Tag Archives: OSHA

Legislation seeks to prevent heat-related deaths on the job

Posted on July 22, 2019 by Jon Rehm

Reps. Raul Grivjala (D.-Ariz.) and Judy Chu (D.-Cal) introduced federal legislation that would mandate OSHA standards for workers exposed to high heat as well as mandating paid cooling breaks, access to water and training to recognize heat stroke.

The Asuncion Valdiva Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act is named after a California worker who died after picking grapes for ten hours in 105-degree heat and modeled after a California law passed by Rep. Chu when she served in the California legislature.

Fortunately, deaths and injuries from heat exposure are covered by workers’ compensation in Nebraska. This can even be true if heat causes a heart attack where there is a heightened standard for causation. But compensation in workers’ compensation cases is limited and no amount of money can replace the life of a family member.

Nebraska recently experienced nasty heat wave that is still effecting most of the country. While agricultural production in Nebraska is more capital-intensive than in states like Arizona and California, many workers are still vulnerable to heat. The first to come to my mind would be residential construction workers building new houses in shade less subdivisions.

Climate change is expected to raise average summer temperatures in Lincoln, Nebraska by 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050 and by 11 degrees by 2100. Heat will be an even larger occupational risk than it is today.

Chicago experienced a heat wave in 1995 that killed 749 people. This little remembered natural disaster could be a precursor for more heat-related health problems and deaths in the future and the need to take precautions. The Chicago heat wave of 1995 shows how northern and cold weather areas could be particularly vulnerable to risks from climate-change induced heat waves. Federal legislation about heat standards on the job would be one precaution.

I would urge everyone to contact their elected representatives to support the Asucnion Valdiva Act. Nebraska’ legislators lo like to tout the value of manual labor as a way for young people to build character. But building character shouldn’t mean sacrifcing safety. I also believe that Nebraska should adopt a state law version of the Asuncion Valdiva act.

OSHA’s Top 10 Violations for 2018 revealed at National Safety Council Congress and Expo

Posted on December 17, 2018 by Rod Rehm

Today’s post comes from guest author Paul J. McAndrew, Jr., from Paul McAndrew Law Firm.

Today’s post comes from our colleagues at WorkersCompensation.com

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced the preliminary Top 10 most frequently cited workplace safety violations for fiscal year 2018. Patrick Kapust, deputy director of OSHA’s Directorate of Enforcement Programs, presented the Top 10 on the Expo floor as part of the 2018 NSC Congress and Expo, the world’s largest annual gathering of safety professionals.

While the rankings for OSHA’s Top 10 most cited violations vary little from year to year, violation No. 10 on this year’s list, “Eye and Face Protection” (1926.102), was not on the 2017 list.

“Knowing how workers are hurt can go a long way toward keeping them safe,” said National Safety Council President and CEO Deborah A.P. Hersman. “The OSHA Top 10 list calls out areas that require increased vigilance to ensure everyone goes home safely each day.”

The Top 10 for FY 2018* are:

1. Fall Protection – General Requirements (1926.501)	7,270
2. Hazard Communication (1910.1200)	4,552
3. Scaffolding (1926.451)	3,336
4. Respiratory Protection (1910.134)	3,118
5. Lockout/Tagout (1910.147)	2,944
6. Ladders (1926.1053)	2,812
7. Powered Industrial Trucks (1910.178)	2,294
8. Fall Protection – Training Requirements (1926.503)	1,982
9. Machine Guarding (1910.212)	1,972
10. Eye and Face Protection (1926.102)	1,536

A more in-depth look at the Top 10 violations for 2018 will be published in the December edition of the Council’s Safety+Health magazine.

*Preliminary figures as of Oct. 1, 2018

About the National Safety Council
The National Safety Council (nsc.org) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to eliminate preventable deaths at work, in homes and communities, and on the road through leadership, research, education and advocacy. Founded in 1913 and chartered by Congress, NSC advances this mission by partnering with businesses, government agencies, elected officials and the public in areas where we can make the most impact.

Be thankful for poultry workers, give them a safer workplace

Posted on November 26, 2018 by Jon Rehm

Most people were fortunate to sit down for the traditional Thanksgiving meal with turkey and all the trimmings this weekend. Stopping to reflect about what people are thankful for is a part of Thanksgiving.

People should be thankful for the people who make their meals possible.

Bloomberg reported before the holiday that turkey processors have been cited for safety violations 61 times by OSHA since 2011 and that poultry workers are 60 percent more likely to be injured on the job than the average workers. Debbie Berkowitz with the National Employment Law Project also pointed out that turkey processing can be more hazardous than chicken processing because turkeys tend to be larger than chickens.

Our firm has blogged quite a bit about the dangers of meat processing whether about poultry or beef and pork which is more common in Nebraska and Iowa. OSHA and other government agencies like the USDA have recently announced plans that could increase the risk of injury to meat processing workers. But even when federal regulatory agencies were aggressive in protecting worker safety, many of an injured workers’ legal remedies – whether through workers’ compensation or anti-retaliation laws – stem from state law.

Much was made of the “blue wave” in November’s elections. Democrats picked up governorships and won control of state legislatures. Hopefully newly empowered Democrats will protect and expand worker safety and workers rights bills on a state level.

Two worker deaths lead to criminal charges for Omaha corporation

Posted on September 6, 2018 by Jon Rehm

A memorial for two workers killed in Omaha in 2015. The employer is facing criminal charges.

An Omaha business is facing federal criminal charges in connection with the death of two employees in 2015.

Adrian LaPour and Dallas Foulk were killed on April 14, 2015 due to a fire in started by chemicals in a rail tanker car that they were cleaning. They were working for Nebraska Railcar Cleaning Services which had a long history of OSHA violations.

The criminal charges in this case stem from obstructing the investigation of the accident and violating federal safety rules rather than the death of the employee. In the rare cases where employers are prosecuted for workplace deaths, those types of charges are typical. Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship was convicted in 2016 for violating federal mine safety rules in connection with the death of 29 miners in West Virginia in 2010.

The charges provided some sense of psychic justice for the longtime girlfriend of one the victims. That sense of psychic justice is often missing in work injury cases where an employer is at fault. Workers compensation benefits are limited, OSHA fines are often almost laughable and negligence cases may be difficult to prove. Even if a family can get a sizeable amount of money for a workplace death of a loved one, money is not a perfect substitute for the loss of a loved one. A criminal prosecution can help address emotional needs in a way a civil or administrative sanction can’t.

Criminal prosecutions also deter wrongful conduct by corporations and their owners. Rod Rehm practiced criminal law in the 1970s and 1980s before focusing on workers compensation and personal injury cases. He has spoken out in favor prosecuting employers for manslaughter in connection with workplace deaths and criminal prosecution for employers who don’t carry workers compensation insurance. I commend Nebraska’s U.S Attorney, Joe Kelly, for exercising his prosecutorial discretion and charging the owners of Nebraska Railcar Cleaining Services.

h/t to www.fairwarning.com for their reporting.

Wisconsin Workplace Deaths on the Rise

Posted on May 3, 2018 by Jon Rehm

Good piece from Charlie Domer. Unfortunately, workplace deaths are on the rise across the country.

There is a bad trend in Wisconsin: Deaths on the job are on the rise.

Specifically, OSHA (on December 18, 2017) issued a release that there were five Wisconsin worker deaths in the last 22 days!:

(Madison): On November 27, 2017, a 26 year old employee was abrasive blasting and cut his inner thigh (femoral artery) with the abrasive blasting nozzle. Reference OSHA’s Abrasive Blasting web page for safety and health related information regarding abrasive blasting operations.
(Eau Claire): On December 1, 2017, a 60 year old employee working on a logging site was struck by a backing forwarder (skidder) machine. Reference OSHA’s Logging web page for safety and health related information regarding logging operations.
(Milwaukee Area Office): On December 5, 2017, a 32 year old employee was struck in the head when an approx. 50 lb. part being worked on flew out of a CNC machine.
On December 5, 2017, a 59 year old employee was struck in the abdomen by a piece of wood that had kicked back from a table saw. Reference OSHA’s Woodworking web page for safety and health related information regarding woodworking operations.
(Milwaukee Area Office): On December 9th, 2017, a 36 year old employee was struck-by a materials van and pinned between the van and loading dock the van was being backed up to. Employers are encouraged to review dock areas to identify hazards and take necessary corrective actions. Reference OSHA’s e-Tool on Powered Industrial Trucks (Forklift) for information on dock safety.

These recent workplace deaths are in the same year as the devastating plant explosion in Cambria, Wisconsin, on May 31, 2017, resulting in the death of 5 workers and injuring many more. OSHA proposed a $1.8 million fine related to this fatal explosion.

Sadly, these workplace deaths are on the rise in our country as a whole. The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released its latest report on fatalities in the workplace, with data through 2016. Unfortunately, the number of fatalites is the highest ever since 2008. An informational chart can be found here.

While employers indicate there are ever-increasing safety measures at workplaces, accidents–even catastrophic ones–still happen. And they are happening with more frequency.

Under Wisconsin worker’s compensation law, there are no pain and suffering damages for those family members left behind by the deceased worker. A dependent (generally a surviving spouse or children under the age of 18) can bring a claim for death benefits–which are four times the worker’s annual earnings. This amount can be (and can feel) woefully inadequate following a worker’s death.

Occupational Skin Diseases

Posted on April 16, 2018 by Jon Rehm

Thanks to Anthony Lucas from The Jernigan Law Firm about this post on occupational skin diseases.

Occupational skin diseases are one of the most common occupational diseases. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health estimates that in the United States more than 13 million workers are potentially exposed to chemicals that can be absorbed through their skin. In 2015, the last year for which data is available, over 15% of the reported occupational diseases were skin diseases.

These diseases include, but are not limited to, contact dermatitis (eczema), allergic dermatitis, skin cancers, and infections. Contact dermatitis, which has symptoms of painful and itchy skin, blisters, redness, and swelling, is the most commonly reported occupational skin disease. Workers in food service, cosmetology, health care, agriculture, cleaning, painting, mechanics, and construction industries and sectors are at risk of developing these diseases.

This type of occupational disease is clearly preventable. To control and prevent exposure to chemicals that cause occupational skin diseases, OSHA recommends that employers switch to less toxic chemicals, redesign the work process to avoid the splashes or immersion, and have employees wear protective gloves and clothing.

Experience Of New Virginia Legislator Points To Difficulty Of Multi-State Claims For Injured Workers

Posted on February 5, 2018 by Jon Rehm

Democrat Lee Carter, a democratic socialist, won an election to represent Virginia’s 50th District in the state’s House of Delegates.

Lee Carter took a bad experience with a work injury and turned it into motivation to win election to the Virginia legislature last November. But the nature of Carter’s bad experience with his work injury shows why electing true worker advocates to state legislatures may not be enough to protect injured workers.

Carter was a Virginia resident who was injured in Illinois working for a Georgia company. Carter attempted to bring his claim in Virginia but he was unable to do so because of lack of jurisdiction. Tennessee lawyer Denty Cheatham pointed out on the WILG listserv that Carter’s difficulty in bringing a claim was why national standards are needed for workers compensation.

So-called federalization is controversial in the world of workers’ compensation. Workers’ compensation is a creature of state law by what amounts to a fluke of legal history. When workers compensation laws were passed in the 1910s, the Supreme Court held that regulation of workplace safety was outside of the federal government’s ability to regulate interstate commerce but was within the so-called police power of the states.

Two decades later during the New Deal era, the Supreme Court expanded the definition of interstate commerce in the 1930s which allowed Congress to enact laws impacting the workplace such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, Title VII and the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA).

OSHA was implemented in the 1970s as concerns about the adequacy of state-based workers compensation systems arose from organized labor and the civil rights movement. Part of the OSHA Act was a National Commission that called for minimum standards for workers compensation claims. Part of having standardized state laws would mean that state laws would be more uniform and multi-state claims would be easier to navigate for injured workers.

Our firm is part of WILG which is a national organization of workers’ compensation lawyers. Multi-state or multi-jurisdictional claims are probably one of the most discussed topic on the WILG listserv. Mainly lawyers discuss which state’s have the best laws for a particular case. In some circumstances workers can also bring claims in and collect benefits in multiple states. The current system works for knowledgeable lawyers, but it can fail injured workers who may not even be able to bring claim because of questions over jurisdiction.

Multi-state claims can also subvert democratic rule. A worker has some input over workers compensation laws in the state where he or she lives and votes through their respective state legislatures. A worker who is forced to bring a claim in another state does not have that influence unless they happen to be among the 6 percent of private sector employees represented by a union. But even then, it may be burdensome to bring a claim in another state.

But workers have a say over national laws through their Congressional representatives. Minimum standards and some uniformity in state workers’ compensation laws would give injured workers more say in the types of benefits they would receive if they were hurt out of their home state or hurt for an out of state employer. Minimum standards legislation would also draw more national attention to the short coming of various state workers’ compensation laws. Renewed pushes for federal standards for workers’ compensation happened in the early Obama administration and towards the end of the Obama administration. National standards for workers’ compensation legislation will probably have to wait for a change in the partisan makeup of the two elected branches of the federal government.

Reversing OSHA Rules Will Undercut Workplace Safety

Posted on April 17, 2017 by Jon Rehm

President Trump recently signed a Congressional resolution revoking an Obama administration OSHA rule that required employers to retain records of work injuries for five and that prohibited retaliation against workers for reporting injuries. The revoked OSHA rule would have also limited drug testing of employees who reported injuries.

Debbie Berkowitz of the National Employment Law Project and a former OSHA official criticized the action because limiting the amount of time an employer must retain records about injuries because it doesn’t provide enough information to identify recurring safety issues.

At least in Nebraska, employers are required to file First Reports of Injury with the Nebraska Workers Compensation Court. The information contained in those reports serves a similar function to OSHA logs and would allow workers, unions, attorneys and or regulators to identify recurring safety problems. Those reports are also public records. I recently testified against an insurance industry supported bill in the Nebraska legislature that would have made those reports confidential records.

The recently revoked OSHA rule also would have prohibited retaliation against employees who report OSHA violations. Nebraska already has anti-retaliation laws that protect employees who claim workers’ compensation benefits that would cover many cases where an employer would have to record an injury for OSHA. My opinion is that the OSHA General Duty clause which states that employers have a duty to provide a workplace free of recognizable hazards provides additional anti-retaliation protections to Nebraska employees through our state whistleblower statute. But the revocation of the OSHA anti-retaliation rule may weaken those protections.

The OSHA record keeping/anti-retaliation rule was revoked through the Congressional Review Act. You can read more about that law works here. Congress and President Trump have also revoked an executive order that would have prevented employers who violated fair employment laws from obtaining federal contracts. You can read more about that rule here.

Workers' Compensation Watch

Published by Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm

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Tag Archives: OSHA

Legislation seeks to prevent heat-related deaths on the job

OSHA’s Top 10 Violations for 2018 revealed at National Safety Council Congress and Expo

Be thankful for poultry workers, give them a safer workplace

Two worker deaths lead to criminal charges for Omaha corporation

Wisconsin Workplace Deaths on the Rise

Occupational Skin Diseases

Experience Of New Virginia Legislator Points To Difficulty Of Multi-State Claims For Injured Workers

Reversing OSHA Rules Will Undercut Workplace Safety

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