| Welcome
to the NYCOSH website, where you'll find more than 200 pages
of news and information about on-the-job safety and health,
plus more than 1,500 links to more information on the Internet
that you can use to enhance occupational safety.
 Testimony
before the U. S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor,
and Pensions, Hearing on The Long-Term Health Impacts from
September 11, March 21, 2007 by Michael R. Bloomberg, Jeffrey
L. Endean, Robin Herbert, Kerry Kelly, James Melius, Joan
Reibman, and Jeanne Mager Stellman
New
Law Sets up
Workers’ Compensation Registry for 9/11 Responders
and Cleanup Workers, Eliminating
Normal 2-year Filing Deadline!
Registrants who develop
9/11-related illness at any time will be eligible for compensation
All 9/11 rescue, recovery and cleanup workers are eligible,
and should register even if not sick to protect their rights
to compensation if and when they become sick. Click
here for details.
Trilingual
Comments
of David M. Newman, M.A., M.S., NYCOSH Industrial Hygienist,
prepared for April 28, 2006 Meeting with Dr. John Howard,
Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health and Federal Coordinator for 9/11 Health Issues
Health
and compensation information for immigrant 9/11 cleanup workers
Surveillance
for World Trade Center Disaster Health Effects Among Survivors
of Collapsed and Damaged Buildings (Centers for Disease
Control, April 7, 2006)
Cómo
Usar un Respirador - Hoja Informativa para los Trabajadores
de Limpieza de Katrina y Rita (NYCOSH, March 2006)
Trabajadores
De Limpieza De Katrina Y Rita: Hoja De Datos Sobre El Moho
Occupational
and environmental health on the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita
How
to Use a Respirator: A Factsheet for Katrina and Rita Cleanup
Workers (NYCOSH, January 2006)
Worker
Safety Takes a Back Seat in the Gulf Coast: Federal Agencies
Offer Advice that is Either Useless or Wrong
The effort to protect the safety
and health of workers who are cleaning up the devastation
left by hurricanes Katrina and Rita is having only limited
success, but worker advocates are continuing to press government
agencies and employers to ensure safe and healthful working
conditions along the Gulf Coast. The difficulty of protecting
workers is being compounded by the Centers for Disease Control
(CDC), EPA and OSHA. CDC is advising people to use personal
protective equipment that is not apparently available for
sale in the area, while it and the other agencies refuse
to bring the equipment in. OSHA and EPA are each distributing
“fact” sheets containing information about asbestos
hazards that is erroneous. The misinformation in the factsheets
is likely to result in exposure to cancer-causing asbestos
that could otherwise be prevented.
Disputed
$125 Million Aid for Injured Responders Restored to the Federal
Budget, Again
The disputed $125 million for 9/11-related
workers’ compensation, which had been given to New
York and then taken back by the Bush administration was
once again restored to the federal budget on November 22.
Proposed
Cutback In Community Right-to-Know Reporting Widely Opposed
The Environmental Protection Agency
has proposed to sharply reduce the amount of information
that industry is required to publically disclose about the
amount of pollution it spills into the water and air. The
proposal to reduce the amount of information that companies
must disclose in the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) has
drawn strong opposition from environmental, public health
and labor groups, and from several members of Congress.
New
York City Workplace Fatalities Increase in 2004
The number of workplace fatalities
in New York City rose from 94 to 107, or14 percent, between
2003 and 2004, according to statistics released by the Bureau
of Labor Statistics. The increase was almost entirely due
to a substantial increase in the number of workers killed
when they were struck by a vehicle and workers who died
as a result of a fall.
Contractor
Faces 15 Years in Prison for Fatal Trench Cave-In
A Staten Island construction contractor
was indicted for manslaughter November 4 for the death of
a worker who was buried when a 15-foot-deep trench where
he was working caved in two years ago. The contractor, Ken
Formica, faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted.
"No worker, regardless
of his or her job, should be exposed to the dangers posed
by an unshored trench," said District Attorney Daniel
Donovan. "The lives of construction workers in our
community are not a dispensable commodity. Failure to protect
workers in this way is a crime and will result in your prosecution."
AFL-CIO
Launches New Research Tool Linking OSHA Records to Other Federal
Agency Information
Working America, the Community Affiliate
of the AFL-CIO has launched a new web-based search tool
that can be used to research the records of companies by
geographical areas, company name, or industry.
Hundreds
of the nation’s leading organizations and experts call
on Congress for immediate action to protect Gulf Coast cleanup
workers from serious health hazards
A letter endorsed by 124 organizations
and 104 individuals, sent to every Member of Congress on
October 6, 2005.
Gulf
Coast cleanup workers must be protected from serious health
hazards:
Hundreds of the nation’s
leading organizations and experts call on Congress for immediate
action -- a press release issued by the National Council
for Occupational Safety and Health, October 6, 2005
Final
Report of the Peer Review of the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency’s “Final Report on the World Trade Center
(WTC) Dust Screening Study
By Office of Research and Development,
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, October 2005
W.R.
Grace and Officials Indicted for Exposing Hundreds to Asbestos
and Covering it Up
A federal grand jury in Missoula,
Montana, brought a 10-count indictment against the W.R.
Grace company and seven of its current and former top officials.
The company and the men were charged with having knowingly
endangered both employees of the Grace vermiculate mine
in Libby, Montana, and the residents of Libby, who were
exposed to windblown asbestos fibers from the mine on the
outskirts of town. Additional charges include conspiracy
and obstruction of the EPA’s effort to learn the truth.
At least three WTC-contaminated
buildings in Lower Manhattan are slated for imminent demolition.
The demolition of heavily contaminated high-rise buildings
in a densely populated environment is unprecedented and potentially
very hazardous. For a perspective on the need for caution,
click here
to read the testimony NYCOSH industrial hygienist David Newman
at the February 17, 2005 hearing of the New York City Council's
Committee on Lower Manhattan Redevelopment.
Campaign
to Stop Corporate Killing - Criminal Prosecution of Employers
who Knowingly Endanger Workers
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