Fifteen Miners Died on the Job in the Past Three Months—but Washington Is Cutting Inspections

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/177806/fifteen-miners-died-job-past-three-months-washington-cutting-inspections


The US flag flies at half staff at coal processing plant near site mining disaster in West Virginia. (Reuters Photo)

During the last three months of 2013, fifteen miners died on the job. Most were killed in electrical or powered haulage accidents; others fell from ladders or drowned in a dredge. The number of miner deaths has been steadily declining in recent years, a trend that continued throughout the first nine months of 2013, until the most recent uptick.

This can’t just be blamed on bad luck or bad weather, though ice can be dangerous. (By comparison, six miners died in the last quarter of 2012.) A recent audit of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA) found that the agency can “only reach a fraction of the entities it regulates” and that it failed to target high-risk industries. OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program is designed for “worksites that show excellence in occupational safety and health,” but the audit found that 13 percent of participating companies had been cited for safety and health violations but were allowed to stay in the program.

Miners aren’t the only workers affected by these oversights. Three million people were injured on the job in 2012. There were a string of workplace accidents last year—two chemical plant explosions in Louisiana, a grain bin explosion in Indiana, a gas tank explosion in Florida. Last spring, fifteen people were killed in the West Chemical and Fertilizer Plant explosion in West, Texas. Seven different agencies were tasked with inspecting the plant and two agencies were tasked with inspecting the plant for risks of explosion—the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and OSHA. It turned out that OSHA had not inspected the plant since 1985 and DHS had never inspected it. (The plant was inspected in 2010 by the Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which issued a fine of $10,100 for missing placards and “not having a security plan.”) The need for inspections might be less urgent if employees were able to report safety violations, but according to the Center for Effective Government, OSHA does not respond to worker complaints or protect them against retaliation from their employers.

Part of the problem is that President Obama has slashed the budget of both OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). OSHA’s ratio of inspectors to facilities fell from one inspector for every 1,900 workplaces in 1981 to one for every 4,300 facilities in 2012. OSHA can afford to visit a workplace only every ninety-nine years, on average.

[Progressive dog]

1. Actually inspectrions are up 2011 to 2012

and planned to increase again in 2013.

However, there’s some significant shifting of funds proposed.
The FY 2013 proposed budget includes a 23.5% increase, including 37 new employees, for the 21 whistleblower protection programs administered by OSHA.

The increase is to reduce the backlog of whistleblower claims and prepare for a high volume of complex cases with recently passed laws involving health care reform, food safety and finance reform. The current administration, compared to the previous one, has also done more to encourage workers to come forward with whistleblower complaints.

Inspections in FY 2012 (ending Sept. 30) are projected to be up 4% over the previous year. OSHA plans 43,100 inspections in FY 2013, a 2% increase over 2012. In FY 2011, federal OSHA conducted 40,648 inspections.

[link:http://www.safetynewsalert.com/oshas-new-budget-shows-its-upcoming-priorities/|

[Octafish]

2. Money's for Banksters.

No amount too large and no bankster can get enough -- even their spouses.

Why is the Federal Reserve forking over 220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs?

EXCERPT...

It's hard to imagine a pair of people you would less want to hand a giant welfare check to — yet that's exactly what the Fed did. Just two months before the Macks bought their fancy carriage house in Manhattan, Christy and her pal Susan launched their investment initiative called Waterfall TALF. Neither seems to have any experience whatsoever in finance, beyond Susan's penchant for dabbling in thoroughbred racehorses. But with an upfront investment of $15 million, they quickly received $220 million in cash from the Fed, most of which they used to purchase student loans and commercial mortgages. The loans were set up so that Christy and Susan would keep 100 percent of any gains on the deals, while the Fed and the Treasury (read: the taxpayer) would eat 90 percent of the losses. Given out as part of a bailout program ostensibly designed to help ordinary people by kick-starting consumer lending, the deals were a classic heads-I-win, tails-you-lose investment.

SOURCE: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-real-housewives-of-wall-street-look-whos-cashing-in-on-the-bailout-20110411?print=true

As for Mine Safety and Health Adminstration, take a number and get in line.

[theHandpuppet]

3. Appalling news

Thanks for posting this thread on a truly important topic.

[BlueToTheBone]

4. Thanks Republican Party! You are killing more people

every day in every way possible.

Turn the House Blue in 2014!

[countryjake]

5. OSHA used to be an agency workers could turn to...

back in the sixties and seventies, we could contact OSHA to request an inspection, and they helped uncover sweatshop conditions and gross safety violations, sometimes aiding union drives of workers struggling for better workplaces.

Nowadays, both OSHA and also the NLRB are practically worthless to working people; they invariably stand on the side of companies and corporations and no longer respond to legitimate appeals.

K&R!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. Du rec

[hopemountain]

7. is this a budget cut due to the sequester?

or did the nation insert the blame on the president himself?

[malaise]

8. Did any of these deaths make the TV news?

Now they poisoned the fugging water

[daleanime]

9. Late kick.

[senseandsensibility]

10. kick

Very important OP. I hope others will keep it kicked.