Workers’ Safety

Pushing Back Against the Idea of “Freak Accidents”

VIA COSHNETWORK BLOG

On average, 14 workers are killed on the job every day in the U.S., with three to four of those workers being from the construction industry. These stories are often covered in the local or national media, but because most reporters are not familiar with worker safety practices or OSHA rules, the articles often claim the death was the result of a “freak accident.” For example, when a baggage handler was killed on the tarmac at the Atlanta airport this October, the NY Daily News headline read “Contractor Killed in Freak BaggageLoading Accident at Georgia Airport.” The article went on to describe the incident: “The airline employee was guiding a baggage-loading vehicle at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Georgia on Wednesday, when it backed up and pinned him against the plane, Fox 5 News reported. A crew member ordered workers to stop the equipment upon realizing what had occurred, but it was too late. … The Georgia Bureau of Investigations is also looking into the freak accident.” A 2011 study of 250 Associated Press, New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer stories showed this was a common approach. The study found that when the term “freak accident” was used, fewer than 10 percent of articles included “clear and explicit injury prevention information.” The idea that serious injuries and fatalities “just happen” in construction conveys to the public that construction is a chaotic, dangerous industry without an emphasis on safety. Responsible contractors with robust safety programs that take a proactive approach to jobsite safety and health know this isn’t the case. “Calling these incidents ‘freak accidents’ implies that nothing could have been done to prevent them,” says LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan. “Yet the truth is that most workplace fatalities could have been prevented, especially if workplace safety and health standards and other well-known best practices were followed. We must push back against the perception that workplace safety is something left to chance.” A common theme in “freak accident” stories is failing to connect the circumstances that

led up to the fatality with the event itself. By focusing only on the moment when some thing finally went wrong, re porters often miss the truth of the matter – that occupational fatalities are usually preceded by clear violations of OSHA rules or a lack of widely ac cepted safe work practices. The emphasis on reporting breaking news may make it more difficult for reporters to gather all the facts before going to press. However, reporters need to take the time to ask im portant questions when gath ering information for a story, such as which (if any) OSHA standards were violated or how the incident could have been prevented. As in the airport example above, the article should also refer to any ongoing investigations, and mostly importantly, reporters should take the time to follow up with additional reporting once those investigations are completed. It’s also critical that workers and employers, especially those in supervisory roles, don’t fall into the habit of referring to on-the-job fatalities as “freak accidents.” In the wake of such an event, using this term may be tempting – especially if a full investigation might show that the deceased worker, a coworker or someone in a management role was responsible. However, labeling it a “freak accident” tells us nothing about how to prevent such incidents in the future. After a serious workplace incontinued on page 14

Creditors’ Harassments! Lawsuits! Foreclosures!

Save Your:

*Home *Business *Car

Get the legal help you need NOW! Call 718-222-3155! FREE BANKRUPTCY CONSULTATION

*Health *Peace of Mind/Health *Marriage/Relationship

Documents Required:

*List of debts *Your most recent tax returns *Correspondence from creditors *Lawsuit documents *Social Security and ID *List of assets

Filing a Chapter 7, 11 or 13 bankruptcy may be your only choice!!!

Identity on America/

continued from page 1 brought on by massive debts and falling revenue continues to reliably deliver medicine, communications and absentee ballots that allow Americans to vote safely during the coronavirus pandemic. Equally important, the postal service delivers a common bond that has helped shape American society for more than 250 years. Research for my recent book on the postal inspector Anthony Comstock introduced me to the prominent role the postal service played in enabling Americans to conceive of themselves as a singular nation. Sending a letter from Virginia to New England in 1640 was no easy task. Settlers in Southern Colonies mostly relied on the open seas to deliver their mail, and more than three times as many vessels followed trading routes to Europe than to the Northern Colonies. In the fall months, when crops sailed from Charleston and Virginia to New Amsterdam and Boston, letters traveled in a ship captain’s mailbag. Chance determined whether these letters reached their destination. Beyond these insecure routes, settlers in early North American Colonies enjoyed precious little ability to communicate among themselves, which did not bode well for our nation’s future.

Mail delivery takes off

The ability to send overland letters evolved significantly by the end of the 18th century thanks to the expansion of “post roads,” especially between Boston and New York. But mail delivery remained infrequent and unreliable. It was not until Benjamin Franklin was appointed deputy postmaster for the

Editorial credit: Ken Wolter / Shutterstock.com

Colonies, in 1753, that mail delivery modernization truly took off. During his tenure, Franklin instituted numerous innovations unique to America. Until 1753 postmasters were not paid. Printers, nonetheless, had jockeyed for these positions to expand the circulation of their own publications and deny mail service to competitors. But in 1754 Franklin established a subscription model that assured pay to printers and post riders. And in 1758 he insisted that all news sheets be delivered because they “are on many Occasions useful to Government, and advantageous to Commerce, and to the Publick.” In doing so, Franklin contributed to an early American culture of free speech, which recognized the benefits of competing ideas and shared knowledge. Together with postmaster William Hunter of Virginia, Franklin also instituted changes that vastly extended the flow of information among the Colonies. These included improved accounting methods and home delivery for the price of a penny. In 1763, the two men rode 1,600 miles on horseback from Virginia through New England to improve the service. They laid the groundwork for improvements in routes and timetables that led to an explosion of low-cost communications throughout the Northern Colonies. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, newspapers and pamphlets flooded the Colonies, facilitating a shared outrage over British tyranny and condescension, and solidarity among the citizens of the fledgling nation. The Continental Congress appointed Franklin as the nation’s first postmaster general in May 1775. Franklin, in turn, oversaw the rapid transition of the Colonial network he had helped create into the first post office of the United States. After the Revolutionary War, George Washington declared that a democratic republic required an unprecedented diffusion of “knowledge of the laws and proceedings of Government.” He convinced Congress to support a sweeping expansion of postal routes that circulated mail and news with greater scope and reliability. By 1800, nearly 21,000 miles of postal routes connected

Americans living in disparate climates and economies – from Sandy Point, Maine to Natchez, Mississippi. Just a generation later, French statesman Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at the reach of the post service, writing that there was “no French province in which the inhabitants knew each other as well as did the thirteen million men spread over the extent of the United States.”

United in ‘fellow feeling’

Today there are few elements of American life that unite us. We have no national health service, which amid COVID-19 is uniting the United Kingdom in “fellow feeling,” as Queen Elizabeth II described recently. What we do have is the USPS, a constitutionally acknowledged resource that still connects us all. Today it operates 31,322 post offices, as far-flung as Pago Pago in American Samoa and Hinsdale, New Hampshire, the nation’s oldest continuously operating post office. With mail circulation down by a third since the COVID-19 outbreak and continued attacks on the service by Republicans eager to privatize, the U.S. Postal Service faces grave danger. Unlike its private sector competitors, the USPS does not depend on profitability, and keeps its promise to reach all Americans, no matter the cost. Half a million postal workers continue to make this equitable service possible, providing binding threads that draw us together in our American version of “fellow feeling.” When congressional leaders consider proposals to bail out the USPS, they should weigh the value of this cherished and historic service in uniting our country. p Amy Werbel is a Professor of the History of Art, Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)

Freak Accidents/

continued from page 13 jury or fatality, the goal should not be to place blame, but to determine the root causes of the incident. In other words, what are all the contributing factors that resulted in the incident? Without understanding all of these factors and taking steps to address them, another worker is likely to lose his or her life in the same way. When a worker dies on a job, it’s not a “freak accident.” Journalists may use this term to create an attention-grabbing headline or make the story seem more “newsworthy,” but doing so can change how the public and others perceive workplace fatalities. Since the way subjects are framed by the media goes a long way toward shaping public perception, it’s important that both labor and management push back against this idea of the “freak accident.” When you hear such stories from friends or coworkers, or when someone in a management position makes such claims, take the opportunity to push back and set the record straight. We cannot allow public perception to be that employers and workers have no control over what happens on construction sites. That idea may impact our ability to recruit new workers or successfully lobby cities and local governments to approve new construction projects. By focusing on the worker who lost their life and the root causes of the incident, we can all help shine a light on prevention methods that can save future workers.p

Scott Schneider is a COSH Fellow and retired director of occupational safety and health at the Laborer's Health and Safety Fund of North America (LHSFNA). This article originally appeared in Lifelines, a LHSFNA publication.

NYU School of Global Public Health to Study Impact of COVID-19 on Transit Workers

NYU School of Global Public Health is embarking on a series of studies to evaluate the risks and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on one of the city’s essential workforces: transit workers. This research will be conducted in coordination with the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, representing more than 40,000 New York City bus and subway workers. New York City has the largest and most complex mass transit system in the United States, with 7.6 million weekday riders on its subways than 90 TWU Local 100 members have died. Transit and buses prior to the COVIDworkers are at a higher risk for contracting COVID-19 19 pandemic. The MTA has than many other professions, given their frequent contact largely continued service on with the public which often occurs in enclosed spaces, subways and buses throughand their inability to work from home. Moreover, many out the pandemic to ensure safety measures for transit workers and riders were not that doctors, nurses, grocery put in place until late March or April, when the virus was and delivery workers, first realready widespread in New York. sponders, and other essential "This will be the first time outside public health experts workers could continue to get gather information from transit workers about their exto work and keep the city runperiences during the pandemic and put the MTA’s acning. tions under the microscope. We can’t bring back our But the pandemic has taken fallen heroes. But we can keep working to improve safety a devastating toll on the city’s on the job and that’s what this is all about," said Tony transit workers: thousands Utano, president of TWU Local 100. p have been infected and more

Retail Workers Still Need Our Support!

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, the members of UFCW Locals 1500, 338, and 342 have heroically answered the call to support their communities. They went to work each and every day to ensure that we all had continued access to fresh groceries and supplies. But Stop & Shop is still refusing to reinstate a 10 percent pay raise Go to www.moveon.org to sign the petition telling Stop & it gave its 56,000 employees Shop to immediately extend hazard pay until the end of this spring to acknowledge this crisis and to continue enforcing strict safety measures that their work was essential and appreciated. each and every day to ensure that we all had continued We call on Stop & Shop to access to fresh groceries and supplies. immediately extend hazard However, despite the fact that these workers continue pay until the end of this crisis to face danger every day, Stop & Shop has announced and to continue enforcing strict they will be cancelling hazard pay for their Associates efsafety measures. fective on July 4th. This is completely unacceptable. The grocery business is one of the few industries that has not Why is this important? been shut down or devastated but has actually been Since the beginning of the thriving during the COVID-19 outbreak. There is simply COVID-19 crisis, the members no excuse to cut pay for workers right now. of UFCW Locals 1500, 338, and So long as there is a hazard, there should be hazard pay. 342 have heroically answered And the hazard is still very real right now. With no vacthe call to support their comcine in sight, these essential workers will continue to put munities. They went to work their lives at risk by coming to work.p

What Nail Salon Workers Want You To Know Before Making Your Next Appointment

After months of coronavirus-induced closures, the sandalwearing people of the United States are rejoicing at one specific aspect of reopenings: nail salons. But the pandemic isn’t suddenly over just because you can go back to getting pedicures. And even with new safety guidelines in place, there are many concerns. “In some ways I feel safe, and in others I don’t,” Araceli, a nail technician who works in the Bronx, told HuffPost. “The masks we are given are not appropriate for the salons. We need N95s and Nitrile gloves.” listen to perspectives from the BIPOC+ community, and begin a journey toward actualizing effective growth and change both personally and professionally. This is part three of three panel discussions co-sponsored by Women of 802 and Maestra in July featuring Black women+ musicians in conversation. Date: Wednesday, July 29th, 5–6:30pm: It will be an opportunity to create

Araceli told HuffPost that the masks provided by her salon’s owner weren’t sufficient to prevent the spread of the virus or inhalation of salon chemicals, and that the provided latex gloves were not protective enough, either. Organizations like the New York Nail Workers Association, a project of the New York New Jersey Regional Joint Board of Workers United, are working hard to create and enforce safety guidelines and protections for

Pass the Mic: All Musician Discussion

This panel discussion welcomes all musicians to join in a conversation about intersectionality, workers.p

community and to focus on the individual perspectives of these women in a broader discussion of identity, access and inclusion, social responsibility, and accountability in the music industry. Panels will be moderated by esteemed playwright, dramaturg, producer, and advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, Jacqueline Lawton. For registration visit: www.local802afm.org or www.maestramusic.org p