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Friday, October 17, 2014

Ebola Now an Issue in Nurses’ Contract Bargaining

Today's post was shared by CAAA and comes from blogs.kqed.org

Nurses’ calls for better hospital preparation around Ebola have landed on the bargaining table. California’s powerful nurses’ union has been bargaining with Kaiser Permanente for months over a new contract, and is now adding to its list of demands better training, protection, and insurance coverage for nurses who may treat patients infected with Ebola.
(Centers for Disease Control via Getty Images)
(Centers for Disease Control
 via Getty Images)
Diane McClure, a nurse at Kaiser’s South Sacramento facility, says nurses still had no meaningful training more than a month after a patient was admitted to the hospital for a potential Ebola infection, though he later tested negative for the virus.
“Kaiser felt all they had to do was pull up some CDC flyers and put them on the lunchroom tables or up in the bathrooms,” she says.
Nurses want hands-on, interactive training with demonstrations and the opportunity to ask questions, says McClure, who is a member of the California Nurses Association and part of the bargaining team negotiating with Kaiser Permanente Northern California. They also want better protective gear, and better coverage if a nurse gets sick while caring for patients.
“We are asking in our contract negotiations for an extra insurance policy,” she says. “We’d like to have an extra supplemental coverage, specifically for Ebola, if we were to contract Ebola while we’re at work.”
Nurses’ medical costs are covered by workers’ compensation...
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Chain to Pay $38 Million Over Claims of Poor Care

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

One of the nation’s biggest nursing home chains, Extendicare, has agreed to pay $38 million to resolve federal claims that it inappropriately billed for physical therapy and provided such poor care to residents that it was effectively worthless, the Justice Department said on Friday.
The settlement with Extendicare, which owns about 150 homes in 11 states, is the largest settlement in the department’s history involving a nursing home chain accused of providing substandard care to residents.
Federal prosecutors said Extendicare’s executives did not hire enough trained nurses to care for the patients in 33 of its homes, leading to what they described as “pervasive” problems, including failing to prevent serious falls and head injuries and failing to prevent bed sores.
The care was so inadequate, officials said, that some patients became malnourished and dehydrated and developed infections that led to unnecessary hospitalizations. The claims originated in a federal whistle-blower lawsuit filed in Ohio that accused the chain of poor quality of care.
“These problems stemmed in large part from Extendicare’s business model — a model that was driven more by profit and less by the quality of care it provided,” Joyce R. Branda, an acting assistant attorney general, said Friday.
Extendicare, a Canadian company whose United States headquarters is in Milwaukee, is the seventh-largest nursing home operator in the country, ranked by the...
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Angry Parents Demand Answers As OC Schools Remain Closed For Asbestos Testing

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from losangeles.cbslocal.com

Angry parents in Orange County are demanding answers as school closures Monday dragged into their second week due to asbestos testing.
Parents say they’re frustrated by the lack of information Ocean View School District officials are providing about their students’ futures.
Oak View Elementary students and parents in Huntington Beach marched in front of the district’s office Monday morning, hoping someone would explain when the children will return to class.
“We brought our kids because they want their school back. They want their education back,” Oak View parent Olga Flores said. “What’s going to happen with the kids’ education? We have not got any answers at all. We come to meetings and they just stand up and walk away.”
It’s been six days since administrators shut down the campus to test for a possible presence of asbestos.
The approximately 750 Oak View students aren’t the only ones who have been away from school. Hope View and Lake view Elementary are also closed, leaving an additional 850 kids in limbo.
Authorities say the campuses are old and asbestos is present in the fire-proofing materials in the roof.
At Hope View, an asbestos fiber was found in a wipe test in one classroom. Asbestos was also detected in two other classrooms at Lake View Elementary, according to the district.
The asbestos will be removed over the course of the next few months, officials say.
...
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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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East Penn board accused of asbestos cover-up

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

A barrage of questions – as well as accusations of an asbestos cover-up – was fired at by several residents Monday night.
East Penn School BoardThey challenged the school district’s handling of construction debris containing potentially hazardous asbestos that was dumped, then buried, last year on wooded school district property next to Wescosville Elementary School.
“Is the school district engaged in a cover-up of illegal acts?” asked resident Chris Donatelli. “It has been confirmed both by the EPA and the DEP that no one is permitted to bury these types of materials. It’s against the law.”
“Who knew about the asbestos problem at the Wescosville school?” asked resident Charles Rhoads. “Who is responsible? Who ordered the cover-up? When will the cover-up end?”
No one on the school board provided any answers.
District superintendent J. Michael Schilder did report that all the buried construction debris has been removed from the site. He said the removal began Oct 6 and concluded Oct. 9.
Schilder said the material being removed was tested on site – although he did not reveal results of that testing -- and that the excavation was monitored by a representative of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“No identifying information was found in any of the material that was removed,” said the superintendent, meaning no clues were unearthed to shed light on the source...
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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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Death Toll Linked to G.M. Defect Reaches 27

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

The death toll linked to General Motors’ defective ignition switch has now more than doubled from the company’s original estimate.
Twenty-seven wrongful death claims filed to the company’s victim compensation program have been deemed eligible for payment, according to a weekly update posted on the program’s website on Monday. For months after it began recalling cars with the faulty switch, G.M. estimated that 13 people had died in accidents linked to the defect, though executives held out the possibility that the number could rise.
G.M. has given Kenneth R. Feinberg, the victim compensation expert who is running the company’s payment program, sole discretion to determine the number of eligible claims for deaths and injuries associated with the faulty switch — a flaw that can cause power to cut out in a moving car, disabling air bags, power steering and power brakes. This year, G.M. has recalled 2.6 million cars that could have the faulty switch defect, more than a decade after engineers inside the company first spotted a problem.
As of Friday, the Feinberg program had received a total of 1,371 claims, 178 of them for wrongful deaths, and had accepted a total of 52 claims for payment. Many of the others are still under review, awaiting further evidence. Some have been rejected, though the fund did not report how many.
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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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Senators to FDA: Stronger warning labels needed for e-cigarettes

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

Senate Democrats urged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to require stronger warning labels for e-cigarettes.
Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg Thursday asking her to finalize proposed rules to expand the agencies ability to regulate all nicotine products.
The senators wrote that because of a lack of federal regulations, e-cigarette companies are producing their own warning labels that fail to list all of the health threats. They said the pending FDA proposal warning also wouldn’t go far enough.
“In FDA's proposed 'deeming regulation,' the agency includes a warning label for e-cigarettes that does not adequately warn consumers on the known dangers of nicotine use. The proposed label reads 'WARNING: This product contains nicotine derived from tobacco. Nicotine is an addictive chemical,'” the letter stated. “We support requiring a label on nicotine's addictive properties, but we ask the FDA pursue requirements for more extensive warnings that address health risks that e-cigarettes pose.”
More lawmakers have grown concerned over e-cigarette use as nicotine poisoning incidents rise.
The Democratic senators have also introduced the Protecting Children from Electronic Cigarette Advertising Act, which would ban marketing e-cigarettes to minors. 
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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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ISO is failing the standard test

Today's post is shared from ituc-csi.org/
Standards underpinning safety management at work should be a good thing, right? Right – but only if they are good ones. And the draft standard cooked up by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), warns ITUC general secretary Sharan Burrow, is far from good.


When the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) decided in 2013 to proceed with its own international standard for an Occupational Health and Safety Management System – ISO 45001 - it knew there were sensitivities.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) – which “gives an equal voice to workers, employers and governments to ensure that the views of the social partners are closely reflected in labour standards and in shaping policies and programmes” - had earlier made clear the far less transparent ISO shouldn’t be treading on its toes. Unions led by ITUC were similarly alarmed, and objected forcibly to ISO’s intrusion.
ISO, after all, does not have an expert mandate in occupational health and safety, and it doesn’t have to listen to those who have. Its membership is restricted to national standards bodies. These bodies at national level might allow unions and employers a say but they are, like ISO, constituted to set standards for “consumers.” The British Standards Institute (BSI), which chairs and provides the secretariat for the ISO 45,001 standard, has about 10,000 members, few of whom will have worker safety on their...
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