Age

It is bizarre to find myself looking at an obituary of a classmate, who was likely 10 years my junior. Cancer is certainly an insidious disease. Yvonne looked fine a few months ago. She was so enthusiastic and passionate about her studies. I read that she had passed away and was left thinking 'that can't be the same Yvonne', since I didn't know what her family name was. Unfortunately it was the same woman. It's just strange. I know only 2 people my own age who have died. Something to come to grips with as one ages.

2008 BLS stats

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics has released the official Injury and Illness statistics for the 2008 calendar year. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/osh2.nr0.htm Table 23 is usually one of particular interest to me: this breaks down the data by causation, rather than industry. Not that the social demographics aren't interesting - but I can't control the demographics of my work place. The cause (fall, exposure, etc.) are what industrial hygienists are out to control. Hopefully the fatality data will be later today.

Making up for lost time?

No. However, it is nice to see OSHA trying to look scary. The explosion at Imperial Sugar in Georgia has the Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board report released earlier this week. The 3rd paragraph of the story in the NYTimes has a link to the document. Lots of pretty good photographs, with diagrams, etc. I haven't read one of their reports before. 89 pages of reading for a chilly Autumn evening. The Times article reports the proposed $8.7 million fines. This popped up on my radar right after the news today brought up the fines announced against BP following their explosion in Texas a few years ago. In both cases, I'm far more curious about how much these companies will actually pay. We all know that "proposed fines" bears no semblance to "actual fines". The Times article about BP included: Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has repeatedly said that “there’s a new sheriff in town,” signaling that she would take a more aggressive approach in enforcing wage and labor laws, after what she said was lax enforcement under President George W. Bush. This might be more plausible, if OSHA hadn't been so lax for the past 39 years. How often do they prosecute anyone for anything? BP is cited for 439 willful and egregious violations. This is finally the trigger to request the Attorney General to prosecute criminal charges. Are they going to? If 15 deaths & 439 willful violations don't do it .... what will? The Strib also reported (the only point in their article which wasn't in the Times): Since the 2005 accident, four additional people have died at the Texas refinery, including one employee and three contractors. BP was fined $50m by the Department of Justice in 2007 to settle criminal charges stemming from the Texas explosion. Reports the BBC News. This subtly gets to the point most in the US miss. These criminal charges are from failure to comply with the Clean Air Act. In other words, the EPA had them prosecuted. These people likely won't be criminally prosecuted from OSHA. Like everything else with the gov't: wait and see ... wait and see ...

Weekly Fatalities

It's sad that they can actually report this by week. The U.S. Department of Labor has a Weekly Reports of Fatalities, Catastrophes, and Other Events. I wish there was a note as to which ones were fatalities. Especially since a few of the entries read:

• Victim was cleaning out a pit at a grain elevator. He was walking near the unguarded opening and fell through, 15-20 feet, to the bottom of the pit. - now this I assume is a fatality
• Victim fell from a 3-step ladder. -- how is this on the list at all, unless it was a fatality?

There is a note: There are 26 OSHA State Plan States. Since there is no reporting requirement, a number of states have elected not to report their fatalities to OSHA. .

that's all, folks

Title 29 - Labor Chapter 15 - Occupational Safety & Health Sec. 666 - Civil and criminal penalties (e) Willful violation causing death to employee Any employer who willfully violates any standard, rule, or order promulgated pursuant to section 655 of this title, or of any regulations prescribed pursuant to this chapter, and that violation caused death to any employee, shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or by imprisonment for no more than six months, or by both; except that if the conviction is for a violation committed after a first conviction of such person, punishment shall be by a fine of not more than $20,000 or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both. Now, here we go: > "civil and criminal penalties" gives a first impression that the plural applies to criminal, as well as civil. Nope. There's only one criminal provision under the federal (and Minnesota) Occupational Safety & Health Act. It's here. You need to actually achieve killing your employee. Not only that, but it also needs to meet the legal definition of "willful", which isn't the same as used in normal conversation. There's one of those op-ed pieces on a blog bemoaning the state of affairs when killing your worker carries a lower penalty than assaulting a burro on federal property. A claim I've read before. The author, however, failed to provide a bibliography along with the word 'bibliography'. So, I'm not sure how valid his numbers are, or where they're from. Which is sad, because I would like to use some of them & would have been happier if I didn't need to go looking for the information from primary sources. Like the burro. Or ... "By comparison with other federal agencies, OSHA is hardly the big bully it is often painted as. For example, the penalty for killing a burro on federal land is one year in jail, and the penalty for mail fraud is up to 30 years behind bars. The Environmental Protection Agency [in the course of] one year obtained prison sentences totaling 256 years." e.g. I'd like to know which year that was & where the burro law is. He also stated: "... there are fewer OSHA compliance officers than there are U.S. fish and game wardens. In other words, the large mouth bass and the wild turkey are afforded better [protection] than U.S. workers."

OHS prosecution in UK

Apparently we aren't the only ones who complain about the lack of prosecution for occupational safety failure.

The Guardian is pro-labor, left-leaning paper (left in the sense the the US uses it).

Fatality: cage washer

I've never seen a walk-in version of these. This is - like just about any other occupational cause - a gruesome way to die. The story isn't new; it was brought up in my law course discussing torts. In short, a worker became trapped in a cage washer (like a giant dishwasher for animal cages) and was fatally scalded. Steam burns are horrid, horrid things. Minnesota's Dept. Labor states: "Because there's a fatality here that caused or contributed to, there's a non-negotiable penalty of $25,000 per penalty." The article cited an average of 72 occupational deaths per year in Minnesota. Details of the inspections were not made public, but each [Minnesota] OSHA citation pointed to a specific safety rule involving equipment safety: ...employees must be able to open an exit route door from the inside at all times without special knowledge or tools ... the guarding device... shall be designed and constructed as to prevent the operator from placing any part of his body in danger zone during the operation cycle. ... each machine shall be equipped so it is possible for the operator to cut off the power without leaving the position at the point of operation. I'm not clear on how that would have mitigated this specific incident. The hospital planed to contest the findings and the fines. How is it possible that fines be "non-negotiable" and yet "contestable"? My understanding has always been that 'contesting' fines generally means "pleading them to a lower amount". .

Xcel & others prosecuted

People say the strangest things: It was just an accident. Xcel Energy is being prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department (upon the request of OSHA) for the deaths of 5 people a couple years ago. More interesting to me is that individual people are being prosecuted as well, not just the corporation. Two people from the sub-contractor doing the work. The original story from 2007 in the NY Times has a nice photo showing the exterior of the worksite. Minneapolis-based Xcel issued a statement Friday that said the fire was an accident, not a criminal act. Do these people actually think the two are mutually contradictory? Well, I guess they do. Or at least, they want you to. ... occurred during the renovation of a large empty metal pipe down which water normally flowed to create hydroelectric power. Five employees of RPI Coating were trapped in the pipe when chemicals being used in the renovation caught fire and blocked their only exit. well, since Xcel is here and the fatalities were there, the Denver paper has a better article. workers were in a drained water tunnel, known as a penstock, connected to the plant, cleaning a sprayer with a flammable solvent. Vapor from the solvent ignited, causing the fire ... There is a link at the bottom of this article to a .pdf copy of the Federal Indictment. I suppose there should be a standard disclaimer: this is my personal opinion, blah blah, based upon information available at the time blah blah.

$8.8 million

third largest fine in history $8,777,500 in fines 108 willful violations about combstible dust I'm left wondering if the inspectors simply cited every observation separately, rather than as one blanket "failure to comply with ...." I called OSHA to ask for a copy. I am in awe. Morbid, horrified awe.

The 300

Well, actually more like 200. Yes, California Occupational Health and Safety Administration - or Cal-OSHA, has about 200 inspectors. For the whole state. After some pregnant teenage migrant worker died of heat, I guess they might do something. Send that 0.5% of the inspectors (i.e., 1) to start checking to see if all of those millions of acres of farmland are actually vaguely complying with OSHA or ACGIH. Nah.