What if Deadly Dust Explosions Were Airplane Crashes?

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/02/25/what-if-deadly-dust-explosions-were-airplane-crashes/

by Mike Hall, Feb 25, 2008

If a certain kind of plane kept falling out of the sky, killing and maiming hundreds of passengers, the public would be outraged if the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ignored the advice of aviation experts calling for new safety standards.

Surely the outrage would boil over if the FAA instead told industry: “Hey are some voluntary safety guidelines. See what you can do, OK?”

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1410389702&channel=1184612038


That’s a ludicrous scenario the federal government and the aviation industry would never allow to happen in real life, writes longtime workplace safety advocate Les Leopold. However, substitute dust explosions for crashing airplanes and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for the FAA—and that is the reality in our nation today, he says.

In a recent column on AlterNet, Leopold (who also authored the biography of legendary workplace safety activist Tony Mazzocchi) writes that in the past 12 years, there have been 281 dust explosions. The blasts were ignited by a variety of dusts, from grain to cotton to sugar. The most recent occurred Feb. 7 at the Imperial Sugar plant in Port Wentworth, Ga., killing nine workers and leaving 15 others still hospitalized in critical condition.

Such explosions have killed 119 workers and seriously injured another 781. But OSHA has ignored calls for a mandatory dust standard. A year ago, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) issued a report calling for mandatory regulations to prevent such explosions, Leopold writes, adding:

But as of the Port Wentworth catastrophe, the board had not received a written response from the Bush administration’s about what actions would be taken. The result of this laissez-affaire approach to regulation enabled the industry to police itself and we now see the fatal results.


FULL story at link.

[Dervill Crow]

1. K&R

:kick:

My son works in a bread plant. It's not the first thing you think of when you think of dangerous jobs, but I worry a lot.