Worksafe

Weighing in: Revised Green Chemistry Rules

Worksafe — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:18:44 -0800

California’s informal green chemistry regulations, released in October 2011, are historic in several ways. That’s what members of the CHANGE Coalition (Californians for a Healthy and Green Economy), including Worksafe, told the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) in comments, submitted December 30, 2011.

In 2008, California passed AB 1879, the pivotal legislation that initiated California’s Green Chemistry Initiative. The regulations currently under development are supposed to spell out how we will effectively remove the most pervasive and hazardous chemicals from the market, promote the use of safer alternatives, and protect the health of workers and those most at risk.

What makes these regulations historic?

Among other things, they will regulate products (rather than only individual chemicals), and they will require manufacturers to ask, “Is it necessary to include this chemical in my product?” These regulations also focus on the intrinsic hazard traits of a chemical, and do not exclusively consider the degree of risk that it will cause harm.

DTSC is expected to release the official draft regulations at the end of February 2012.

CHANGE hopes the official version will retain the precedent-setting elements of this regulation and make changes to ensure this law is effective. We are committed to working with DTSC to overcome the current limitations in the Green Chemistry Initiative, such as lack of funding sources required to implement the proposed program.

A Brief History of California's Green Chemistry Initiative
By CHANGE (Californians for a Healthy & Green Economy)

In 2008, the California legislature set out to address the problem of harmful products in our daily lives by adopting a multi-pronged Green Chemistry Initiative. As part of this initiative, Assembly Bill 1879 (authored by Mike Feuer from Santa Monica) was signed into law.

The statute directs CalEPA’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to develop a process for identifying harmful chemicals and products, which will include the analysis and development of safer alternatives.

DTSC is calling the draft regulations the Safer Consumer Products Regulations.

A version of these regulations was promulgated by DTSC at the end of 2010 in the final days of the Schwarzenegger Administration, but was quickly withdrawn because of sharp criticism from nearly all non-industry groups, including the bill’s author. Under new leadership, DTSC released a revised informal draft regulation on October 31st of 2011, and requested public comments to be submitted before December 30, 2011.

Safety Gear & Employer Responsibility

Worksafe — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:08:17 -0800

For about a year, the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board has been working on regulations regarding employers' responsibilities to pay for personal protective equipment (often called "PPE"). Worksafe, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, the California Labor Federation, and other allies have been working to ensure that any new regulations do not undermine California's policy that employers must pay for safety devices and safeguards.

The Standards Board has announced that an advisory committee will meet in 2012 to discuss this issue. Worksafe plans to participate fully in the advisory process, and we welcome worker advocates, unions, or anyone interested in safety and health to make their opinions heard. This is a bread-and-butter issue for working people, who should not be forced to choose between spending their own money to buy safety items or going without.

Please contact Worksafe Staff Attorney Corey Friedman, cfriedman at worksafe dot org, if you are interested in participating.

New Lead Safety Levels for Workers?

Worksafe — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:13:11 -0800

It still is in our workplaces, homes and consumer products. And people still ask: how low should we go?

That’s what Cal/OSHA is trying to decide about lead, given that the existing standards are based on science that has not been updated in over 30 years. Recent studies (PDF) provide strong evidence that the metal harms people at the current legal exposure levels. The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) recommends lowering how much lead can be in workplace air, and workers’ blood and bones. They also want workers removed from lead-contaminated work areas based on the level of lead in their blood, not how much is in the air. Looking at blood lead levels provides a better picture of how people are being affected.

This means workers who might breathe or otherwise get lead in their body (e.g., by eating or smoking in an area where there is lead dust) would have regular tests for lead in their blood. The current law for construction workers (PDF ) and others says this medical surveillance is required only when the lead in air measurements are above 30 micrograms for every cubic meter of air. That means someone must first test the air.

CDPH says this ignores ingestion and the way that levels of lead in air can change. Blood tests are a better way to know if someone has too much lead in their body, and their workplace. Besides, they say, many employers do not actually measure the amount of lead in the air, and so many workers do not get tested to know the amount of lead in their blood. They know this from experience running the Occupational Lead Poisoning Prevention Program (OLPPP).

Why worry?

The metal harms the people who work with it and their families. It affects the ability of men to have children, or healthy children. It affects the fetus, leading to miscarriages, lower birth weights, developmental and behavioral problems, and learning disabilities. It causes high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes. It affects how well the kidneys work. It makes the brain less effective, and is linked to depression, impaired thinking, and reasoning difficulties.

Lead has been a known hazard for more than a thousand years. Its use is banned in some things (e.g., gasoline, house paints, food can solder).

Yet workers still deal with it in about 100 types of work. This is especially true in the manufacture, recycling, and repair of batteries and radiators, in some construction work, and in some foundries and smelters. In the U.S. and elsewhere, lead is also often found in electronic waste (e-waste).

The last lead standard was passed in the 1970s. Federal OSHA’s permissible exposure limit (PEL), and its cutoffs for medical removal and blood tests, were up-to-date then. Now, there’s a lot more evidence that lead causes serious health effects at much lower levels. We also know that if workers take lead home accidentally (e.g., on clothes or in their vehicles), their children can be affected at much lower levels than indicated by the 1970s studies.

If you want to know more about why the CDPH is recommending changes, you can download documents about the proposals, as well as a general report on the issue (PDF ). You can also read about the department’s experiences investigating lead poisoning and blood test results.

If you’re worried that lead may be affecting you, check out these materials for workers in English (PDF ) and Spanish (PDF ). There are also materials for employers (PDF report and alert) and doctors (PDF research paper and medical guidelines booklet).

If you want to keep up with what happens with the Cal/OSHA standard for lead, contact Bob Nakamura or Steve Smith of the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) to put you on an e-mail list. They will tell you about Cal/OSHA meetings to discuss making the standard more protective. You can attend to tell your story, or those of your family members or co-workers, and to ask questions. And you can always ask Worksafe what we’re doing to push for California standards that really protect workers from lead on the job.

Methyl Iodide on Trial: Bad for Public Health, Food Security, Worker Safety and the Environment

Worksafe — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:09:00 -0800

Today, a lawsuit filed in December 2010 by Earthjustice and California Rural Legal Assistance - on behalf of several farmworkers and a number of activist groups, including Worksafe, Inc., against the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) and Arysta LifeScience – heads back to court. At issue is the approval of methyl iodide for agricultural use here in California.

Methyl iodide is a particularly nasty carcinogen. Fifty-four eminent scientists, including six Nobel Laureates in Chemistry, called it “one of the more toxic chemicals used in manufacturing” and questioned the wisdom of U.S. EPA’s approval of the chemical in the first place.

It poses the most direct risks to farmworkers, particularly young workers, and neighboring communities; a team of independent scientists determined that it would likely result in exposures far above levels of concern, unless the size of spray buffer zones was “several hundred feet to several miles.”

Unsurprisingly, other states – specifically New York and Michigan – which had considered approving its use decided against it. In California, the story is a bit different.

According to court documents, despite the fact that many of their own scientists and an independent State-convened Scientific Review Committee recommended against approval, the DPR approved the pesticide methyl iodide at exposures levels for farm workers 120 times higher than what was believed to be safe.

Approval of the pesticide was rushed through in the final days of the Schwarzenegger administration, and it’s currently approved for application to strawberries, peppers, tomatoes, orchards, vineyards, and nurseries at rates up to 100 pounds per acre. In California, it will primarily be used on much of the state’s 38,000 acres of strawberry production, totaling potentially millions of pounds of use.

This is dangerously irresponsible public policy on a number of levels, but its impact on young workers is of particular concern to those of us in the occupational safety and health community.

Adolescents are routinely employed in agricultural work, a fact with deeply worrying implications in the context of methyl iodide use. For instance, while all workers who perform tasks that disturb surface soil will encounter substantial amounts of the pesticide, young workers have elevated inhalation rates compared to adults, increasing their short term and cumulative exposure levels above those of many other members of the population. And since they undergo intense and rapid brain development and substantial hormonal changes at this period in their lives, they are also highly susceptible to neurotoxic chemicals and hormone disruptors; methyl iodide is both.

Despite their special vulnerability, current California child labor laws do not adequately protect young workers from pesticide exposure. While teens can be found throughout California’s agricultural fields, both with and without the permits mandated for such employment, there is no regulation to prevent them from working in or adjacent to fields that have been sprayed or fumigated. Under existing law, teens ages 16 and 17 could even be involved in the direct application of pesticides, assuming they met other certification and training requirements.

As the case against this dangerous pesticide makes its way through the courts, local governments have already begun to take action. The County of Santa Cruz recently passed a resolution against the chemical, while the County of Monterey is considering other measures. Dozens of state legislators have authored letters in opposition to the chemical, and Governor Brown pledged to “take a fresh look” at the issue last March.

It’s unconscionable to expose any worker, much less young workers, to highly toxic pesticides unnecessarily. It flies in the face not only of expert opinion but common sense. As a matter of prudent public health, environmental, food security, and worker safety policies, the use of methyl iodide in the state should have been rejected outright especially in light of the strong science that backed up such a denial. Since it wasn’t, advocates and workers will continue the fight to protect ourselves and our communities.

This article originally appeared on Labor's Edge.

Our Staff

Worksafe — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 14:18:54 -0700

Gail Bateson

Executive Director

University of California at Berkeley (B.S., 1976 and M.S., 1979).

Gail joined Worksafe as Executive Director in 2009. She has worked for various unions, labor support organizations and government agencies on workplace health and safety issues over the last 30 years. This includes occupational safety and health policy, program development, curriculum development, and training in many areas of occupational health, with special interest in disciplines that focus on early detection and elimination of hazards through human factors, process safety, workplace organization, and expanded workers’ rights.

Inspired initially by an internship with the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW), she spearheaded the creation of the Occupational Health Internship Program (OHIP), which she led from 2004 to 2009 while also working in the Occupational Health Branch of the California Department of Public Health. Gail has also worked for the International Chemical Workers Union and the UC Berkeley Labor Occupational Health Program.

Corey Friedman

Staff Attorney

Admitted to the California bar (2006); U.C. Hastings (J.D., 2006); Bowdoin College (B.A., 2003).

Before joining Worksafe, Corey spent several years as an attorney at The Veen Firm, PC, litigating civil suits on behalf of severely injured workers and consumers. In 2009, as a project fellow at the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law at U.C. Berkeley, she worked on a paper for the World Health Organization concerning laws affecting sexual health.

Originally from Massachusetts, Ms. Friedman moved to California to pursue her law degree, graduating in 2006 from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

Rick Kelley

Administrative Assistant

University of Maryland, College Park (B.A., 2001)

Mr. Kelley graduated with B.A. degrees in English and Philosophy from the University of Maryland, College Park. He has worked in a number of different advocacy roles, ranging from a senior staff position on a major statewide initiative campaign to serving as Assistant Director of State Campaigns for a national drug policy reform non-profit.

Rick also contributed to the formation of a legal collective focused on empowering and supporting communities likely to be targeted for their political activism. His current interests lie primarily at the intersections between food justice, workers' rights, and collective efforts for social change.

Sophie Noero

Program Administrator

Tulane University (B.A., 2006)

Sophie received her B.A. degrees in Communications and Political Science, cum laude, from Tulane University. Since immigrating to the United States from South Africa in 1996, she has lived and worked in several cities. She spent the bulk of those years in New Orleans, where she returned following Hurricane Katrina in order to complete her studies and work extensively in city-wide rebuilding efforts, and policy development initiatives.

Since coming to Worksafe in 2007, Sophie has taken on a wide range of roles and responsibilities. From testifying at legislative oversight hearings, to leading website development, to planning the 2011 Triangle Factory Fire 100th Anniversary Commemoration, she has embraced many opportunities to learn and grow as a social justice advocate.

Jora Trang

Managing Attorney

Admitted to the California Bar (2001); Boalt School of Law (J.D., 2001); University of California, San Diego (UCSD) (B.A., 1994).

Jora is an attorney specializing in employment/labor law and has worked for over 20 years to advance social justice issues affecting marginalized populations. From 1991 to 1996, she worked alongside students and organizers to assist and organize workers in Maquiladora factories, created the first Asian American women's feminist conference and UCSD’s first women of color in activism class, and worked in coalition with students and faculty to petition for a fully funded UCSD’s Women’s Center.

Both before and during her legal career, Jora has shared her passion for social justice through artistic endeavors. Her experiences include touring the country as the Artistic Director of a guerrilla theatre troupe, competing on the Berkeley and Oakland slam poetry circuit while in law school, and serving as a Board Member and performer with liquidFire.

During law school, Jora served as an Equal Justice Fund Fellow for Bay Area Legal Aid, and also clerked at the East Bay Community Law Center and the USF Street Law Program. Following law school, she worked for the law firm of Berg & Parker, LLP. From 2002 to 2005, she worked at Employment Lawyers Group with Robert Lazo, a plaintiff’s side employment and labor law firm. In 2005, Jora formed her own law firm, engaging in civil rights litigation and social justice oriented advocacy work in partnership with other law firms. While in private practice, Jora served as the Program Director for the East Bay VIP Mentors, Inc., assisting youth transitioning out of the California Youth Authority (CYA) and a pro bono staff attorney for the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL).

In 2010, Jora returned to the non-profit world by joining Equal Rights Advocates (ERA) as their Senior Staff Attorney where she was a part of the litigation team for Dukes v. Walmart and Mansourian v. UC Regents. She also served as the Campaign Leader for ERA’s Marginalized Women Worker Campaign.

Dorothy Wigmore

Occupational Health Specialist

University of Massachusetts Lowell (M.S., 1997); Polytechnic of the South Bank, London, England (B.S., 1981); Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (B.A., 1972).

Dorothy brings with her over 30 years of experience working on a wide variety of health and safety issues and campaigns as an occupational hygienist, ergonomist, researcher, educator, writer, and editor. Her international educational background includes graduate studies in Work Environment at UMass Lowell, with an ergonomics concentration and specialization in work organization (M.S., 1997), and a degree in Occupational Hygiene (B.S., 1981). She has experience and training in Canada, England, Mozambique, and the U.S., integrating an international and “big picture” perspective with a focus on practical solutions.

Dorothy’s commitment to workers’ rights and promoting occupational health stems from encounters with Nova Scotia fishermen and her time as a journalist in the mining community of Sudbury, Ontario. Since then, she has worked in and around auto and meatpacking plants, construction sites, health care facilities, offices, schools, social services organizations, and other public sector workplaces.

A pioneer of popular body and workplace mapping tools, she also develops other visual tools for participatory/popular education and training. Many were used in the 2008 guide for joint health and safety committees, Seeing the Workplace with New Eyes, which was produced for the Manitoba Workers’ Compensation Board. She also has a long-time interest in participatory research, and edited a special issue of New Solutions about the topic.

Court Affirms Multi-Employer Law

Worksafe — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:00:00 -0700

September 20, 2011

WORKSAFE PREVAILS IN KEY HEALTH AND SAFETY LEGAL BATTLE
Third District Court of Appeal ruling caps four and half years of litigation

Oakland, CA – On September 16, 2011, Worksafe, Inc. won a hard-fought legal victory. California’s Third District Court of Appeal upheld a Superior Court writ establishing that the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board (OSHAB) improperly ruled when it made it more difficult for the government to enforce safety and health regulations against controlling employers on multi-employer worksites.

According to the law, an employer who is responsible, by contract or through actual practice, for safety and health conditions on a jobsite, must protect all workers exposed to the hazards, not just the employer’s own employees.

“The controlling employer can’t put its head in the sand and disclaim all responsibility for dangerous hazards just because those hazards are created by another employer,” said Gail Bateson, Executive Director of Worksafe, an Oakland-based nonprofit that advocates for workplace safety and health. “This decision reinforces that principle. It’s a real victory for workers.”

The case – United Association Local Union 246, AFL-CIO v. Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board – arose from an incident in which an apprentice pipefitter was seriously injured while fixing a leaking water line. California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, the agency that enforces health and safety regulations, issued citations to both the worker’s employer, a subcontractor, and general contractor Harris Construction.

“The struggle to assure that all employers on a multi-employer worksite take responsibility for health and safety conditions has been a long one. Worksafe and the California Labor Federation sponsored legislation which became effective in 2000 and assured that all workers would be protected. It is unbelievable that the OSH Appeals Board continued their long pattern of trying to narrow the requirements of the law,” stated Frances Schreiberg, co-counsel in the case, who became involved in this struggle when she filed a complaint with Federal OSHA against the Cal/OSHA program in 1994. “This is about safety. It’s about making sure that a controlling employer as well as an employer who exposes his or her workers, creates a hazard, or the employer who has responsibility for correcting a hazard, all take care. The idea here is to avoid sacrificing safety because one employer just points the finger at another and says ‘it wasn’t my responsibility.’”

Harris Construction had contracted to retain authority over safety, including the ability to stop dangerous work and the power to take corrective measures. The company admitted that it had “played an active role in safety,” holding safety meetings and talking regularly with the subcontractor’s staff.

The Board, comprised of appointees from an earlier administration, ignored its own precedent and ignored an earlier ruling by the Court of Appeal when it let the general contractor Harris off the hook. It did so by ruling that the Division (the enforcement agency) had to shoulder an additional burden and prove the employer had been “in a position to abate” the specific violation at issue.

“On jobsites with multiple employers—which you can find in construction, hospitals, agriculture, and plenty of other industries—the state needs to be able to make sure that employers with responsibility for safety and health are actually fulfilling their responsibilities,” said Worksafe attorney Corey N. Friedman. “The Appeals Board doesn’t have the power to override the Legislature, so it can’t make the Division jump through extra hoops.”

# # #

Worksafe is a California-based nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting people from job-related hazards and empowering them to advocate for the right to a safe and healthy workplace. For more information, visit www.worksafe.org.

"Prevention Pays" Report

Worksafe — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:34:54 -0700

A fence at the top of the hill, not an ambulance at the bottom: “Prevention Pays: Solutions to Help Workers and Businesses Thrive”

Preventing workplace deaths, injuries, illnesses, and diseases protects workers, first and foremost. But ensuring the health and safety may also be in the best interest of employers.

Worksafe’s just-released report, “Prevention Pays: Solutions to Help Workers and Businesses Thrive,” tallies the costs – human, financial, and social – of failures to protect workers’ health and safety on the job. We profile innovative solutions from different sectors. And we offer a range of common-sense recommendations to keep California’s workers healthy and safe, help employers succeed, and support the communities depending on both of them.

Download the report (PDF, 8174.1K)

Whenever changes are proposed to improve workplace safety and health, there is often a common refrain from critics that implementing reforms will be costly to businesses. “Prevention Pays” demonstrates that the exact opposite is true more often than not. As one source says:

Businesses (in the United States) spend $170 billion a year on costs associated with occupational injuries and illnesses – expenditures that come straight out of company profits. But workplaces that establish safety and health management systems can reduce their injury and illness costs by 20 to 40 percent. In today’s business environment, these costs can be the difference between operating in the black and running in the red.

Prevention is not about “controlling” a hazard, so it’s still there. Prevention means avoiding harm. It’s the public health approach of aiming for the most effective solutions. They protect the most people by preventing or eliminating hazards.

In workplaces, much time is spent debating if something “must” be done, rather than using the evidence that prevention pays. As the report says,

It’s time to shift from a focus on “the problem” and how bad it is, to a prevention framework that emphasizes solutions and “fixing” problems. It’s time to make the goal clearer by using the word “prevention” instead of “controls.” It’s time to use the word “health” along with “safety.” It’s time to make the rewards of prevention more consistent, wide-ranging, and initiated by more employers and workers.

In California, the costs are at least 1.4 percent of the approximately $1.82 trillion in the state gross product for 2009.

The 6,632 work-related fatalities reported in [California] between 1992 and 2002 cost $5.4 billion alone, in direct and indirect costs. Those are just immediate injuries that led to death. The costs of occupational disease, injuries, and illnesses – which shorten and change lives – are estimated to be at least $20.7 billion a year in California.

The numbers are impressive and sobering. Some employers already recognize the hazards behind them. With workers and advocates, businesses in multiple sectors have improved how their workplaces function. Examples include:

Ergonomic improvements that increase productivity while saving money and avoiding harm to workers;
Eliminating toxic chemicals and so also the expenses for protective gear and pollution control equipment; and
Research to practice (R2P) processes identity hazardous work and develop alternative methods and tools.

The over-arching conclusion is hard to miss. As the Director of Corporate Health Solutions for Methodist Hospitals in Gary and Merrillville, Indiana noted, “It is better to put a fence at the top of a cliff than an ambulance at the bottom. Companies are so bottom-line driven, prevention can be a hard sell, but it is always a better solution.”

This is true for the workers whose lives, bodies, and livelihoods are on the line. It’s just as true for the companies who employ them, and the communities counting on both.

Download the report (PDF, 8174.1K)

Survey: CalOSHA on the Job

Worksafe — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:26:49 -0700

	Worksafe is collecting stories about where Cal/OSHA has helped, and where a lack of agency resources has caused problems for worker protection. This project is part of a broader effort to ensure that Cal/OSHA has adequate staff and resources to protect California workers. In order to gather helpful information, we've created this survey with open-ended questions. We would greatly appreciate your time in reviewing these questions and providing as much information about your own experiences as possible. Your survey responses will be kept confidential. The survey includes fields for you to provide your name and contact information so that we can follow-up with you. This information is not required. However, if you choose to provide this addition information, it will not be shared with any other party.
	Name First Name Last Name
	Email
	Phone Number Please indicate whether this is your home (H), work (W), or cell (C) number.
	Your Industry/Sector* For example: agriculture, chemical, education, electronics, health care, retail & wholesale, technology, transportation, etc.
	Is your worksite union or non-union? Unionized Workplace Non-Union Employer Union Organizing Drive Other: Other Value Please check all that apply
	Union Name (If Applicable)
	1. Please provide examples of where having an effective Cal/OSHA inspection (based on a complaint filed or following a serious accident/fatality) has made a difference in getting employers to eliminate hazards, and/or helped support union H&S campaigns.
	2. Please provide examples of instances when you requested Cal/OSHA to inspect, but there was a long delay in the response time or a quick-and-dirty inspection was done (due to their limited resources). Please also share what, if any, adverse impact this delay had: were workers injured in the meantime?
	3. In general do you think having an effective Cal/OSHA program makes a difference in the level of health and safety protection for your members? How about for workers who are not represented by a union? Why or why not?
	4. Please describe any other hazardous situations or stories about dangerous working conditions that you face on the job?

Join us as a Volunteer or Intern

Worksafe — Mon, 02 May 2011 11:09:49 -0700

Worksafe currently has volunteer and internship opportunities available. If you're interested in volunteering or interning with us, please fill out our form here.

Thank you!

Workers Memorial Day 2011

Worksafe — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 10:00:00 -0700

April 27, 2011

Dying At Work In California: The Hidden Stories Behind The Numbers

One year ago, Hans Petersen, a 30-year old solar panel installer, stepped backwards off the roof of a multi-story apartment building in San Pablo, California. He was not wearing personal fall protection equipment and fell to his death.

In October 2010, two Northern California healthcare workers died in separate incidents of workplace violence. Cynthia Barraca Palomata, a registered nurse, was attacked and killed by an inmate at the Martinez county jail after he faked a seizure and was taken to the nurse’s station. That same month, Donna Gross, a psychiatric technician, was strangled and killed by an inmate at Napa State Hospital. The Napa facility had been under scrutiny for many years, with co-workers reporting that assaults by patients were common and that the murder was “waiting to happen.”

Last month, a Stockton judge accepted a plea deal allowing criminal defendants to escape any jail time in the 2008 heat death of pregnant 17-year old farm worker Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez. Maria Isabel died of a heat-related illness after working nine straight hours, without access to water or shade, in the boiling heat of the grape fields of Stockton.

These stories of Californians who died at work are profiled in “Dying at Work in California: The Hidden Stories Behind the Numbers,” a publication produced by Worksafe and the Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (SoCalCOSH), to be released on Workers Memorial Day, April 28, 2011.

The publication will be available at www.worksafe.org beginning Thursday, April 28, and at the first official appearance of Ellen Widess, newly appointed director of Cal/OSHA, on April 30, from 1pm to 2pm at the UCLA Downtown Labor Center Workers Memorial Day event.

On an average day in the US, 12 workers lose their lives as a result of workplace injuries, and another 137 workers die from occupational diseases. Since 1970, when the Occupational Safety and Health Act was enacted, over 400,000 workers’ lives have been saved due to improvements in job safety protections.

Here in California, nearly 500 workers have died at work every year since 2003. In 2009, the most recent year for which (preliminary) data is available, 301 California workers died on the job. Although the number of workplace fatalities, injuries and illnesses have been on the decline since peaking in 2006, workplace health and safety issues continue to be overlooked.

On Saturday, April 30, working families from Los Angeles will gather at the UCLA Downtown Labor Center for Workers Memorial Day to honor workers who were injured or killed on the job in California, and to ask legislators to make occupational safety a priority. The message is that lawmakers must work to create and preserve safe, quality jobs, not dismantle the middle class safety net.

Local community leaders and elected officials will join together to express their outrage at the lack of concern over lax job safety enforcement and standards. Politicians are chipping away at job safety through decreased funding to federal occupational safety agencies and attacks on collective bargaining agreements, which in many states provide the only assurance of a safe workplace. The event will be one of dozens around the country as working families commemorate those who have died on the job.

“Safety laws and regulations don’t kill jobs – but unsafe jobs do kill workers,” said David Simmons of United Steelworkers, Local 675. “Given our struggling economy today, politicians should be working hard to create good jobs, not endangering the lives of working people. We ask that our elected officials think twice about weakening the enforcement of job safety laws and about attacking workers’ right to bargain collectively for better wages, benefits, and safety standards.”

The 2010 AFL-CIO Death on the Job national report will is available as of April 27 at http://www.aflcio.org/issues/safety/memorial/

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Worksafe is a California-based nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting people from job-related hazards and empowering them to advocate for the right to a safe and healthy workplace. For more information, contact Executive Director Gail Bateson at 510-302-1011 or visit www.worksafe.org.

SoCalCOSH is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate, advocate, and mobilize workers, community members, and policymakers to create safe and healthy workplaces in Southern California. For more information, contact Coordinator Shirley Alvarado-del Aguila at 213-346-3277 or visit www.socalcosh.org.

Press Release Contact - Gail Bateson, Worksafe Executive Director: (510) 302-1011

To schedule an interview with a workplace health and safety expert or labor union representative in connection with this report, please contact Sophie Noero at 510-302-1027 or snoero@worksafe.org.