Today marks a sad anniversary for worker safety. Two years ago today, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) submitted the silica dust standard to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  

Tom Ward was 13 when his father came home from what would be his last day of work. Ward's father "barely made it through the door, fell to the floor and, between tears, said, 'I can't do it anymore.'"

This is an excerpt of "White House Inaction on Silica Is Deadly for Workers," by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, originally published on The Huffington Post. Read the rest. 

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.

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.  

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.

While the Obama administration has worked closely with unions and other job safety advocates to overcome the eight years of neglect and inaction by the Bush administration on vital workplace safety issues, the AFL-CIO Executive Council says, “There still is much work to be done.” At its annual winter meeting in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., the council also condemned New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) Tier-6 pension proposal.

More than 300 scientists, doctors and workplace safety experts are asking President Obama to step in to speed much-needed protections against worker exposure to crystalline silica.