Tag Archives: Workers’ Memorial Day

Workers’ Memorial Day…and the Decline in Worker Safety

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Today’s post comes from guest author Charlie Domer, from The Domer Law Firm. Workers Memorial Day is on Sunday. This post describes in gruesome detail how the Trump Administration has moved to undercut workplace safety.

Last week (April 28) was Workers’ Memorial Day, remembering and honoring all those workers who have been injured or killed in the workplace.  While we’ve come a long way in our country toward protecting workers, current politics and politicians are actively working to undermine a century of progress.

I encourage everyone to read the following informative post on the current statistics of workplace injuries and the effort to encourage less protection for workers: The Health and Safety of America’s Workers Is At Risk.  

The author, Kathleen Rest, provided a detailed list of the Trump administrations intention on “rolling back public protections and prioritizing industry over the public interest”:

  • Right off the bat, the president issued his two-for-one executive order requiring agencies to rescind two regulations for each new one they propose. So, to enact new worker health and safety protections, two others would have to go.

  • OSHA has delayed implementation or enforcement of several worker protection rules that address serious health risks and were years in the making—i.e., silica, the cause of an irreversible and debilitating lung disease, and beryllium, a carcinogen and also the source of a devastating lung disease.

  • OSHA has left five advisory and committees to languish—the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health; the Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee; the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health; the Federal Advisory Council; and the Maritime Advisory Committee—thus depriving the agency of advice from independent experts and key stakeholders. Earlier this week, a number of groups, including the Union of Concerned Scientists, sent a letter to Secretary of Labor Acosta asking him to stop sidelining the advice of independent experts.

  • President Trump signed a resolution that permanently removed the ability of OSHA to cite employers with a pattern of record keeping violations related to workplace injuries and illnesses. Yes, permanently, because it was passed under the Congressional Review Act. And Secretary Acosta recently seemed hesitant to commit not to rescind OSHA’s rule to improve electronic recordkeeping of work-related injuries and illnesses.

  • Having failed in efforts to cut some worker health and safety protections and research in his FY18 budget proposal, the president is going at it again with his FY19 proposal. He is calling for the elimination of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board and OSHA’s worker safety and health training program, Susan Harwood Training Grants. There is, however, a tiny bit of good news for workers in President Trump’s proposed budget for OSHA; it includes a small (2.4 percent) increase for enforcement, as well as a 4.2 percent increase for compliance assistance. Of note, employers much prefer compliance assistance over enforcement activities.

  • The president’s budget also proposes to cut research by 40 percent at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)—the only federal agency solely devoted to research on worker health and safety—and eliminate the agency’s educational research centers, agriculture, forestry and fishing research centers and external research programs.

  • He has also proposed taking NIOSH out of CDC, perhaps combining it later with various parts of the National Institutes of Health. Never mind that NIOSH was established by statute as an entity by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.

  • The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has also jumped on the regulatory reform bandwagon. The agency has indicated its intent to review and evaluate its regulations protecting coal miners from black lung disease. This at a time when NIOSH has identified the largest cluster of black lung disease ever reported.

  • EPA actions are also putting workers at risk. Late last year, the EPA announced that it will revise crucial protections for more than two million farmworkers and pesticide applicators, including reconsidering the minimum age requirements for applying these toxic chemicals. Earlier in the year, the agency overruled its own scientists when it decided not to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos, thus perpetuating its serious risk to farmworkers, not to mention their children and users of rural drinking water. And the agency has delayed implementation of its Risk Management Plan rule to prevent chemical accidents for nearly two years.

  • The Department of Interior is following up on an order from President Trump to re-evaluate regulations put into place by the Obama administration in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010, which killed 11 offshore workers and created the largest marine oil spill in United States’ drilling history.

  • And then there’s a new proposal at the U.S. Department of Agriculture that seeks to privatize the pork inspection system and remove any maximum limits on line speeds in pig slaughter plants. Meat packing workers in pork slaughter houses already have higher injury and illness rates than the national average. Increasing line speeds only increases their risk.


Scary times.  I fear we may be remembering more and more injured workers moving forward.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in safety rollback, Trump, work injuries, Worker safety and tagged , .

Examining the Reality of Workers’ Memorial Day

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We write this blog post to bring attention to an article that was a big dose of perspective about all the recent Workers’ Memorial Day celebrations. The official day is April 28 for Workers’ Memorial Day, and many groups spend a lot of effort in organizing events, discussing safety, and holding memorials. Unfortunately, as the article points out, those efforts don’t always translate into safer workplaces and fewer fatalities.

What Karen C. Yotis and Robin E. Kobayashi did was talk to “a few thought leaders in the workplace safety arena” to get the reality of the situation by asking the question: “Has worker safety improved at all during the past year?” The experts they spoke with included “Tammy Miser, Founder/Executive Director of United Support & Memorial For Workplace Fatalities; Kim Bobo, Executive Director for Interfaith Worker Justice; Charles R. ‘Chuck’ Davoli, 2014 President of Workers’ Injury Law & Advocacy Group and a Louisiana Workers Advocate; and Rebecca Shafer, attorney, author, and a workers’ compensation/risk management maven who has spent her professional life advocating for safe workplaces.”

There is often a disconnect between thought and reflection and then taking action to change a situation. The blog post treads into the waters of holding people and businesses accountable and also taking action that leads to long-term change in the form of safer work environments.

Attorneys Rod and Jon Rehm are members of WILG’s Board of Directors, which is currently led by Mr. Davoli, and the other attorneys at Rehm, Bennett & Moore are all members of WILG because of the group’s efforts towards both accountability for businesses and safety for workers.

While we urge you to read the entire blog post that’s linked to in the first paragraph, here are a couple of thought-provoking highlights.

First, it is striking that a “cost containment expert” like Ms. Shafer describes how businesses must focus on safety. Although it’s at the end of the linked article, Ms. Shafer’s commentary is excellent – the article says that she “speaks out so passionately on the employer’s obligation to keep an unrelenting focus on safety.” Here’s a partial quote that she gave to the article: “ … the bottom line is that each employer needs to make safety the #1 priority. … Until worker safety is TOP priority, a company will continue to have very little success in achieving a balanced workers’ compensation insurance program.” She writes about making safety a higher priority than profitability, but realistically, companies would be much more profitable if they were also much safer.

Finally, Mr. Davoli shared a list of “nine safety elements” for “the construction and building trades” that a Workplace Safety Task Force created in Louisiana with WILG’s help.

Here’s that excellent list:

“1. A designated safety budget as part of the normal operating budget.

 2. A formal safety committee that meets on a regular schedule.

 3. An employer that pays employees for the hours they spend attending voluntary off-duty safety training sessions.

 4. A formal personal protective equipment training program.

 5. Written and formal safety goals that are updated periodically.

 6. Safety training for subcontractors.

 7. Detailed safety reports to employees on a regular basis.

 8. Regularly scheduled safety training programs for existing employees.

 9. A disciplinary procedure for employees who commit unsafe acts.”

The reflection portion of Workers’ Memorial Day must turn to action. The reality is that until businesses buy into and change their work culture to be safe, there will always be a need to remember those who were killed at work.

Thanks to Ms. Yotis and Ms. Kobayashi for writing such an excellent piece.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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