[occ-env-med-l] OSHA Hearing, NY Times, Blogs and Workers Memorial Day

[Guest guest]

New York Times

The New York Times ran a major, front page article today on OSHA's

failure to issues standards, highlighting (in word and photo)

yesterday's hearing of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections.

The article and hearing highlight popcorn lung as an emblematic case

of OSHA's failure to address workplace hazards, instead focusing on

voluntar! y ! programs.

The NY Times article can be found here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/washington/25osha.html?

_r=1 & hp= & oref=slogin & pagewanted=all

Hearing

Hearing statements are here (

http://edlabor.house.gov/hearings/wp042407.shtml)

You can view yesterday's OSHA hearing here. (

http://edlabor.house.gov/hearings/wp042407.shtml)

Blog

Meanwhile, the Pump Handle (htt!

p:! //thepumphandle.wordpress.com/), a public health/workplace

safety blog, has run a couple of articles touching on issues raised

by the hearing.

OSHA Tries to Look Busy addresses OSHA's announcement yesterday,

immediately prior to the hearing, of a new National Emphasis Program

focusing on " popcorn lung " in microwave popcorn facilities. Chairman

and Subcommittee Chairwoman Woolsey issued a press release

yesterday criticizing the new OSHA program as " too little, too late "

because it doesn't address other facilities where harmful flavoring

chemicals are being used, and because it comes out five years after

NIOSH published its first findings on " popcorn lung. "

OSHA's " defense " yesterday relied on constant repetition of

statistics allegedly showing the decline of workplace injuries and

illnesses over the past several years. In The Impact of OSHA

Recordkeeping Regulation Changes on Occupational Injury And Illness

Trends, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor discusses his

recent study that found that most of the alleged decline can be

attributed to changes in OSHA's recordkeeping rules, not to an

actual decline in injuries and illnesses.

Workers Memorial Day

The AFL-CIO's Death on the Job Report is being released today. The

complete report is available on the AFL-CIO webpage,

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/safety/memorial/upload/dotj-compile-

nobug.pdf and you can also access the individual charts/tables

separately at

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/safety/memorial/doj_2007.cfm.

Workers Memorial Day is Saturday, but events are being scheduled all

week. For US events, check out the AFL-CIO's website (

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/safety/memorial/) and for worldwide

events, the place to go (as usual) is Hazards

(http://www.hazards.org/wmd/ ) which has a particularly spiffy

website this year. Check it out.

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Jordan Barab

jbarab@...