Feb. 14 will mark the second anniversary of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA's) submission of the silica dust standard for review to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Every year that goes by without the enactment and enforcement of the proposed standard that controls workers' exposure to silica dust, 60 workers will die, AFL-CIO Health and Safety Director Peg Seminario told NPR in a story broadcast today.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sent this message to working family activists:

Tom Ward’s hardest memory to live with was the day his father came home from what would be his last day of work. His father barely made it through the door, fell to the floor and, between tears, said, “I can’t do it anymore.”

About 1.7 million workers in the United States each year are exposed to silica dust and run the risk of developing silicosis, lung cancer and other debilitating diseases. Public health experts estimate that 280 workers die each year from silicosis—and thousands more develop silicosis as a result of workplace exposures.

But a proposed workplace standard on silica dust exposure from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been delayed for nearly two years as the Office of Management and Budget reviews the proposed standard.

As more and more employers duck paying workers decent wages, health care and training costs by hiring contingent/temporary workers, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) must step up its protection efforts for those workers, a new report urges. Martha McLuskey, one of the authors of the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) report, At the Company’s Mercy: Protecting Contingent Workers from Unsafe Working Conditions, says:

Increasingly, employers are treating them as expendable, accepting high injury rates because the company is largely insulated from the economic consequences.

Check out the heartbreaking story of some of the many workplace deaths where companies are found liable and penalties are issued but never collected as corporations game the bankruptcy system, lawyers aggressively fight and, sometimes, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fails to follow through. Peg Seminario, director of safety and health at the AFL-CIO, is quoted in the article. 

Read Even After Workplace Deaths, Companies Avoid OSHA Penalties.

The nation’s flight attendants will gain workplace health and safety protection from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) under a proposed new policy announced by OSHA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

While OSHA safety and health standards apply to most of America's workers, airline crews have been under the jurisdiction of the FAA since 1975, when the agency claimed exclusive jurisdiction over workplace safety and health for all crew members when they are on board the aircraft.

In 2011, musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) that forced workers to miss at least one day on the job, accounted for one-third of all workplace injuries that required time off from work. That’s up from 29% in 2010, according to recent figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In October, American Crystal Sugar Co.—which has locked out its highly trained 1,300 member workforce since August 2011—has been assessed nearly $50,000 in fines by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for widespread, “high gravity” and “serious” safety violations, including accumulation of combustible dust and failure to lock out equipment during maintenance and repair.

High levels of dangerous and combustible sugar dust was cited in the 2008 Imperial Sugar explosion that killed 14 workers at its Port Wentworth, Ga., refinery.  

A plan by the major mineral company, Great Salt Lake Minerals Corp., with ties to a Louisiana salt mine (North American Salt Co.), to expand its mineral extraction production at the Great Salt Lake, poses a threat to Utah’s Great Salt Lake ecosystem, says the United Steelworkers (USW).

North American Salt Co. also has a record of safety and health violations (enter Mine ID 1600358, to view to view violations) and unfair labor practices.  

Now that the Republican National Convention—with its divisive policies, masked by a cynical call for unity—has wrapped up, let’s take a look at the deeply embedded anti-union and anti-worker philosophy in the Republican platform of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson says:

The basic message of the Republican platform on labor issues is this: Rights are there to be taken from workers and given to the 1 percent.