health and safety

Six dead in Georgia poultry plant liquid nitrogen leak, this week in the war on workers

Leave a Comment / Health & Safety, workplace safety / By max cyril

Six people are dead after a liquid nitrogen leak at a Georgia poultry plant and 11 others were hospitalized, with at least three in critical condition. Two of the people killed were Mexican citizens, and those injured included at least four firefighters. “When leaked into the air, liquid nitrogen vaporizes into an odorless gas that’s capable …

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WHICH STATES AND CITIES HAVE ADOPTED COMPREHENSIVE COVID-19 WORKER PROTECTIONS?

1 Comment / Pandemic, Worker Protection / By max cyril

As the COVID-19 pandemic surges in the United States, workers have continued to protest and organize for their safety and health—but action is needed at all levels of government, starting with the top. To date, the Trump administration—specifically, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration—has resisted issuing any workplace safety standards or requirements to protect workers from COVID-19 in the …

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Warehouse Workers Are on the Front Lines of the Covid Crisis. They’re Worried They’ll Be Passed Over for the Vaccine.

Leave a Comment / Essential Worker, workplace safety / By max cyril

As Halloween approached, Ronald Jackson spent his days at a Chicago-area warehouse for the Mars candy company ?“getting Halloween candy to America.” After co-workers got Covid-19, Jackson complained to management about a lack of safety precautions. Rather than improving precautions, he said, the company fired Jackson for an alleged infraction that occurred months ago. Such situations are why workers …

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Think about who doesn’t get a Thanksgiving, and who’s to blame, this week in the war on workers

Leave a Comment / Health & Safety, Pandemic, Thanksgiving / By max cyril

We’re heading into Thanksgiving week, and we’re hearing a lot of discussion of how people are—or aren’t—staying safe, from solitary living to plans for large gatherings and everything in between. We also need to be talking about how this holiday season kicks off after 35 straight weeks of a million or more people applying for unemployment insurance, …

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Lawsuit over meatpacking worker’s COVID-19 death alleges truly grotesque abuses

Leave a Comment / Health & Safety, Pandemic, Rural America / By max cyril

This is sickening. We’ve known that the meatpacking industry has acted with callous disregard for its workers’ lives in the coronavirus pandemic, keeping them on the job in unsafe conditions. But according to a lawsuit by the family of the late Isidro Fernandez, it’s worse than that. At the Tyson pork processing plant where Fernandez worked in Iowa, …

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What the workplace will look like under a Biden White House

Leave a Comment / Department of Labor, Health & Safety, MinimumWage, union mobilizing / By max cyril

The U.S. workplace will look much different with Joe Biden in the Oval Office — with some significant changes possible even if Republicans maintain a majority in the Senate. “Biden, who won the endorsement of almost every major union in the country, has made labor reform a fundamental part of his program and is widely expected to name at least …

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Health and Safety Standards for Frontline Healthcare Workers

Leave a Comment / Essential Worker, Health & Safety, Pandemic, workplace safety / By max cyril

America’s frontline healthcare workers have rightly been called our country’s real superheroes. But the truth is that the US healthcare system is falling far short in its obligation to protect these essential workers in the face of the worst global pandemic in more than a century. A Failure to Protect It should perhaps come as …

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Teachers unions test goodwill with strike threats, hardball negotiations

Leave a Comment / Teachers, unions / By max cyril

In addition to safety measures, some unions are pressing for police-free schools, canceling rents and mortgages, and bans on new charter programs and standardized testing. Teachers won newfound respect at the start of the pandemic as parents learned just how difficult it was to teach their kids at home. But teachers unions now risk squandering …

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Health providers’ scramble for staff and supplies reveals sharp disparities

Leave a Comment / health care / By max cyril

Doctors, nurses and caregivers at smaller and poorer hospitals and medical facilities across the country are still struggling to obtain the protective gear, personnel and resources they need to fight the coronavirus despite President Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that the problems are solved. Health care workers at all types of facilities scrambled for scarce masks, …

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In-person school won’t be safe, and it won’t be a return to the old normal, teachers say

Leave a Comment / Teachers / By max cyril

A new poll of teachers shows just how much of the burden is being pushed off on them. More than four out of five of the teachers said they were worried about in-person teaching, with 77% fearful for their own health. In that context, it’s kind of amazing that just two out of three said …

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