Temperatures reached 97 degrees on June 21 at the French Robinson Unit prison the day Seth Donnelly collapsed. The Texas Observer reported Seth passed out during his prison job of training attack dogs—running around in a 75-pound “fight suit” while the dogs tried to bite him. Seth’s internal body temperature was 106 when he reached the hospital, where …
For Incarcerated Workers, Summer Heat Can Be a Death Sentence Read More »
In its first completed rollback of a previously issued regulation in the Trump administration*, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration today announced its final recordkeeping regulation that eliminates the requirement that certain employers send in to OSHA detailed information about injuries and illnesses that employers already collect. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs announced …
OSHA Announces Rollback of Recordkeeping Requirements Read More »
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about how “freak accidents” are neither “freak,” nor “accidental.” As I explained then: First, the phrase implies that this type of incident hardly ever happens and there is, therefore, not much you can do about it. In fact, the phrase “freak accident” is a double-whammy. Not only does …
In an alarming development in the world of workplace safety, the latest statistics reveal that the number of accidental deaths on the job in America is on the rise, reversing the longer-term trend toward fewer fatal incidents. The number of deaths hit a total of 5,190 in 2016, up from 4,836 in 2015, according to …
Workplace Deaths Are Rising. Trump-Era Budget Cuts Could Make It Worse. Read More »
Tesla has expanded its list of worker injuries following a report published in Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, which flagged under-counting and safety problems at the company’s Fremont, California facility last month. The move also comes one week after CEO and founder Elon Musk blasted the media for reporting on the discrepancies and threatened to start a …
For the 27th year in a row, the AFL-CIO has produced Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect. The report gathers evidence on the state of safety and health protections for America’s workers. Passed in 1970, the Occupational Safety and Health Act has saved the lives of more than 559,000 working people. President Barack Obama …
15 Things You Need to Know from the 2018 Death on the Job Report Read More »
Fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lent his support to the historic Memphis sanitation workers’ strike. Today, the safe working conditions that strikers fought for in 1968 remain elusive for low-wage workers in one Memphis warehouse. Workers at the XPO Logistics warehouse in Memphis announced in early April that they had filed a …
Toiling Over a “Puddle of Blood”: Why These Warehouse Workers Are Standing Up to Abuses Read More »
Elon Musk, owner of SpaceX and Tesla is a seriously strange and driven guy. That can be a good thing in some circumstances and even amusing if it’s your next door neighbor or crazy uncle. But when you own a major car company, it can mean workers getting hurt or killed. Last May we wrote …
Production Over Safety at Tesla: “People are getting hurt every day” Read More »
On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Firefighters arrived at the scene, but their ladders weren’t tall enough to reach the impacted area. Trapped inside because the owners had locked the fire escape exit doors, workers jumped to their deaths. Thirty minutes later, the fire was …
The Lessons of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Are Still Relevant 107 Years Later Read More »
When Silvia Perez came to Immokalee, Florida from Guatemala in 1993, there was one profession that made sense: working in the fields. “Tomato-picking is the biggest industry in Florida, and you find out about it right when you arrive,” she said. “It’s bigger than textiles or the restaurant business.” Perez got a job on a …
Wendy’s refuses to join program protecting farm workers from sexual abuse Read More »
Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.
