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Showing blog posts tagged with workplace safety

Hyatt Boycott Aims to End Worker Abuse

Hyatt Boycott Aims to End Worker Abuse

Hyatt “systematically abuses housekeepers and other hotel workers,” said UNITEHERE! President John Wilhelm this morning in announcing a worldwide boycott of the hotel chain.

A wide range of groups, including the AFL-CIO, NFL Players Association (NFLPA), Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ), Pride At Work and several civil rights and women’s groups, are backing the boycott.

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OSHA Acts to Protect Fracking Workers from Silica Exposure

OSHA Acts to Protect Fracking Workers from Silica Exposure

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) issued a hazard alert that urges employers in hydraulic fracturing operations to take appropriate steps to protect workers from silica exposure. Last month, in response to findings reported by NIOSH that workers in fracking operations were exposed to silica levels well in excess of OSHA permissible and NIOSH recommended levels, the AFL-CIO, Mine Workers (UMWA) and the United Steelworkers (USW) sent a letter to the federal workplace safety agencies urging they act to protect workers in these operations.  

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Safety Inspections Save Lives, Don’t Hurt Business

Safety Inspections Save Lives, Don’t Hurt Business

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?  

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House Republicans Rebuff Nuclear Worker Safety

House Republicans have blocked efforts to maintain strong workplace health safety rules for workers at the nation’s nuclear weapons facilities. Republicans leaders rejected even a vote on an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill that would have preserved the current standards.They are pushing an extreme proposal to deregulate worker safety and allow employer self–regulation and self-oversight.

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Global Petition Demands Hyatt Rehire Fired Housekeepers

Last October, the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, Calif., fired two sisters with 30 years of combined experience after they objected to the posting of demeaning pictures of housekeepers in bikinis on a company bulletin board. Yesterday, Hyatt workers, clergy, and local elected officials delivered nearly 100,000 petition signatures from around the world to the hotel’s general manager condemning the hotel’s dismissal of sisters Martha and Lorena Reyes and calling for their reinstatement with full back pay.

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OSHA Warns Hyatt on Housekeeper Injuries

OSHA Warns Hyatt on Housekeeper Injuries

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has told Hyatt Hotels what the hotel chain’s housekeepers have been telling it for years—“Hyatt Hurts.” OSHA issued a formal Hazard Alert letter telling Hyatt that its housekeepers face ergonomic risks every day on the job. The letter outlines steps Hyatt can take to reduce housekeeper injuries.

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Workers Memorial Day: Honor the Dead with a Fight for Safe Jobs

Photo by Sara Wallenfang

In hundreds of Workers Memorial Day ceremonies across the country, working families are honoring workers who have died or been hurt on the job and carrying on the fight for safe workplaces. (Click here to find an event near you.) David Michaels, director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), says: 

Making a living shouldn’t include dying.

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New Video Focuses on Solar Panel Worker Safety

Hans Petersen said goodbye to his roommate and left for work to install solar panels. Hans didn’t return from work that day. He died on the job when he stepped backward off an apartment building roof and fell 45 feet.

OHB’s California Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) program created a four-minute “digital story” to explain the tragic events that led to Petersen’s fatal fall and what could have been done to prevent it.

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Families Urge Faster Action on Life-Saving Job Safety Rules

Tommy Ward

Today in a Senate hearing room usually filled with sharp-suited lobbyists and other Capitol Hill insiders, more than two dozen family survivors of workers killed on the job took the front row seats. They stood and faced the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and held photographs for lawmakers to see--images of their fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, sons and daughters.

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Remember the Triangle Fire Victims

Remember the Triangle Fire Victims

March 25 is the 101st anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City, which killed 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women. Many of them jumped to their deaths from the 10-story factory to escape the fire because they were locked inside. While the Triangle fire is a prominent part of labor history, not just for its tragedy but as the impetus for new labor laws and workplace safety reforms, there is no permanent memorial.

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