health and safety

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.

By Max Alvarez abd Jeff Kurtz - Rising, July 15, 2022

By Bridget Huber, Nancy Averett and Teresa Cotsirilos - Food & Environment Reporting Network, June 29, 2022

Last June, as a record-breaking heatwave baked Oregon’s Willamette Valley, Sebastian Francisco Perez was moving irrigation lines at a large plant nursery in 104 degree Fahrenheit heat. When he didn’t appear at the end of his shift, his co-workers went looking for him, and found him collapsed between rows of trees. Investigators from the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division determined that Perez died of heat-related hyperthermia and dehydration. 

They also found that Perez had not been provided with basic information about how to protect himself from the heat. It wasn’t the farm’s first brush with regulators; it had previously been cited for failing to provide water and toilets to its workers. Later, in a closed conference with Oregon OSHA, an Ernst Nursery & Farms official blamed Perez for his own death, claiming that employees should “be accountable for how they push their bodies.”

This year, in a move to avert similar deaths — and force employers to take responsibility for protecting workers during hot weather — Oregon adopted the most stringent heat protections for outdoor workers in the country. The rule kicks in when temperatures reach 80 degrees F and requires employers to provide cool water, rest breaks and shade, as well as to make plans for how to acclimatize workers to heat, prevent heat illness and seek help in case of an emergency. 

The new standard has been praised by advocates, but industry is already pushing back. On June 15, the day the rule took effect, a coalition of Oregon business groups representing more than 1,000 companies filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the heat standard and another new rule governing workers’ exposure to wildfire smoke, arguing that they are unconstitutional. But the rules stand for now, making Oregon the third state to enact such standards for outdoor workers, after California and Washington. 

In the rest of the country, as climate change drives increasingly brutal heat waves, farmworkers lack protection. How they fare will largely depend on whether their employers voluntarily decide to provide the access to water, shade, and rest breaks that are critical when working in extreme heat. There are currently no nationwide regulations that spell out what employers must do to protect workers from heat and, while efforts to draft a federal rule recently began, it will likely be years before the standards are in place.

By Brianna Knisley - Appalachian Voices, June 10, 2022

On June 1, more than a dozen Kingston coal ash workers and their families showed up at the Tennessee Supreme Court in Nashville. With them was an incredible showing of faith, labor and environmental justice advocates, many of whom had traveled from across the state after participating in solidarity events in advance of the hearing.

The group gathered in the lobby for a prayer led by the Rev. Gordon Myers of Memphis. There in spirit were many other workers’ families who were too sick or otherwise unable to attend. Together, they filled every seat of the Tennessee Supreme Courtroom.

They were there to watch attorneys argue over an appeal that threatens the workers’ ability to seek financial claims for the injuries they sustained while cleaning up toxic coal ash near the Kingston Fossil Plant.

Workers allege that during the six-year cleanup of the Kingston spill, supervisors told them they could eat a pound of coal ash a day without harm. Supervisors even destroyed respirators and masks that their employees brought to the work site. Since the Kingston coal ash spill in 2008, which was the largest industrial disaster in US history, nearly 60 workers have died and hundreds more are sick.

On one side of the courtroom was counsel for Jacobs Engineering, the contractor hired by the Tennessee Valley Authority to lead the years-long cleanup that involved more than 900 workers. Jacobs has already been found guilty by a federal court of failure to exercise reasonable care in keeping the workers safe.

This hearing dealt with one of the contractor’s recent appeals — Jacobs’ claim that the Kingston workers should have to prove silica-specific injuries like pulmonary fibrosis in order to seek damages because of a state law called the Tennessee Silica Claims Priorities Act.

The workers’ counsel argued that because their clients were seeking claims for injuries caused by other harmful coal-ash constituents such as mercury, arsenic and lead, the TSCPA should not apply. Though the five Supreme Court justices asked discerning questions during the hearing, a ruling is not expected for weeks or even months.

Waiting is something the workers and their community allies have become accustomed to, but never has it been done idly.

By Irene Calimlim, Dr Jose Pablo Ortiz Partida, Elizabeth Strater, Kimberly Warmsley, et. al. - The Climate Center, June 8, 2022

Over the past few years, extreme heat episodes have been on the increase throughout California and especially in the Central Valley. Home to 4.3 million Californians and nearly one million people working in agriculture, the Central Valley faced more than 35 days of extreme heat in 2021. This number is expected to double in the next few decades. In this webinar, presenters will discuss the impact on Central Valley residents, workers, and the agricultural sector, along with how to build community resilience in the face of these climate-fueled hazards.

Spanish interpretation brought to you by Linguística Interpreting & Translation.

En los últimos años, los episodios de calor extremo han ido en aumento en todo California y especialmente en el Valle Central. California es hogar a 4.3 millones y casi un millón de personas que trabajan en la agricultura, el Valle Central enfrentó más de 35 días de calor extremo en el 2021. Se espera que este número se duplique en las próximas décadas. En esta videoconferencia, los presentadores analizarán el impacto en los residentes, los trabajadores y el sector agrícola del Valle Central, además de cómo desarrollar la resiliencia de la comunidad frente a estos peligros provocados por el clima.

Interpretación en español presentada por Linguística Interpreting & Translation.

By Damon Evans - Energy Voice, June 2, 2022

In response to the formal notice served by lawyers representing the Offshore Alliance, a labor union, as well as the Electrical Trades Union (ETU), issued on 30 May, Shell has “now resorted to industrial thuggery in a desperate effort to try and stop protected industrial action on Prelude,” the Offshore Alliance claimed in a post on Facebook today.

“One of the Shell leads, who has been parachuted onto Prelude, is throwing his weight around like he’s some sort of big king dick…this self-styled hero tough guy has been doing his best to intimidate some of the younger female tech’s by demanding they tell him whether they are in the Union and whether they intend to take Protected Industrial Action,” claimed the Offshore Alliance.

“Shell’s senior management need to pull this idiot into line as the Offshore Alliance will bang both him and Shell into the Federal Court for breach of Freedom of Association provisions if he doesn’t pull his head in. Pull off your management thugs, Shell,” added the union.

A Shell spokesperson told Energy Voice that “Shell recognises the entitlement of all workers to exercise their rights, including the right to participate in industrial action.”

The Offshore Alliance has listed 19 activities that will be banned at various times from June 10 to June 21, as part of their plan to implement “rolling stoppages of work and work bans.”

“Shell have had two years to sort out our key bargaining claims and nothing less than tier 1 rates and conditions and job security are going to cut it,” said the union, which combines the industrial and organisational resources of the Australian Workers Union (AWU) and the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), to provide effective representation of offshore construction, maintenance, catering, and rig workers in Western Australia.

By various - American Federation of Teachers, May 31, 2022

Presidents of United Auto Workers and American Federation of Teachers rally members to call on state and local governments to procure union-built electric school buses.

By Penny Logsdon, Jeff Kurtz, and Carrie Duncan et. al. - Fight for Two Person Crews, May 17, 2022

By Marisol Cantú, Micheal Hayes, and staff - Richmond Progressive Alliance, May 16, 2022

Flaring at the Richmond Lubrications Oil Plant. April 14, 2-4 pm.

United Steelworkers (USW) Local 5 workers have been on strike at Richmond's Chevron Refinery since March 21, 2022. Since then, workers and community members have carefully documented flaring events at the refinery, which is currently run by strikebreakers who do not have the necessary training to safely operate the equipment. Below are three important documents of this extremely unsafe situation: a) a letter addressed to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) by organizer Marisol Cantú, articulating the current risks to our surrounding community and demands of relevant inspection agencies; b) a photographic gallery of flaring events taken during the strike by workers and community observers; and c) a letter authored by a USW Local 5 refinery worker, describing the extensive training he and his colleagues receive that is necessary to keep the community safe (and that current employees operating the plant do not have).