur annually among U.S. workers.
Exposure levels and death rates from silica-related diseases in the U.S. far exceed those of comparable
developed economies around the world. Silicosis has been virtually eliminated in the European Union with
the use of simple and inexpensive measures such as adequate ventilation, wetting rock before it is cut, and
banning sandblasting with silica sand in favor of readily available alternatives.
OSHA first submitted a draft revised standard on respirable crystalline silica to the Office of Management
and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on February 14, 2011, but a review was not
completed until recently.
“The proposed revised standard should be implemented in conjunction with a mandated periodic surveillance
program to ensure that the measures taken to control exposure are adequate and to identify and mitigate
disease in those workers who are exposed,” said Dr. Guidotti. “Silicosis and the other diseases caused by
crystalline silica exposure are entirely preventable and this new lower standard is an important step toward
this goal.”
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Cost Shifting vs. Cost Fixing
There have always been allegations of cost shifting either to or from workers' compensation and general health. Now Massachusetts is going to study just whether or not this is true, and if so, by how much.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is expected to release a report to the state Workers' Compensation Advisory Council in October or November on practices that regulators warned last May may be shifting costs from workers' compensation carriers primarily to MassHealth and to some private health care providers.The alleged problem seems to be three-fold: At a meeting of the Advisory Council last May, Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents Deputy Director George Noel said the regulatory agency had indications that some workplace injuries are being processed through MassHealth and that community health centers reluctant to accept workers' compensation claims are shifting cases to "other places."Mickey Long, a member of the advisory council and an attorney for the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, said "There are an increasing number of anecdotes going back a decade involving contractors, where a worker is told by the owner of a company to handle... |
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Is Big Sugar the Next Liability Target?
By Vik Khanna
Growing paranoia is the hallmark of the aging process for me. Although I am a generally affable sort (I know, it doesn’t always seem that way from my writing), I am also a fairly suspicious person. I am starting to think that all the food industry’s sweet talk about the innocence of sugar is really just icing on a toxic cake and that we’ve all been sold a bill of goods. In particular, I wonder — and part of me hopes — that Big Sugar might soon replace Big Tobacco as the favorite target of our most underappreciated and misunderstood national resource…the plaintiff’s bar. There is no question we eat way too much sugar and that the increase in consumption has coincided nicely with both our rise in obesity and decline in health status even though we are living longer. Not that I think the Tobacco Settlement (TS) was great social policy. You can read my full view here; but, to summarize, as an immigrant and a person of color, a part of me resents the TS because all it did is push the burden of fulfillment of the financial terms into the hearts and lungs of people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The smug satisfaction of tobacco opponents in the US and their glib dismissal of the impact on predominantly poor people of color around the world is first order racism. Any analogous move against Big Sugar (BS) could be quite interesting. There is, of course, the delectable duality of... |
Related articles
- Why Is Obama Caving on Tobacco? (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- How the Paint Industry Escapes Responsibility for Lead Poisoning (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Coal Industry: The Next Target for a Major Lawsuit (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Garlock testimony switches to financial liability (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Corporate Liability: Halliburton Pleads to Destroying Evidence in Gulf Pil Spill 2010 (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- An "F" for Quality (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Liability Claim Collateral SOurce Payments Subject to MSP (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
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