[http://www.nycosh.org/Update10_July-Sept_2001.html]
NYCOSH Update on Safety
and Health Archive
July - September
2001
The
Update on Safety and Health is published every two weeks by NYCOSH.
Scroll down to see the contents of each issue. If
you would like a free subscription to the biweekly NYCOSH Update
on Safety and Health, click
here
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To
browse the table of contents of all issues (including those published
before July 2001), click
here.
NYCOSH UPDATE
September 27, 2001
In response to a large number
of questions from unions and workers about compensation for victims
of the events of September 11, NYCOSH has prepared this
factsheet, which lists the major compensation programs and
explains who is eligible for each of them. If you know anyone
is in any of these groups, please pass the information along
to them.
Who is eligible for government
compensation as a result of the World Trade Center catastrophe?
- Anyone who lost time from work
because of an injury or needed medical care for an injury resulting
from the attack
- Anyone who lost time from work
because of emotional trauma or needed medical care for emotional
trauma resulting from the attack
- The dependents of anyone who
was killed in the attack
- Anyone who lost personal property
as a result of the attack or whose property was damaged
- Anyone whose residence or place
of business must be cleaned or repaired before it can be used
normally
NYCOSH UPDATE
September 17, 2001
Special issue: The Catastrophe
at the World Trade Center
Right now thousands of workers
are involved in heroic recovery and clean-up operations at the
site of the World Trade Center and in the surrounding area. The
New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH)
has received many questions from workers, unions and Lower Manhattan
residents about the safety and health hazards that they may be
exposed to, including contaminated air and the danger of communicable
disease.
This
factsheet provides a
description of some of the potential hazards and an outline of
ways that workers and managers can minimize some of the hazards.
To obtain additional information
about these and other hazards and methods of protecting safety
and health, please contact any of the organizations listed on
the last page of the factsheet.
For additional information about
safety and health in the aftermath of the catastrophe at the
World Trade Center, click
here.
NYCOSH UPDATE September
7, 2001
The 825 most dangerous workplaces
in New York State
Last month the U.S. Labor Department
and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration released
a list of nearly 14,000 employers in the U.S. with excessively
high injury rates.
There are 825 New York State
employers on the list, 5.9 percent of the total. Each of the
listed employers had a lost-workday-injury-and-illness (LWDII)
rate of at least eight per hundred workers, compared to a national
average LWDII of three. The data is from 1999, the most recent
available.
At the same time OSHA released
the names of the employers, it sent a letter to each of them
explaining that "employees in your business are being injured
at a higher rate than in most other businesses in the country,"
and stating: "OSHA recognizes that an elevated LWDII rate
does not necessarily indicate a lack of interest in safety and
health on the part of your business. Whatever the cause, however,
a high rate is costly to your company in both personal and financial
terms."
The list does not include employers
in the construction, agriculture and mining industries, which
have LWDII rates that are significantly higher than general industry.
This is the third year that OSHA
has compiled and released a list of general-industry employers
with excessive LWDII rates.
Of the 825 New York State employers
on the list, 221, or 27 percent, are nursing homes. The disproportionate
presence of nursing homes on the list is due to the industry's
overall LWDII rate that is 2-1/2 times the average for general
industry. Approximately one-third of all the nursing homes in
New York State are on OSHA's list.
Wholesale merchandise operations
are the second largest group, making up 11.8 percent of the list,
followed by fabricated metal products manufacturing (8.1 percent),
food production (7.5 percent) and trucking and warehousing at
6 percent.
Several employers or franchise
operations appear repeatedly, including 13 United Parcel Service
facilities, 13 Pepsi-Cola bottlers, 12 Coca-Cola bottlers, and
nine Federal Express offices. Each of those employers had similarly
large numbers of workplaces included in last year's list.
Employers in New York City, Long
Island and Westchester make up 23 percent of the list, with 96
in New York City, 72 on Long Island and 20 in Westchester.
Click
here for the list of
825 New York State employers, arranged both by zip code and by
type of business. The lists posted in previous years are also
available there, as is a link to the OSHA website's national
list of 14,000 employers.
--
From the September 7, 2001 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
John Henshaw takes charge of OSHA
In early August the Bush administration's
choice to head OSHA, John Henshaw, breezed through a Senate confirmation
hearing that lasted less than an hour. Despite their having fought
a bitter battle over the repeal of the OSHA ergonomics standard
six months earlier, members of the Senate's Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions Committee allowed Henshaw to sidestep all
questions about ergonomics and any other controversies over OSHA
policy.
Several senators expressed dissatisfaction
with developments at OSHA, including Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY),
who took the opportunity to tell Henshaw "a number of us
remain concerned about the roll-back of the ergonomics regulation,"
but none pressed for any specific commitments by the nominee.
Henshaw, who was the only witness in the brief proceeding, emphasized
his many years of experience as corporate safety official and
his belief in "forceful and fair enforcement."
Without any appearance of opposition,
Henshaw's nomination was approved unanimously by the committee.
The next day the full Senate confirmed him without dissent.
The lack of controversy surrounding
Henshaw's confirmation reflects satisfaction with his nomination
on the part of major unions, employers and organizations of safety
and health specialists, such as the American Industrial Hygiene
Association and the American Society of Safety Engineers.
AFL-CIO Safety and Health Director
Peg Seminario describes Henshaw as "a competent and widely
respected safety and health professional who's got a lot of experience
in the field," an opinion echoed by Scott Schneider, Safety
and Health Director for the Laborers' Health and Safety Fund
of North America, who told NYCOSH: "Henshaw is a professional
who is genuinely concerned about the health and safety of workers.
I think he's fair and willing to listen to workers and unions."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's director of labor law policy,
Peter Eide says "I think he's got the right approach."
But amidst his widespread acceptance,
safety and health activists also expressed concern about the
possibility the new OSHA Administrator might attempt to lead
the agency in a direction that lacks any legal basis and is widely
opposed by organized labor.
Such concern is based on Henshaw's
26 years as a safety manager and safety director of the giant
chemical manufacturer Monsanto and its recent spin-off, Astaris.
Both companies have been deeply involved in a controversial method
of occupational safety and health policy known as "behavior-based
safety" (BBS).
BBS is the target of sharp criticism
from many safety and health activists, who see it as putting
the focus of safety and health programs on the prevention of
"unsafe acts," instead of focusing on eliminating conditions
that could give rise to injury or illness. As such, they argue,
BBS is incompatible with one of the basic tenets of occupational
safety and health policy, the hierarchy of controls.
According to the principle of
the hierarchy of controls, which forms the basis of most OSHA
regulations, the fundamental method of enhancing occupational
safety is to design processes and equipment to eliminate or minimize
hazards. BBS techniques, on the other hand, focus on making modifications
to the behavior of workers, not making modifications to the design
of the production process. Many labor activists regard the BBS
emphasis on behavior as being contradictory to the primary need
to focus on using the techniques of engineering to eliminate
circumstances that could cause injuries or near misses.
BBS proponents insist that their
program must be used in conjunction with the hierarchy of controls,
but many activists say that, in practice, the two approaches
are not compatible with each other. "When companies spend
their money to hire psychologists and other BBS experts instead
of safety engineers, it shifts the entire focus of a safety program
onto worker behavior," says one union official, who requested
anonymity "Even the head of OSHA can't legally substitute
BBS for the hierarchy of controls, but OSHA doesn't have a dime
to spare, so any resources that are diverted to BBS-related training
or to funding BBS techniques means cutting the budget for activity
that actually promotes safety and health," the official
adds.
Less than a month after taking
office, Henshaw embarked on a policy initiative that has the
potential to divert OSHA resources from enforcement efforts,
when he and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao announced on Aug. 27
that the Bush administration had decided to support legislation
that would have the effect of amending the Occupational Safety
and Health Act. The change they seek is to write into the law
the agency's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) – which
has been governed by agency regulations and not statute since
its inception 19 years ago.
Henshaw and the Bush administration
are backing a bill (HR 2235) that would write VPP into law. As
the bill is written, the change in VPP's status would be innocuous,
but there is nothing to prevent the legislature from amending
the bill to codify employer-friendly policies are not consistent
with existing law. An AFL-CIO spokesperson told NYCOSH that the
federation had not taken a position on the legislation in its
present form, "but we would vigorously oppose any legislation
that would have an adverse impact on our members or other workers."
During his first month in office
Henshaw has not been reported to have made any explicit references
to the role of BBS in OSHA policy, but some observers see hints
of a move toward BBS in such statements as his August 23 remark
about the need for tighter enforcement to reduce the fatality
rate in the construction industry. We "may have reached
a plateau," on construction fatalities, he told reporters.
As a result, he added, "we may need to find a different
way to approach it."
--
From the September 7, 2001 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
New York City Republican mayoral candidates mum on ergonomic
protection for city workers
Last April NYCOSH wrote to all
the announced major-party candidates for mayor of New York City
to ask whether they would support city regulations that would
provide the employees of the City with protections similar to
those in the federal ergonomics standard that was repealed by
congressional Republicans in March.
At the time, there were four
announced candidates, all Democrats. All four responded with
detailed letters outlining their commitment to protecting city
workers from ergonomic hazards. Click
here for a complete report of their responses.
Shortly after the letters to
the four announced candidates went out, two more major-party
candidates put their hats in the ring, Herman Badillo and Michael
Bloomberg, both Republicans. In an effort to learn, and publicize
the views of all the candidates on ergonomics, on July 12 NYCOSH
wrote to Badillo and Bloomberg, posing the same question to them:
"If you are elected, will you implement a program to reduce
ergonomic hazards for New York City workers?"
Neither of the Republican candidates
has responded to NYCOSH's letter. Except for staff members of
both candidates' having signed a form indicating they received
the letters, neither candidate has even acknowledged having been
asked the question.
--
From the September 7, 2001 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
New York City officials plead ignorance when asked ‘How
much does New York City spend to provide medical care to injured
municipal workers and to compensate them for lost time?'
There is no dispute among safety
and health experts that one essential method to protect workers
from occupational injury and illness is to collect and analyze
information about the nature and causes of injuries and illnesses
that members of a workforce experience.
New York City is one of the largest
employers in the U.S., with a budget for workers' compensation
expenditures that dwarfs the entire municipal payrolls of most
of the municipalities in the U.S. But, NYCOSH recently learned,
the City does not collect and analyze that information, nor can
it even summarize the broad outlines of its workers' compensation
experience, such as the number of workers who lose time from
work, the cost of their medical care and the cost of compensating
them for lost time.
NYCOSH discovered the City's
complete ignorance about the prevalence and cost of municipal
workers' injuries and illnesses in July, when the City responded
to a Freedom of Information Law request for detailed information
about the City's workers' compensation program with a letter
stating it did not have access to any of the requested information.
NYCOSH filed an appeal of the
City's response. On Aug. 14 the City denied the appeal, while
reiterating its position: It does not have access to the requested
information, neither the details nor a summary, about the nature
of the injuries and illnesses that result in City workers filing
workers' compensation claims or about the costs the City incurs
as a result.
--
From the September 7, 2001 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Growing Pains: NYCOSH website improves information access with
search engine
When the NYCOSH website added
its 120th page in August, it had grown beyond the point of navigability
using only its site map. To make it possible to find the information
that might otherwise elude website visitors, a search engine
has been added. Visitors will find it at the upper left corner
of the home page and other frequently visited pages.
--
From the September 7, 2001 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Save the date! NYCOSH awards celebration Thursday, December 13
NYCOSH will honor three individuals
and a union for their outstanding contributions to the development
of occupational safety and health over the last year:
- Peg Seminario, Health and Safety
Director of the AFL-CIO, in special recognition of her dedication
to the promulgation of an ergonomics standard
- Stuart Appelbaum, President
of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and Chair,
New York State AFL-CIO Safety and Health Committee
- Eric Frumin, Health and Safety
Director of Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees,
will receive the NYCOSH Karen Silkwood Award
- Professional Staff Congress,
NYSUT, AFT, will receive the NYCOSH Union Recognition Award
The ceremony will take place
in Manhattan at the Cherkasky/Davis Conference Center of the
National Benefit Fund beginning at 6pm. For tickets and information,
contact Symona Johnson at 212-627-3900 ext. 10 or nycosh@nycosh.org.
--
From the September 7, 2001 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Job openings – New York State safety and health inspector
and inspector trainee – September 10 application deadline!
The NYS Department of Civil Service
is accepting applications for Safety and Health Inspector and
Inspector Trainee positions with the Division of Occupational
Safety and Health. Salary $31,555 - $36,392. Applications must
be postmarked by September 10, 2001 for a October 13, 2001 Civil
Service examination. For the complete announcement, including
job description and responsibilities, qualifications and application
procedures, or for other information contact Ruth Kvale, NYS
Department of Labor Personnel Office, Room 555, State Campus
Building 12, Albany NY 12240. Phone: 518-457-1220. E-mail: usfrg1@labor.state.ny.us
or click
here to view examination announcements 23-852 and 23-853.
For a selection of other safety
and health job openings, click here
to visit our Safety and Health Employment Opportunities page.
--
From the September 7, 2001 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
NYCOSH UPDATE August
10, 2001
New York State Labor Department
installs new safety and health leadership
Last month, after more than a
year of acrimonious public criticism and strong expressions of
federal disapproval, the New York State Labor Department replaced
the director of its Public Employee Safety and Health Bureau
(PESH). The change was greeted with applause from some of the
agency's critics and with expressions of cautious optimism from
others.
Labor Commissioner Linda Angello
appointed veteran safety and health manager Maureen Cox to replace
Robert Perez as PESH manager. Cox, who had been PESH manager
during the tenure of Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo, was removed
from that position shortly after Republican Gov. George Pataki
was elected in 1994.
Angello appointed Cox to the
post shortly after a high-level meeting with state union officials,
including New York State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes. A spokesperson
for the state AFL-CIO told NYCOSH that Angello had agreed that
there was a need to correct the enforcement shortcomings of PESH.
"Very soon after AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes met with
Commissioner Angello, we began to see things change for the better,"
said Arthur Wilcox, Director of the state AFL-CIO's public-sector
division. "A new PESH director has been installed and we
have resumed quarterly meetings between public-sector unions
and PESH officials, meetings that had been a regular practice,
but which were suspended by the Labor Department more than four
years ago."
"Commissioner [Angello]
has committed to strengthening the relationship between PESH
and the organized labor movement of this state," said Public
Employees Federation president Roger Benson, who is the co-chair
of the New York State AFL-CIO's Public Employee Occupational
Health and Safety Committee. Benson added, "the public employee
unions have been protesting PESH deficiencies and will remain
vigilant until they are corrected." PESH enforces safety
and health regulations that apply to employees of state and local
government in New York State.
Cox's appointment could represent
a turning point for PESH, not only in its relations with organized
labor, but also with the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Over the last two years
OSHA released a series of scathing reports detailing major PESH
failures to enforce safety and health regulations. OSHA, which
is required to provide PESH with half of its budget, audits PESH
enforcement efforts but lacks any authority to intervene directly
in PESH activities.
OSHA officials expressed gratification
at the appointment of Cox to head PESH. "We have worked
with Maureen very successfully in the past," said OSHA Assistant
Regional Administrator Brenda Judson, "and we know the strength
of her commitment to making a success of the PESH program. We
look forward to continuing that relationship."
Lee Clarke, safety and health
director of one the state's largest public-sector unions, District
Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees, also expressed satisfaction at Cox's appointment.
"I have already found that PESH is more responsive to us,"
she told NYCOSH. "Of course, the proof is in the pudding,
and it is too early to draw any firm conclusions, but I am very
hopeful that she will make sure that PESH functions the way it
is supposed to."
Joel Shufro, executive director
of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health,
commented, "The appointment of Maureen Cox to head PESH
clearly demonstrates how important it has been for the labor
movement, working through the state AFL-CIO's Public Employee
Occupational Health and Safety Committee, to intervene in what
was becoming a disastrous situation. But the change will make
a difference only if Commissioner Angello follows through by
ensuring that the Labor Department takes its law-enforcement
activities seriously," he added. "For years that has
not been the case, and Cox cannot, by herself, turn the situation
around. She certainly has the skill to do so, but her efforts
will be fruitless if Angello and the Governor don't give her
the backing and the resources she needs."
For more information about the
crisis in PESH enforcement, click
here.
--
From the August 10, 2001 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Five Percent of all fire-suppression sprinklers may be defective,
but recall does not directly inform owners
When the Consumer Product Safety
Commission and Central Sprinkler Co. announced the recall of
some 35 million fire-suppression sprinkler heads last month,
it was the third largest voluntary recall ever negotiated by
a manufacturer and CPSC staff.
The recalled sprinklers, which
account for some five percent of all the fire sprinklers installed
in the U.S., have been found to deteriorate after installation.
During recent tests, approximately 25% of them did not activate
themselves in a fire, and safety engineers expect that their
failure rate will increase with the passage of time.
An earlier fire sprinkler recall
negotiated by the CPSC, which called for the replacement of some
8.4 million sprinklers with a similar defect, was called off
after less than 60 percent of the defective sprinklers had been
replaced, according to an attorney on the CPSC staff.
Under the terms of the voluntary
recall, the manufacturer is not obliged to contact the owners
of buildings where the sprinklers have been installed. NYCOSH
urges the owners (and occupants, if necessary) of buildings where
any sprinklers have been installed after 1988 to contact the
installation contractor or the sprinkler recall hotline at 1-800-871-3492
to learn whether any sprinklers on the property are among those
recalled.
--
From the August 10, 2001 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Asbestos in crayons a whopper of an urban legend? A Letter to
the Editor that the New York Times saw not fit to print
Last week the New York Times
weekly science section published an article debunking so-called
"urban legends" such as cancer-causing deodorants and
poisonous spiders that dwell under toilet seats. "Phony
though the stories may be," reported the Times, "officials
at government and private health organizations say they are increasingly
having to field inquiries from people taken in by the latest
medical hoax or rumor. ‘It always amazes me how many people
believe some of these rumors without really investigating them,''
said Dr. Ted Gansler, director of medical content for the American
Cancer Society's website'" according to the Times.
In an effort to set the victims
of hoaxers straight, the Times included a short list of "whoppers,"
including "stories about asbestos in crayons."
It was a poor choice of examples,
because the presence of asbestos in crayons is well documented.
NYCOSH felt that the readers (and editors) of the Times ought
to know the facts: many crayons contain talc that is contaminated
with asbestos. The effect on the health of crayon users is unknown,
but the asbestos-contaminated talc is known to have produced
an epidemic of asbestos-related disease among workers in upstate
New York talc mines and among residents of the talc-mining region.
We submitted the following letter, which the Times did not publish.
To the Editor:
Phony stories about imaginary
risks does indeed promote unfounded fears ("Toilet Spiders?
Not Real, but Good for a Scare," July 31). But labeling
truthful statements as phony promotes only unfounded feelings
of safety.
It is a grave mistake to include
in a list of such whoppers "stories about asbestos in crayons."
There actually is asbestos in crayons, as the Consumer Product
Safety Commission confirmed in its August 2000 "CPSC Staff
Report on Asbestos Fibers in Children's Crayons."
In that report, CPSC stated:
"Trace amounts of anthophyllite asbestos and larger amounts
of other fibers (transitional fibers) were found in Crayola and
Prang crayons.... The staff concludes that the risk a child would
be exposed to the fibers through inhalation or ingestion of crayons
containing asbestos and transitional fibers is extremely low......
Although the CPSC staff determined that the risk is extremely
low, the staff believes that as a precaution, crayons should
not contain these fibers." (The report is posted in the
CPSC website at www.cpsc.gov/LIBRARY/FOIA/Foia00/os/crayons.pdf)
The asbestos is in the crayons
because crayon manufacturers and the mining companies that supply
the asbestos-contaminated talc that goes into the crayons successfully
promoted the hoax that the talc is free of asbestos. That whopper
has resulted in exposing children to an "extremely low,"
but completely unnecessary risk. It has also resulted in the
sickness and death of thousands of miners and other workers from
asbestos-related disease, which could have been prevented if
the hoaxers had not succeeded in suppressing the truth that the
talc, and anything containing it, was inherently dangerous.
For more information about the
health effects of asbestos, including the cover-up of its presence
in talc, click
here.
--
From the August 10, 2001 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Save the date! NYCOSH awards
celebration Thursday, December 13
NYCOSH will honor three individuals
and a union for their outstanding contributions to the development
of occupational safety and health over the last year:
- Peg Seminario, Health and Safety
Director of the AFL-CIO, in special recognition of her dedication
to the promulgation of an ergonomics standard
- Stuart Appelbaum, President
of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and Chair,
New York State AFL-CIO Safety and Health Committee
- Eric Frumin, Health and Safety
Director of Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees,
will receive the NYCOSH Karen Silkwood Award
- Professional Staff Congress,
NYSUT, AFT, will receive the NYCOSH Union Recognition Award
The ceremony will take place
in Manhattan at the Cherkasky/Davis Conference Center of the
National Benefit Fund beginning at 6pm. For tickets and information,
contact Symona Johnson at 212-627-3900 ext. 10 or nycosh@nycosh.org.
--
From the August 10, 2001 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
--
From the August 10, 2001 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
This page was last
updated on November 5, 2001.