health and safety

By Tony Shick - Earth Fix, July 22, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

On a November morning in 2003, a sleeping Union Pacific crew missed a signal in Kelso, Washington. Their train collided with the side of an oncoming BNSF Railway train. Fuel tanks ruptured and spilled 2,800 gallons. Total damage neared $3 million. Unlike a similar collision in the same spot 10 years earlier, the crews escaped alive.

The primary cause, according to investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board: the crew’s fatigue, brought on by irregular work schedules and sleep disorder.

The NTSB had been asking the Federal Railroad Administration to address both issues for years. It made similar recommendations again a year later, after fatigue caused a fatal derailment involving chlorine gas in Texas.

Then in 2011, the crew of a BNSF coal train in Red Oak, Iowa, fell asleep and instead of stopping struck the rear of a parked equipment train, crushing the cab and killing the crew of the coal train, sparking a diesel fire and causing $8.7 million worth of damage.

The primary cause of the accident: the crew’s fatigue, brought on by irregular work schedules and sleep disorder.

Fatigued crews, crude oil increase risk for disaster

Sleeping train crews are the primary cause in at least eight major train crashes investigated by the NTSB since 2000, according to the agency’s reports.

The true prevalence of fatigue in train crashes is likely far higher, said Mark Rosekind, a member of the NTSB specializing in the subject. Human error is the leading cause of train incidents and accidents, and Rosekind estimates fatigue underlies anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of those.

“It’s very likely we have grossly underestimated fatigue in pretty much everything we’ve looked at for a long, long time,” Rosekind said.

The rapid rise in shipments of hazardous crude oil has raised the stakes for addressing fatigue, he said.

• Crude oil was once a rare commodity in rail cars. Last year BNSF, the leading crude oil transporter, hauled more than 600,000 barrels per day across its network, including as many as 18 trains per week through the Columbia River Gorge.

Fiery derailments have prompted intense public scrutiny and calls for improved oil train safety measures, including heftier tank cars and better-equipped emergency responders. Meanwhile, fatigued and unsafe crews remain an unresolved problem for the industry — a problem that rail workers and union officials in the Northwest say has worsened in recent years.

By Alan H Lockwood, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Lisa Evans, Earth Justice - Report, August 2014

Take a deep breath. But if you live near a coal-burning power plant that dumps coal ash into a nearby landfill or lagoon, don’t inhale too deeply because you’re probably breathing fugitive dust made up of airborne coal ash filled with dangerous and toxic pollutants. Whether blown from an uncovered dump site or from the back of an open truck, toxic dust contaminates hundreds of fence line communities across the country. Acrid dust stings residents’ eyes and throats, and asthmatics, young and old, are forced to reach for inhalers. Breathing this toxic dust can be deadly, and yet no federal standards exist to protect affected communities.

This report describes the health impacts of the pollution found in coal ash dust. It also points to the imminent need for federal controls to limit exposure and protect the health of millions of Americans who live near coal ash dumps. Coal combustion waste (or coal ash), particularly fly ash, a major component of coal ash waste, poses significant health threats because of the toxic metals present in the ash, such as arsenic, mercury, chromium (including the highly toxic and carcinogenic chromium VI), lead, uranium, selenium, molybdenum, antimony, nickel, boron, cadmium, thallium, cobalt, copper, manganese, strontium, thorium, vanadium and others. Ironically, as coal plant pollution controls like electrostatic precipitators and baghouse filters become more effective at trapping fly ash and decreasing coal plant air pollution, the waste being dumped into coal ash waste streams is becoming more toxic.

Read the report (PDF).

By Southern Illinoisans Against Fracturing our Environment - Popular Resistance, July 24, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Yesterday many of Southern Illinois’s elected officials, and representatives of the fossil fuel industry, held a one-hour press conference to complain about the fact that the Illinois Department of Natural Resources has still not completed the rule-making process in order for fracking to begin in Illinois. Fracking is a controversial process used to drill for oil & gas. Millions of gallons of water, mixed with toxic chemicals and sand, are injected into mile-long horizontal wells at high pressure to fracture rock layers and release oil and gas.

It is important that the public is aware of the dangers inherent in fracking jobs. Within one year in Texas 65 oil & gas workers died, 79 lost limbs, 82 were crushed, 92 suffered burns & 675 broke bones.  The fatality rate among oil and gas workers is nearly eight times higher than the all-average rate of 3.2 deaths for every 100,000 workers across all industries.

A National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study revealed that worker exposure to crystalline silica—or “frac sand” —exceeded “relevant occupational health criteria” at all eleven tested sites, and the magnitude of some exposures exceeded their limits by a factor of 10 or more. “Personal respiratory protection alone is not sufficient to adequately protect against workplace exposures.” Inhalation of crystalline silica can cause incurable silicosis, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, kidney disease and autoimmune diseases.

Representative Brandon Phelps stated at the press conference that North Dakota should be a model for Southern Illinois. A report by the AFL-CIO found that the fracking boom has made North Dakota the most dangerous state for U.S. workers—with a fatality rate five times higher than the national average—and that North Dakota’s fatality rate has doubled since 2007. The AFL-CIO called North Dakota “an exceptionally dangerous and deadly place to work.”

Statistics provided by THE COMPENDIUM OF SCIENTIFIC, MEDICAL, AND MEDIA FINDINGS DEMONSTRATING RISKS AND HARMS OF FRACKING (UNCONVENTIONAL GAS AND OIL EXTRACTION)

http://concernedhealthny.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/CHPNY-Fracking-Compendium.pdf

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

RWU members will discuss the BNSF - SMART-TD Tentative Agreement that would open the door to single employee train crews.

By Cole Stangler - DeSmog Blog, July 19, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

For decades, the U.S. railroad industry has successfully shed labor costs by shifting to smaller and smaller operating crews. Now, it’s on the verge of what was once an unthinkable victory: single-member crews, even on dangerous oil trains.

A tentative agreement reached by BNSF Railway and the Transportation Division of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation (SMART) union would allow a single engineer to operate most of the company’s routes. It would mark a dramatic change to a labor contract that covers about 3,000 workers, or 60 percent of the BNSF system.  

It’s not just bad news for workers. The contract has major safety implications—especially amid North America’s dangerous, and sometimes deadly, crude-by-rail boom. Last year’s Bakken shale oil train derailment and explosion in Lac Mégantic, Quebec, which killed 47 people, brought increased scrutiny to oil trains. 

IBEW Press Release - IBEW.org, July 9, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s. The author is also not affiliated with Railroad Workers United. This article is reposted in accordance with Fair Use guidelines.

J.J. Giuliano has been local chairman of the Selkirk unit of Albany, N.Y., Local 770 since 2003. Keeping his members safe is Giuliano’s top priority, and along with the leaders of the other trades at Selkirk, he sat on the shop’s safety committee.

“For 10 years we made recommendations to management and for 10 years not one of them was funded by the company,” Giuliano said. “I stayed on because I wanted to look out for my guys. But at a certain point we were letting the company get away with avoiding solving safety problems.”

In September 2013, Giuliano was done with the charade. He sent a letter to the plant superintendent telling him that he was quitting the committee. He listed 21 safety violations that threatened the health of IBEW members, public safety or both that had repeatedly been brought to the company’s attention and never fixed. They included everything from managers green-lighting locomotives for use without testing safety equipment to requiring workers to repair trains covered in pigeon feces but refusing to provide, or even allow the use of, protective clothing.

“When local management decides to act as though safety is a priority, this organization will re-evaluate its position in this matter,” he wrote. “Until that time, should it ever come, our concerns will be brought elsewhere.”

Giuliano handed over the letter Friday and posted a copy of it to the local’s glass-enclosed bulletin board. Two and half hours into his next workday, Giuliano was cited for violating safety rules and was later suspended for five days.

“It’s typical. Instead of fixing a problem, they attack the person who points it out,” Giuliano said.

Up until 2008 that would have been the end of the story. As a 2007 congressional hearing found, punishing workers instead of fixing safety hazards has been standard in the rail industry since the days of the robber barons more than a century ago. It was nearly that long ago that President Theodore Roosevelt signed many of the laws still regulating the rail industry.

As Social Security, workers’ compensation insurance, Occupational Safety and Health Administration oversight and whistleblower protections were made standard for most working people, rail workers were left outside looking in.

The first safety protections for rail workers weren’t even enacted until the Federal Rail Safety Act of 1970, said Larry Mann, an attorney and noted rail safety expert. But Mann says the scope of the law was extremely limited and enforcement by the Federal Rail Administration, which has historically been run and staffed by former rail company managers, was lax at best.

But in 2007, the late congressman from Minnesota, James L. Oberstar, inserted a few paragraphs into the massive bill implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. Section 100 of 106, in part written by Mann, dramatically expanded the rights and protections of rail workers. Oberstar later said that the goal of the law was a complete overhaul of a safety culture” preoccupied with blame, with fault and with individuals.”

The law protected rail workers from retaliation for reporting safety hazards and injuries (see sidebar for full list of protections and prohibited retaliations) that echo whistleblower protections for aviation, nuclear, pipeline and financial industry workers.

The penalties for doing so were purposefully harsh. Workers were to “be made whole” meaning if they lost their job, had their credit rating ruined and lost their house, the company would have to reinstate the worker, pay to fix their credit rating and recover the house or pay for its loss if it was found guilty. All that in addition to back wages, attorney’s fees and punitive damages.

“We snuck it in,” Larry Mann. “The companies didn’t see it coming, thank God.”

It wasn’t just the companies who were surprised. Charles Goetsch, one of 14 attorneys designated by the IBEW to represent injured railworkers. (Find the full list here). He found out about it only after it passed.

“I thought ‘I’ve been waiting for this law for 30 years,’” Goetsch said. “It was huge transfer of power to the workers and they didn’t have to negotiate away a thing to get it.”

By Kristin Stade - Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), July 17, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Washington, DC — New testing in Malibu school facilities reveals illegal levels of a toxic compound dramatically higher than previously reported--as much as 7400 times higher than legal limits and the highest known results for a classroom in the U.S. -- according to a document submitted today by Malibu Unites and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The groups are calling upon the EPA to reject Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s plan to leave polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) found inside the schools in place for up to 15 years.

For months, teachers at Malibu Middle and High Schools and Juan Cabrillo Elementary School have raised concerns to the District about toxic contamination on campus, citing multiple cases of thyroid cancer and a dozen cases of thyroid disease. Others complain of rashes, migraines, hair loss and other health effects they believe stem from their work environment. PCBs are classified as a group 1 carcinogen and are linked with serious health effects even at low levels, such as lower IQ and autism.