Explosions rock chemical plant; evacuation but no injuries

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Declining Federal Oversight of Workplace Safety Could Have Fatal Consequences

n analysis of data by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) shows that under the Trump administration, in workplaces monitored by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), workplace deaths have increased at the same time as the number of inspectors has decreased—a sign that the administration’s effort to dismantle health and safety protections for workers has made many workplaces more deadly. The data paint a picture of two years of malign neglect at OSHA, the chief federal authority for preventing workers from getting maimed, poisoned, abused or killed at work. (The data, which track performance under occupational health and safety rules, does not cover all workplaces—it excludes police, firefighters, army, work-related traffic deaths, deaths in mines, and deaths in the 29 states with state-run OSHA plans.) In the workplaces under the federal OSHA jurisdiction, NELP found an uptick in worker deaths on the job between fiscal years 2017 and 2018, from 837 to 929. When researchers assessed overall enforcement activity in terms of “enforcement units,” which factor in complexity and frequency of inspections, they also discovered a “steady decline” in the intensity of enforcement.

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/workplace-injuries-osha-trump/