Health and Safety on the Job

The hard work and advocacy of workers and unions has resulted in tremendous gains in workplace safety standards throughout the years. Many lives have been saved and countless injuries prevented because of existing regulations at the state and federal level. However, thousands of American workers still die each year in preventable accidents on the job. Many more are injured, and countless workers will develop serious illnesses and diseases due to unsafe working conditions. In many cases, fatalities or injuries could have been prevented had employers simply followed existing existing safety regulations. Enforcing these regulations more rigorously, as well as improving existing standards and adding new regulations can save workers' lives. The Labor Movement continues to work hard to ensure that this happens, and that every worker has the best possible opportunity to return home safely each day.

The passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 was a turning point in providing Americans with safe working conditions, but it is not enough. OSHA is considerably underfunded and understaffed, rendering the department unable to fully enforce safety laws. It is up to us to continue to lobby for workers' safety and to ensure that every precaution is taken to minimize the number of workplace deaths, injuries, and illnesses.    

Click here to read about The Labor Movement's Role in Gaining Federal Safety and Health Standards to Protect America's Workers.

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Workers' Memorial Day 2009

 

 Workers Memorial Day Commemoration 2009

 

 Governor Patrick commemorates Workers’ Memorial Day with executive order extending workplace protections to state employees


Rebuffed by previous administrations, safety advocates and unions hail the effort as critical to preventing workplace deaths and injuries
 
April 28, 2009, Boston -At a ceremony commemorating Massachusetts workers killed and injured on the job in 2008, Governor Deval Patrick announced a new executive order that could help prevent state employees from meeting a similar fate.   The executive order calls for the establishment of safety committees in all state agencies to document workplace hazards and safety measures needed.   Safety experts and unions have been calling for the state to establish safety protections for public employees for years, but prior to the Patrick administration had been rebuffed.
 
“This Executive Order demonstrates the Governor’s commitment to protecting the health and safety of state employees in a truly meaningful way,” announced Suzanne M. Bump, Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. “We look forward to working closely with our employees’ representatives to improve the safety of our state workforce.” 
 
Unlike their counterparts in the private sector, public employees in the Commonwealth are not covered by safety requirements under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). When OSHA was enacted in the 1970’s, it gave states the option to extend safety protections to public employees. Though twenty-seven states already apply these regulations to public employees, Massachusetts does not.
 
“State employees do jobs that are just as or more dangerous than those in the private sector," said Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, “We applaud the Governor for taking this essential step toward instituting safety measures that will most certainly prevent more needless workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths."
 
State employees include highway workers exposed daily to lead dust, maintenance workers who work with heavy machinery, and electrical workers exposed to electrical hazards. In fact, the call from unions and safety activists for health and safety protections for public employees escalated after the death of a Logan Airport electrician, Roger LeBlanc in 2004, whose electrocution may have been prevented had OSHA safety measures been implemented.
 
"It's long past time that our Commonwealth's government begins to hold itself to the same workplace safety standards as the private sector and begin the work of providing safer workplaces for our public employees. Our public employees are under enough fire in these difficult times. The very least we can do is get this Executive Order signed and give workers these protections. The Patrick Administration deserves a great deal of credit for taking this important step,” said Robert Haynes, President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. “This is a great victory for the Labor Movement and workplace safety advocates, but there's much more to be done and we're committed to see it through."
 
Each year, Commonwealth residents spend more than $50 million in workers’ compensation costs for injuries and illnesses incurred by state employees alone. According to data provided by New Hampshire’s Department of Labor, after implementing OSHA protections to state employees in 1998, the state of New Hampshire reduced their workers comp claims by an average of 51% - and between the years 2001 and 2004 they saved $3.3 million. 
 
“This is a great day for public employees in Massachusetts who are finally going to be protected by the same safety rules that have protected employees in the private sector for almost 40 years,” said Kevin Preston, Massachusettsdirector of the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE). “On behalf of the 20,000 state employees represented by SEIU Locals 888 and 509 and SEIU/NAGE, we want to thank Governor Patrick for taking this long overdue step. With more effective safety rules, employees will have fewer on the job injuries and taxpayers will enjoy considerable savings from each accident that doesn't happen. It's good policy and its good business.”
 
A report released yesterday by MassCOSH and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO highlighted a state electrical worker who suffered an injury in 2008. An investigation by the Massachusetts Division of Occupational Safety found that the accident might have been prevented had the state instituted a number of basic safety measures which would have been required under OSHA.
 
“Today, professional state employees can feel gratified to know that the hard work they do and risks they take for all of us who live in Massachusetts is held in the high regard it deserves,” said Joe Dorant, president of the Massachusetts Organization of State Engineers and Scientists (MOSES). “Ensuring the protection of every worker’s health and safety should be a basic and fundamental right.”
Photographs from today’s event are available at the Massachusetts AFL-CIO’s online photo gallery at:  http://www.massaflcio.org/image/tid/1011.
 
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The Massachusetts AFL-CIO is the largest umbrella labor organization in the Commonwealth, representing hundreds of thousands of working families from member unions and serves as the voice of working families in Massachusetts.
MassCOSH, a nonprofit coalition representing over 100,000 workers, health and safety professionals and unions, promotes safe, secure jobs and healthy communities throughout eastern and central Massachusetts.
 
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Health and Safety News

Walmart Slammed by OSHA on Store Safety
05/29/2009 - 11:13am

OSHA slapped Walmart with the maximum penalty allowed under the law for "exposing workers to the recognized hazard of being crushed by the crowd," after a worker was crushed to death during last year's Black Friday blitz.

Solis Set to Announce Two Key Job Safety and Health Rules
05/13/2009 - 4:54pm

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will announce today that the Labor Department is moving forward to develop two new major workplace safety rules to protect workers from combustible dust explosions—such as the one that killed 13 workers at a Georgia sugar plant last year—and from a dangerous chemical that causes “popcorn lung,” according to the Associated Press. The rules could take up to a year or two to finalize.

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Dying for Work in Massachusetts

Click to download the 2009 reportClick to download the 2009 report

 

 

Click to download the 2008 reportClick to download the 2008 report