2010 — 2011 Department of Labor Accomplishments

[ProSense]

2010 — 2011 Department of Labor Accomplishments

At the Department of Labor, we are working hard to prepare America’s workforce to meet the challenge of outinnovating, out-educating and out-building our global competition. The Department strives to help foster an economy in which good jobs are available for everyone and American workers are prepared with the skills necessary to be productive in these jobs throughout their lifetimes. This means jobs that can support a family. Jobs that are sustainable. Jobs that are safe and secure. Jobs that can lift up the middle class. The following list highlights the accomplishments of the U.S. Department of Labor, under the leadership of Secretary Hilda L. Solis, for the year 2010-2011 – actions that demonstrate this Administration’s strong commitment to improving working conditions and increasing employment opportunities for all Americans.

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Keeping Workers Safe: The Department of Labor is working to ensure that every employer takes responsibility for the safety and health of all their workers, and is partnering with employers to ensure they have the tools and incentives necessary to make good health and safety decisions. In America, no worker should lose his or her life simply for going to work.

• Protecting the Safety and Health of the American Worker: In April 2010, the Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) collected the largest fine ($50.6 million) in the agency's history against British Petroleum (BP) for failing to comply fully with an agreement settling citations issued following a refinery explosion that killed 15 people and injured 170 more in Texas. OSHA also launched its severe violator enforcement program in 2010. It also provided over 26,000 small businesses with free on-site compliance assistance, and responded to over 200,000 requests for information by phone and email. The agency held the first-ever Latino Worker Safety Summit to address safety and health issues in this important community, which suffers the highest rates of work-related injuries and deaths in the Nation, and also issued a long-awaited standard to protect people who work on cranes and derricks.
  
  
• Keeping Miners Safe: During 2010-2011, the Mine Safety and Health Administration responded to the Upper Big Branch disaster by using every tool at its disposal to protect miners. This included conducting impact inspections, placing appropriate mines on notice of a potential pattern of violations, seeking injunctive relief against mine operators that impede inspections or engage in a hazardous pattern of violation, pursuing scofflaw operators who fail to pay assessed penalties for violations, increasing education, outreach and compliance assistance, developing and revising safety and health standards to strengthen protections for miners, and implementing coordinated programs to end black lunch disease and eliminate violations that lead to catastrophic accidents.
  
  
• Wages and Conditions for Farmworkers: By rewriting the regulations that govern the H-2A temporary agricultural program, the Department has strengthened worker protections and requirements for employers who are looking to bring non-immigrant foreign workers to the U.S. to perform agricultural labor or services of a temporary or seasonal nature. Through this effort the Department has ensured that the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program is only available to employers with a legitimate temporary need for non-immigrant workers. The Department must certify that no American workers are available for the job, and employers are required to pay all farm workers a fair and competitive wage, and to provide safe living conditions for all domestic and legal migrant farmworkers. In doing so, the Department not only protects foreign farmworkers from exploitation but also protects similarly employed domestic workers from adverse effects on wages and working conditions.
  
  
• Combating Child Labor: The Department's Wage and Hour Division published a Final Rule, effective on July 19, 2010, designed to protect working children from hazards in the workplace, while also recognizing the value of safe work to children and their families. The rule prohibits children under the age of 18 from engaging in unsafe occupations, such as door-to-door or street corner sales, operating chain saws, or working in poultry slaughtering. In addition, the Wage and Hour Division implemented enhanced civil money penalties for child labor violations involving youth who are too young to be legally employed, and brought greater transparency to the child labor civil money penalty assessment process. The Department is also addressing global farm labor issues. The Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) funds projects to combat exploitation of children in commercial agriculture, in sectors such as cocoa production in West Africa, and in tobacco and tea production in Malawi.

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[ProSense]

1. No comment? n/t

[ProSense]

2. Kick the unpopular! n/t

[young but wise]

3. K&R

[CakeGrrl]

4. Rec'd to zero so far.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

5. K&R

[Tx4obama]

6. K&R. And ------ Take a look at comment #17 on the link below

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x763490#763557

Lots of additional info and links there :)