workplace safety

Labor Department Issues Final ‘Fair Pay And Safe Workplaces’ Rules

Leave a Comment / President Obama / By max cyril

The Department of Labor (DOL) has released the final rules for implementing President Obama’s two-year-old Fair Pay And Safe Workplaces executive order. The July 2014 post, Obama’s ‘Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order’, explained the order: Saying that “taxpayer dollars should not reward corporations that break the law,” President Obama on Thursday issued another …

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The Advocate: North Carolina’s Transgender Discrimination Bill Hurts Everyone

Leave a Comment / Transgender / By max cyril

The Advocate has a piece by Catalina Velasquez, director of People For the American Way Foundation’s “Young People For” program, that explains why the recently passed transgender discrimination law in North Carolina hurts everyone, not just the direct targets of the legislation. An excerpt: The recent passage of House Bill 2, the North Carolina law …

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Remembering Day Davis – and Standing Up for Temp Workers

A Victory for Silica Dust Exposed Workers?

Leave a Comment / OSHA, worker's rights / By max cyril

Today, after a much-criticized delay on issuing a rule to limit workers’ exposure to cancer-causing silica dust, the Obama administration put forward a proposed rule for public consideration. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) estimates that once the rule is in effect, it could save 700 lives a year and …

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Student guest workers walk off the job at McDonald’s to protest abuses

Leave a Comment / workplace issues, workplace safety / By max cyril

Student guest workers on the J-1 cultural exchange visa program walked out of their jobs at Pennsylvania McDonald’s restaurants Wednesday morning, citing abuses of the same kinds that caused a walkout from a Hershey’s supplier in summer 2011. As a result of that strike, the State Department investigated the program and strengthened protections somewhat, but not enough, according …

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AFL-CIO Head Trumka: Romney ‘sure doesn’t know anything about coal mining’

Leave a Comment / economy, election, Workplace Conditions, workplace safety / By max cyril

The United Mine Workers of America is sitting out this presidential race as Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama battle over parts of coal country. But former UMWA president and current AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spoke to the press Monday not just as an advocate for all workers but from the perspective of a third-generation …

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Sickened South African Mine Workers Seek Justice in Courts

Leave a Comment / workplace safety / By max cyril

South Africa’s mining industry has been plastered across international headlines in recent days following the massacre of 34 protesting platinum mine workers in Marikana. This week, thousands of striking workers marched to protest the assault on labor rights and economic security by both the police and corporations. But while the media’s gaze has fixed on …

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Infographic: When Dollars Stop Fatalities

Leave a Comment / workplace safety / By max cyril

New infographics from E-Training and Compliance and Safety show that as the U.S. budget for workplace safety continues to rise, the number of deaths dramatically falls. In 2010, the United States spent a then-high of $558 million dollars a year on workplace safety, and a record low of 4,600 workers died on the job. (Infographic …

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Research Raises More Toxic Health Concerns for Popcorn Workers

Leave a Comment / Workplace Conditions, workplace safety / By max cyril

The aroma of hot buttered popcorn evokes all sorts of childhood nostalgia, but for many workers, those savory vapors pose a modern industrial health hazard. Evidence has been building over the years of a respiratory illness primarily afflicting factory workers exposed to the microwave-popcorn butter flavorant, diacetyl (DA). Now, researchers have discovered another potential hazard …

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