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.

It’s a double whammy for low-wage workers when they get hurt or fall ill on the job.

A new policy brief, “Mom’s Off Work ’Cause She Got Hurt: The Economic Impact of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses in the U.S.’s Growing Low-Wage Workforce,” examines the growing problem. 

If you are hurt or made ill on the job, navigating the workers’ compensation system in your state can be confusing and difficult. Now a newly launched website, Workers’ Comp Hub (www.WorkersCompHub.org), gives you a road map.

The new website, a joint effort of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) and the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH), provides:

The middle class is the great engine of the American economy, but that engine is sputtering. Today, the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the AFL-CIO and more than a dozen other worker advocate and economic research organizations are proposing “10 Ways to Rebuild the Middle Class for Hard Working Americans: Making Work Pay in the 21st Century.”

This is a cross-post from Occupational Health Watch, by Barbara Materna, chief of Occupational Health Branch, California Department of Public Health.

With bed bug infestations on the rise, pesticide illness related to bed bug control is an increasing problem. A national study reported illnesses among workers who applied pesticides to treat bed bugs and among hotel and maintenance workers who entered rooms after they were treated.

Two years ago on Aug. 5., a San José copper-gold mine located in Chile’s northern Atacama Desert, caved in, trapping 33 miners 2,257 feet underground. “The 33,” as they were quickly known around the world, survived a staggering 69 days underground before their rescue.

Republicans have a plan to create jobs and they’re going to stick by it whether it kills you or not. According to their twisted logic (shared by Mitt Romney, BTW) excessive federal regulation—especially workplace safety rules—is a major reason why unemployment is staying so stubbornly high. 

The answer according to House Republicans simple, just don’t allow any more regulations, from job safety to rules for big banks and public health. That’s theory behind the bill (H.R. 4078) the House passed last week that would bar any new federal rule until the jobless rate drops below 6 percent. How brilliant is that?

BP is slated to pay a hefty fine for willful violations of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) process safety management standard at its refinery in Texas City, Texas: $13,027,000.

One of the most important legacies of the Wisconsin uprising is the mobilization of a new wave of activists. A powerful example is the nearly 300 workers at Palermo’s Pizza in Milwaukee, who were emboldened by the broader movement for workers’ rights in Wisconsin to fight back to raise standards for themselves and customers alike. Many of the workers had come to the United States to build better lives for themselves and their families, and their concern over unsafe working conditions and unfair wages at the frozen pizza plant inspired a desire for a voice on the job.

We’ve known this for decades and now the journal Science has empirical proof that workplace safety and health inspections by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) save lives, reduce employers’ costs for workers’ compensation and do not have any negative economic effect on the inspected businesses.

The authors of the study—three professors from the University of California, Harvard Business School and Boston University—say they set out to answer a simple question: Do government regulations kill jobs—as business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republican lawmakers claim—or protect the public?