UFCW Applauds California OSHA as it Implements First State Standard Protecting Workers from Popcorn Lung

Today Cal/OSHA implemented a new standard to protect employees who work with diacetyl, a chemical commonly used in food flavorings. Cal/OSHA, a division of the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), is the first and only state-OSHA plan to have such a standard. The new standard requires employers covered by the standard to create a regulated area for each process using diacetyl, unless the process is enclosed.

This action follows the UFCW, Western States Council and the California Labor Federation's petition to the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board to immediately issue an Emergency Temporary Standard for diacetyl, a deadly chemical used in flavorings. This occurred after The UFCW Internationl and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters petitioned the Department of Labor (DOL) for an Emergency Temporary Standard for diacetyl under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

Diacetyl is a hazardous chemical that has been connected to a potentially fatal lung disease that has been experienced by food industry workers across the nation. There have been dozens of cases of what has become known as "popcorn workers lung," or bronchiolitis obliterans-a severe, disabling, and often-fatal lung disease experienced by factory workers who produce or handle diacetyl. Several food industry employees in California have developed devastating lung problems after being exposed to diacetyl in the workplace. There are currently no OSHA standards requiring exposures to diacetyl and flavorings be controlled.

According to the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, there are 16 - 20 plants producing flavorings in the state of California. And thousands of food processing workers are involved in the production of popcorn, pastries, frozen foods, candies and even dog food that use these chemicals.The UFCW represents workers in many of these food processing plants.

GAO Report: OSHA Failed in Tracking Workplace Injuries

A report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed a complete and systemic failure in the way that the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) tracks workplace injuries.

The report finds that:

• OSHA overlooks information from workers about injuries and illnesses because it does not routinely interview them as part of its records audits;
• OSHA also does not review the accuracy of injury and illness records for worksites in eight high hazard industries because it has not updated the industry codes used to identify these industries since 2002.

"Thousands of workers in America deal with workplace injuries everyday," said Mark Lauritsen, UFCW Vice President for Food Processing, Packing, and Manufacturing. "This epidemic of suffering is damaging to the workers, their colleagues, their workplaces, and their families and the communities in which they live. American companies, especially those in the food processing industries, must stop contributing to this problem by pressuring and intimidating workers to keep silent about these problems."

A summary of the report is available at http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-10.

How Much For a Worker's Life?

How much would you guess a worker's life is worth? Millions? Hundreds of thousands? Maybe you can't even contemplate a thing like measuring human life in terms of pure monetary value. Maybe, like the credit card commercials say, it's...priceless?

Or what about $7000?

If that last figure seems a little low to you, you'll no doubt be horrified to hear that that's the top rate. The maximum amount that OSHA is allowed to fine companies who've received citations subjecting their workers to preventable hazards that could result in death or serious physical harm.

This is the palty price WalMart has to pay after OSHA

cited Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for inadequate crowd management following the Nov. 28, 2008, death of an employee at its Valley Stream, N.Y., store. The worker died of asphyxiation after he was knocked to the ground and trampled by a crowd of about 2,000 shoppers who surged into the store for its annual "Blitz Friday" pre-holiday sales event.

This is what a worker's life is worth. Less than a fraction of 1 percent of those bonuses paid out to AIG executives.

Doesn't that reflect a problem with our labor laws? As Jason Lefkowitz at CTW Connect points out:

President Barack Obama has brought in a new team at the Department of Labor that is committed to ensuring that every worker has a safe workplace. But they can only do as much as they are empowered to do by the law. And the laws that govern worker protection on the job are shockingly toothless.

Lefkowitz goes on to make the same ask that I'll make here: Please tell Congress to pass the Protecting America’s Workers Act, which is currently before the House of Representatives. It's legislation that would put some teeth in our labor laws and strengthen many protections for employees at their workplaces--including upping the minimum fine for the type of citation WalMart received after their worker's trampling death.

It won't bring workers who've died on the job back to their families and friends. But it would at least give companies pause to think about the consequences of not adequately protecting workers from on-the-job hazards.

Making workers safer on the job? That really would be priceless.