Tag Archives: osha

Donald Trump Can’t Fix Offshoring, But He’s Got Bigger Problems Anyway

Mother Jones

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Steven Pearlstein suggests that Donald Trump’s deal with Carrier is part of a larger strategy aimed at changing norms of behavior:

There was a time in America when there was an unwritten pact in the business world — workers were loyal to their companies and successful companies returned that loyalty….Then came the 1980s, and all that began to change as American industry began to falter because of foreign competition….So the social norm changed….Although the public never much liked the idea of closing plants and shipping jobs overseas, it no longer was socially unacceptable.

Now comes Donald Trump — in the public mind, a successful businessman — who as the new president, suddenly declares that the new norm is not longer acceptable, and he intends to do whatever he can to shame and punish companies that abandon their workers….He knows that he and his new commerce secretary will have to engage in a few more bouts of well-publicized arm twisting before the message finally sinks in in the C-Suite. He may even have to make an example of a runaway company by sending in the tax auditors or the OSHA inspectors or cancelling a big government contract. It won’t matter that, two years later, these highly publicized retaliations are thrown out by a federal judge somewhere. Most companies won’t want to risk such threats to their “brands.” They will find a way to conform to the new norm, somewhat comforted by the fact that their American competitors have been forced to do the same.

I mostly disagree with this. I think the “norm” Pearlstein is talking about here is actually just ordinary economic reality. During the postwar economic boom, American companies didn’t need to offshore jobs, so they didn’t. Nor did they need to lay off workers or downsize their companies frequently. America was the most efficient manufacturer around, and there was plenty of money sloshing around for everybody. So why invite trouble?

When the postwar boom came to an end, businesses changed. We learned that what we thought had been a permanent new norm, was no such thing. It was just a temporary, three-decade blip. Starting in the 80s, as economic growth leveled off, the business community returned to operating the same way businesses had operated ever since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

I suspect Pearlstein is right about what Trump is trying to do. He’ll engage in some naming and shaming, and on a few occasions he’ll try to set an example by going after companies in semi-legal or outright illegal ways. It might even work a little bit, and it will almost certainly work in a PR sense. But more generally, Trump can’t keep the tide from coming in any more than any other president. It’s not as if the offshoring phenomenon is peculiar to America, after all.

The good news, such as it is, revolves around automation. Within a decade or so, most manufacturing work will be so highly automated that it won’t matter much where it’s made. We’re already starting to see signs of this. That will put an end to large-scale offshoring, but unfortunately, it will be even worse for blue-collar workers. We’re on the cusp of an era when tens of millions of workers will be put out of jobs by automation, and we’d better figure out what we’re going to do about that. But one thing is certain: whatever the answer is, it’s not naming and shaming.

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Donald Trump Can’t Fix Offshoring, But He’s Got Bigger Problems Anyway

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All those fracking jobs come with an increased risk of lung cancer

All those fracking jobs come with an increased risk of lung cancer

chriswaits

While all the damage hydraulic fracturing could do to the Earth is pretty well-covered, we mostly overlook the risks it poses to fracking workers. Each well requires thousands of tons of fracking sand full of fine silica, which can penetrate lungs and lead to incurable silicosis and even lung cancer.

To find out how much those frackers were at risk, Eric Esswein, a workplace safety and exposure expert with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), strapped on a face mask and dug in. NPR reports:

He and his colleagues visited 11 fracking sites in five states: Arkansas, Colorado, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Texas. At every site, the researchers found high levels of silica in the air. It turned out that 79 percent of the collected samples exceeded the recommended exposure limit set by Esswein’s agency.

There were some controls in place, says Esswein, who notes that “at every site that we went to, workers wore respirators.”

But about one-third of the air samples they collected had such high levels of silica, the type of respirators typically worn wouldn’t offer enough protection. …

Workplace inspectors with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration wouldn’t have been aware of this potential risk for fracking workers before this recent study because, unless they receive a complaint or there’s an accident, they generally don’t see the process of hydraulic fracturing. That part of setting up a well happens quickly — and once a well is up and running, contractors move on to the next one.

Government officials and the fracking industry say they’re now working together to reduce workers’ exposures. They started with quick fixes, like putting up warning signs and simply closing hatches on sand-moving machines.

Not only did most of the airborne silica samples exceed NIOSH’s recommended levels, but almost half exceeded the maximum levels set by OSHA, and a third exceeded NIOSH’s recommended level by a factor of 10 or more. Gee, thanks Mister Fracking Industry! All this cancer will go great with my firewater!

Workplace safety experts say the Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules for silica should allow about half of what they do now, but OSHA’s updated regulations have been stuck in review for more than two years.

The New York Times took OSHA to task in a scathing longread about the watchdog agency’s failures when it comes to long-term health threats: “Partly out of pragmatism, the agency created by President Richard M. Nixon to give greater attention to health issues has largely done the opposite. OSHA devotes most of its budget and attention to responding to here-and-now dangers rather than preventing the silent, slow killers that, in the end, take far more lives.”

Just another dirty cost of all that “clean” natural gas.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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All those fracking jobs come with an increased risk of lung cancer

Posted in alo, ALPHA, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on All those fracking jobs come with an increased risk of lung cancer