health and safety

By Paul KD - Tempest, August 12, 2022

Paul KD: President Biden just appointed a Presidential Emergency Board to help resolve the current negotiations around a national rail contract. What is the PEB, and what is its role in the negotiations?

Ross Grooters: A PEB is a U.S. president-appointed group of three mediators. These three people typically have experience in labor case law and mediation. They will look at the merits of the United Rail Unions’ Coordinated Bargaining Coalition proposal and the National Carriers’ Conference Committee proposal, and from there they have 30 days to make a non-binding contract recommendation based on their findings. Their recommendation should occur in the middle of August (the 18th, I believe).

PKD: What can rail workers do to put pressure on the PEB? What are the unions and the companies doing to lobby the PEB, and the Biden Administration more broadly?

RG: Both the unions and the companies are waging narrative battles in the press. It’s a tale as old as labor and capital. While it’s important, at least as far as rank and file railroad workers are concerned, I believe the PEB is the wrong point of pressure. What’s done is done and we can’t necessarily impact the PEB recommendation directly. Besides both the unions or the carriers (railroad companies) can reject the PEB recommendation. I believe this is a likely outcome. Once this occurs there is a 30 day cooling-off period before a work stoppage—lockout or strike—could occur. The timeline for this is mid to late September. Because of this I believe our best course of action is to continue building support for a strike. Organize our locals and community support, and hold rallies. Under the Railway Labor Act, an act of Congress can force us back to work. Our congressional members would then legislate an agreement—that’s where we can lobby. Until that happens, we have the ability to threaten a work stoppage. We need to leverage that power.

By Paul Prescod - Jacobin, August 2, 2022

Once a coveted job, conditions for railroad workers have badly deteriorated. But railroad workers are central to our economy — so central that a current impasse between railroad companies and associated unions has prompted Joe Biden to intervene.

Six months ago, the spouses of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Corporation (BNSF) employees detailed the toll the job was taking on their families. A letter containing twenty-five of their stories portrays a climate where workers find it impossible to maintain a personal life.

Nichole Bischoff, who has taken the lead in organizing railroad worker spouses, said to a local news outlet, “So many parents wanna be at every trick-or-treating event, every school function, baseball game and they just can’t, and our kids learn to live with it.”

“My husband can’t even attend any of his appointments,” one anonymous spouse complained. “He has already gotten dropped from a couple [health care] providers for poor compliance.”

Now conditions for railroad workers are poised to take center stage nationally. On Friday, July 15, President Joe Biden intervened in a labor dispute that could have a dramatic impact on the nation’s economy. Contract negotiations between the major freight railroad companies and their associated unions, representing 115,000 railway workers, have reached an impasse. Utilizing the procedures of the Railway Labor Act, the president stepped in to form a presidential emergency board that will hold hearings and issue recommendations during a thirty-day “cooling-off” period.

But there are no guarantees that this mediation will produce a settlement, as railworkers have been pushed to the brink by decades of brutal corporate cost-cutting measures.

By Teniope Adewumi-Gunn and Juanita Constible - Natural Resources Defense Council, August 2022

We are in the midst of a profound public health crisis. Rising temperatures fueled by climate change are contributing to more extreme weather events, spikes in air pollution, more frequent wildfires, and increases in tick- and mosquito-borne disease outbreaks. The resulting health harms fall more heavily on some populations than others, including workers. Workers face a range of climate-related hazards on the job, but one of the most pressing and well-understood hazards is extreme heat.

Extreme heat is killing and sickening workers. Both short stretches of extreme heat and chronic exposure to heat can cause significant effects on their physical, mental, and social well-being. Heat can cause rash, cramps, exhaustion, and stroke, the most serious heat-related illness. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII) estimates that from 1992 to 2019, more than 900 workers died and tens of thousands more were sickened due to extreme heat.

However, these numbers greatly underestimate the scale of the problem due to lack of reporting by negligent employers and by workers afraid of retaliation (e.g., loss of employment or deportation if they are undocumented). These numbers are further deflated when heat is not identified as a cause of, or contributor to, illness or injury. Negative outcomes from cardiac or respiratory illnesses are often not attributed to heat, even if that is an underlying cause. Physical and mental effects of heat such as disorientation can also increase the risk of other work- related injuries including falling from heights, being struck by a moving vehicle, or mishandling dangerous machinery. Research has shown that the number of workers facing health outcomes from extreme heat are higher than those reported by the BLS SOII. In fact, in California alone, a study of workers found more than 15,000 occupational heat-related illness cases from 2000 to 2017. The California cases were three to six times higher annually than the numbers reported for California by BLS.

Exposure to extreme heat impacts both indoor and outdoor workers. From agricultural and construction workers, who have the highest incidences of heat-related illnesses, to warehouse and other indoor employees working without adequate cooling or ventilation, heat touches many workplaces. Workers of color also experience greater rates of heat-related illnesses and fatalities than do white workers. Workers of color are overrepresented in industries with a high risk of heat illness, but racial disparities in heat illness and death also exist among those working the same jobs. Additionally, not all workers tolerate heat the same way. Those with personal risk factors such as heart disease, medications, and pregnancy are more likely to experience heat stress.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Joe Allen - Tempest, July 28, 2022

When Esteban Chavez collapsed after making his last package delivery for the day in Pasadena, California on June 25, it was another twenty minutes before someone discovered him and called for emergency help. He died soon afterward. Esteban was 24 years old and had been working at United Parcel Service (UPS) for four years. It was his second day back to work after recovering from a shoulder injury.

Esteban went to work that day not expecting to die on the job. Temperatures, however, soared into the upper nineties in Pasadena, and UPS package delivery cars do not have air conditioning. “It hurts, it’s a pain that’s never gonna go away. And that’s something I wish on nobody, having the experience of losing your child,” his father Esteban, Sr. told the local ABC news affiliate. While the Los Angeles Medical Examiner-Coroner’s office hasn’t released an official cause of death, Esteban’s family believes with good reason that it is directly related to high temperatures and dehydration. “I’m thinking it’s heatstroke, but that’s just me,” Esteban’s aunt, Gloria Chavez, told ABC. Esteban’s father hopes that his son’s death “could bring awareness to his line of work, to the other drivers out there, just making sure you’re staying hydrated.”

Less than two weeks later in Scottsdale, Arizona the security camera of a homeowner captured a UPS driver collapsing on his front porch in 113-degree heat. Business Insider reported:

The homeowner, Brian Enriquez, captured the incident on video via his Ring doorbell on Thursday. He told local news that by the time he saw the video of the delivery man it was too late to provide any help, but he checked in with the company and reported the incident to local police for a welfare check.

The video shows the UPS driver struggling to walk to the customer’s front door while delivering an envelope. The driver then collapses in front of the door after he sets down the delivery, eventually falling onto his back. After a few moments, the delivery man stands up, rings the doorbell, and slowly walks back to his vehicle.

There has been a longstanding awareness about the dangers of heat in the workplace whether it be in vast agricultural fields, underfunded public schools, construction and road work, warehouses and factories, and for package delivery drivers. Climate change has accelerated the dangers for these workers.

When a local ABC News affiliate was able to track down the driver who collapsed on the Scottsdale porch—he was interviewed anonymously—and he told reporters:

(The) fact of the matter is that no amount of training can prepare your body for 160 degrees, 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week,” says one UPS driver who spoke with ABC15 anonymously, saying the way they’re treated is inhumane.

It’s not just him. The driver described apocalyptic conditions, “Every week drivers are dropping like flies due to heat conditions and UPS is killing drivers because of this.”

His problems don’t stop at the end of the long workday:

There’s been several times where I’ve woken up in the middle of the night, cramping up, my legs cramping, my hand is cramping. I’m telling my wife I can’t sleep because I’m having these issues and I end up having to call out the next day because it’s clearly not safe for me to come back to work. And UPS will reprimand me.

UPS drivers and Teamsters’ spouses took to social media to highlight the lack of air conditioning, which most people found shocking. UPS driver Aiden Mann’s Tik-Tok post has garnered over five million views, while Theresa Klenk’s change.org petition demanding air conditioning for all UPS drivers has been signed by over 1.3 million people. Klenk and her UPS driver husband were featured in an NBC News expose of UPS three years ago about the risk for heat-related illness and death on the job.

By Gabriela Calugay-Casuga - Rabble, July 25, 2022

As summers are getting hotter around the world, workers are at risk. After the UK hit record temperatures the week of July 19, Canada’s Atlantic provinces are now under a heat warning along with Southern Ontario and parts of Quebec, according to the public weather alerts from Environment Canada.

Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) put out a statement urging members to be prepared to work in the heat. 

“Summer is late this year. With a few exceptions across the country, where they have experienced brief periods of heat, the hot weather is overdue,” CUPW said in their statement. “However, we must not regard this situation as the norm and disregard the eventual heat waves that will inevitably occur in the weeks to come.”

Heat events have been devastating for some communities. In the 80s, Unifor lost a member to heat stress. Sari Sairanen, Unifor’s director of the Health, Safety and Environment Department, said that although it has been decades, tragedies such as this remain in the collective memory and impact how unions approach emergency preparedness plans amidst rising temperatures.

According to the website for the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS), there is no legislation that lays out a maximum temperature that workers can be exposed to at work. They said that exposure limits are influenced not only by temperature but also by relative humidity, exposure to sun or other heat sources, amount of air movement, how physically demanding the work is, how acclimatized the worker is to their workload, what clothing is worn (including protective clothing) and the work-rest regimen. 

CUPW laid out some precautions that workers can take to keep safe in the hot weather. These precautions include taking all the breaks that workers are provided and slowing down to avoid overworking in the heat. 

By Jeff Schuhrke - In These Times, July 25, 2022

After Biden appointed an emergency board to help resolve the labor dispute, rail workers warn: “We have the ability to stop the trains from moving.”

After waiting over two years to secure a new union contract, and still reeling from the impacts of Wall Street-ordered cost-cutting measures, 115,000 beleaguered workers who operate the nation’s freight railroads are inching closer towards a possible strike, which could come as soon as September. 

In an effort to drive down operating expenses and reward their wealthy shareholders, in recent years railroad companies have implemented ​“precision scheduled railroading,” or PSR — a version of just-in-time, lean production that centers on reducing the workforce and closing facilities. 

“For years, they cut and cut and cut. It didn’t matter which department or terminal, it was indiscriminate,” said Michael Paul Lindsey, an Idaho-based locomotive engineer with Union Pacific.

Over the past six years, the major Class I railroads like BNSF, Union Pacific, CSX and Norfolk Southern have slashed their collective workforce by 29 percent (around 45,000 workers), leaving the industry woefully understaffed and putting extra strain on workers already accustomed to long, irregular hours. 

Lindsey said the severe staffing shortages have resulted in ​“constant chaos and crisis,” with workers being called at all hours, day and night, expected to take on assignments they were not initially scheduled for. 

Cost-cutting has also meant freight trains are running with more cars and more cargo than existing infrastructure is equipped to handle, or else misrouting rail cars just to get them moving. This cost-cutting, along with a labor shortage, have been major contributors to the supply-chain crisis. 

Meanwhile, the railroad companies remain highly profitable, with owners raking in $183 billion in stock buybacks and dividends since 2010.

By staff - The Local, July 22, 2022

For a non pay-walled version of the article, see the Red Green Labor version.

A worker operates machinery at a factory in Trezzano sul Naviglio, near Milan, Northern Italy, on June 25, 2021. Photo by MARCO BERTORELLO / AFP.

The man, 61, fell unconscious and hit his head while performing routine tasks, according to La Stampa news daily. Efforts by colleagues to revive him with a defibrillator were unsuccessful.

The official cause of death is currently being investigated by police, but with temperatures pushing 40 degrees Celsius in parts of the country, heat exhaustion is thought likely to be responsible.

Factory workers from the local area organised an eight-hour picket on Friday outside the Dana Graziano plant in Rivoli where the man worked.

Italy is in the midst of a scorching mid-July heatwave, and most factories do not have air conditioning systems.

The Fiom CGIL metal workers’ union say they have recently received multiple reports of factory temperatures reaching over 35 degrees Celsius in the Piedmont area. At the Mirafiori Fiat manufacturing plant in Turin, workers have reportedly recorded highs of 40 degrees.

A previous strike called by auto parts workers on Tuesday protested the “intense pace of work” workers are required to keep up in the “unbearable heat of these past few days”.

“There are many of our members who are reporting illnesses in the factory due to the intense heat of the last few weeks,” Edi Lazzi, Fiom CGIL’s Turin general secretary, told La Stampa.

Italy does not have a nationally unified labor code, but worker’s rights are enshrined in the constitution and touched on in various laws.

According to the site Lavori e diretti (work and rights), article 2087 of the Italian civil code requires employers to protect employees’ health and wellbeing.

National legislation does not require companies to keep the workplace within any particular temperature range, though workplace accident insurance institute Inail recommends in summer there should not be more than a seven degree difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures.

A 2015 Supreme Court case recognised the right of workers to stop working while retaining the right to pay in excessively cold conditions.

By Chris Van Eyken, et, al - Transit Center, July 20, 2022

A national bus operator shortfall is wreaking havoc at transit agencies. In a February 2022 APTA (American Public Transportation Association) survey of 117 transit agencies of all sizes, 71% reported that they have either had to cut service or delay service increases because of worker shortfalls. In the same survey, more than nine in ten public transit agencies stated that they are having difficulty hiring new employees. And nearly two-thirds of transit agencies indicated that they are having difficulty retaining employees. 

Bus drivers are indispensable people that provide an essential service, but in most U.S. cities, their working conditions and compensation don’t recognize their value. TransitCenter’s new report, “Bus Operators in Crisis,” details the challenges American operators are facing, and offers solutions that transit agencies can take to solve issues locally. It also proposes steps that states and the federal government can take to support transit agencies in this effort.

A key cause of difficulties recruiting and retaining new workers is the steady deterioration of one of transit’s most essential jobs. The pay has not kept pace with the skyrocketing cost of living in cities across the country. At the same time, the job has become more difficult. Operator assaults have increased, rigid scheduling requirements make it difficult for junior operators with child or eldercare responsibilities, and a lack of access to restrooms on route and break rooms at depots exacts a health toll. The transit industry is losing these workers to delivery services and trucking companies, which often offer workers more flexibility and higher pay. 

To tackle operator shortfalls, “Bus Operators in Crisis” makes the case that the transit industry must make driving a bus a good job, a job with dignity, a job that is respected, well compensated, and rewarding. Operators are the backbone of the transit industry, and deserve better pay, more flexibility, and safer working conditions. They also deserve paths for advancement within agencies, and the opportunity to have their voices heard. 

The report lays out eight recommendations for how agencies can improve job quality for operators. It also issues recommendations for how state governments can help alleviate the shortfall by increasing the labor pool, and how the USDOT and Secretary Buttigieg can use the power of the federal government to call greater attention to the crisis.

The necessary work of decreasing transportation emissions and closing transit access gaps simply isn’t going to be possible without operators to drive our nation’s buses. While the operator shortfall problem is multifaceted, many of the solutions are well within agency control. Agencies must begin taking steps now to develop a stable, healthy, and supported 21st-century workforce. “Bus Operators in Crisis” charts a path towards a prosperous and dignified future for these essential workers. 

Read the report (Link).

By Adja Mame Seyni Paye, et. al. - International Alliance of Waste Pickers, July 15, 2022

The Global Alliance of Waste Pickers has submitted the position paper for the first intergovernmental negotiating committee meeting on plastic pollution. The submission recommends a dedicated discussion on the Just Transition of the workers in plastic production, packaging, and recycling in the negotiations. The committee meeting will take place in Uruguay in November 2022.

This draft has been sent to the Secretariat for the Intergovernmental Negotiations Committee (For the prospective Plastics Treaty) at the United Nations Environment Programme.