We want to highlight the plight of women garment workers in the United States (from OnLabor):
On International Women’s Day, Harpers Bazaar
wrote an article that paralleled L.A.’s garment workers campaigns’ to get more workplace
protections in the 21st century to the efforts of New York
garment workers at the onset of the 20th century to do
the same (in the strikes that would become known as the Uprising of the
20,000). Both groups comprised a majority of female and immigrant workers; both
faced exploitation, threats, long workweeks, and piecework pay. Though most
industry production now takes place abroad, the article explained how an
estimated 45,000 laborers continue to work in hazardous workplaces. Citing a
2016 report from the UCLA Labor Center, the Garment Worker Center, and
the UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health, the article explained that
surveys from hundreds of garment workers indicated that a majority of them
worked in spaces that were so overwhelmed by dust accumulation and excessive
heat from poor ventilation that it made it difficult for them to work – and
even breathe. To address these issues, writer Chelsey Sanchez points toward
the Garment Worker
Protection Act, a piece of
legislation that State Senator María Elena Durazo and advocates have introduced
in the California legislature as Senate Bill 62 in December 2020. The legislation would expand liability
to retailers, prohibit the practice of the piece-rate pay system, and authorize
the Labor Commissioner’s Bureau of Field Enforcement to investigate and cite
guarantors for wage theft.
We demand the right to be safe at work, safe at home and safe in our communities
We at National COSH demand the right to be safe at work, safe at home and safe in our communities. We share the outrage expressed across the globe at the preventable deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and all Black people who are victims of racially-motivated police brutality and hate crimes.
Racism is morally wrong and a mortal danger to human lives. Black people are dying disproportionately from COVID-19 – not because of any characteristic of the virus itself, but because of the ongoing racism and discrimination that still characterizes how we live and work.
Black and brown people are routinely assigned the most dangerous jobs, live in the neighborhoods most exposed to harmful toxins, and suffer the most from police misconduct. Our unfair penal system also incarcerates and punishes far too many Black people. This ongoing, painful and life-threatening racial bias cannot be tolerated.
We stand in solidarity with all those fighting for real change and for a broad, inclusive vision of racial and economic justice. At this perilous moment, we stand with Black people who have been systematically denied the most basic right – the right to live and breathe, free from harm, in their own communities.
When Ironworker Shawn Nehiley was prescribed the opioid OxyContin to treat pain for a work injury, the drug’s pull to addiction hit him like “a tornado that you feel you can’t get out of.” Nehiley is a business agent with Ironworkers Local 7 and a MassCOSH board member.
Epidemic rates of opioid addiction and overdose are causing catastrophic harm to workers and their families. The COSH Network is building partnerships to put an end to worker pain, suffering addiction, and death.
MassCOSH has piloted a successful participatory research and action program, identifying factors that cause workers to become addicted. A powerful peer education program has reached 285 workers in its first year.
SoCalCOSH is launching a workers’ compensation clinic to help workers access treatment, alert them to the dangers of addictive pain medications and safer alternatives, as well as supporting prevention efforts.
National COSH is leading educational programs and convening groups across the country to address prevention of work factors that lead to opioid misuse, development of programs to support injured workers in avoiding opioid misuse, and improving access to treatment and recovery programs. A new National COSH web page will provide critical resources, and efforts to address harm to workers due to the opioid crisis will be on the agenda at this year’s National Conference on Worker Safety and Health (COSHCON19).
evidence, pictures taken by the media show that the trench had a 90-degree angle down and was otherwise unsecured. After making the decision not to secure the trench, the responsible parties intentionally or recklessly directed or authorized two or more people to descend into or otherwise come in dangerous proximity to the unsecured trench, at least one of whom was a teenager, possibly under the legal age in the state of Virginia for working in an excavation. Subsequently, the trench collapsed, causing the death of the teenager and the injury of another person.
The undersigned individuals and organizations respectfully ask for your office to investigate Digges Development Corporation, its owners, and/or other site operators and their owners to determine whether their recklessness, which caused the death of a teenager and the injury of another, constitutes the criminal offenses of involuntary manslaughter and assault and battery, respectively. Additionally, we request a meeting with your office to discuss this incident in more detail. To respond with questions or set up a meeting, please contact Katie Tracy at (202) 747-0698 x.7 or ktracy@progressivereform.org.
Sincerely,
Rena Steinzor, Member Scholar, Center for Progressive Reform
Katie Tracy, Policy Analyst, Center for Progressive Reform
David Flores, Policy Analyst, Center for Progressive Reform (resident of Catawba, Virginia)
Diane Matthew Brown, CET, Labor of Love Safety Training and Consulting
Daniel J. Brustein, MD, FACOEM, CIH, Retired (Cleveland, OH)
Michael Felsen, Justice at Work Fellow
Debra Fisher, IUE-CWA (Moraine, OH)
Nicole Fuller, Exec. Dir., PhilaPOSH
Jaribu Hill, Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights
Thomas Joyce, Chairperson, Midstate (NY) Council for Occupational Safety and Health
This is an informative article from the NY Times with lots of information to help ensure that your office or home workstation is set up with safety and good ergonomics in mind. For a professional assessment, we can come to your workplace, perform workstation evaluations and advise on proper workstation setup. And it is all grant-funded (no cost to you). Contact us: midstatecosh@gmail.com or 607-275-9560.
If your office leaves you
with pain in your wrists, back or neck, it doesn’t have to be that way — in
fact, it shouldn’t. Here’s how to fix it.
By Melinda Wenner Moyer, New York
Times, January 30, 2019
Last month, I bought a big new computer screen, thinking that if I
stopped crouching over my laptop like a turtle, my lower back would stop
hurting. It worked great — for about 48 hours. Then I started getting searing
pains in my neck, which prevented me from turning my head to the right, which
then almost got me into a car accident. All because, I eventually figured out,
I had positioned my new screen about two inches too high.
About $1 billion a week is spent in the
United States to deal with entirely preventable work-related
musculoskeletal injuries, many of which are caused by small flaws in body
positioning. You can do a surprising amount of damage to your body if you hold
parts of it in strange positions for hours at a time, five days a week. But
some research suggests that you can also prevent and even
reverse damage by engineering your office work environment properly. I talked
to experts to find out how.
If possible, invest in
ergonomically sound office furniture.
A healthy workstation is one that allows you to work in a neutral,
relaxed position. That setup “requires the least force, the least strength, the
least effort,” said Alan Hedge, director of the Human Factors and Ergonomics
Research Group at Cornell University, “and that means you’re
putting the least amount of strain on your body.”
To get there, you will want furniture
that can be adjusted to your body size and shape — basically, “the more
adjustability, the better,” said Justin Young, an industrial and operations
engineer at Kettering University in Michigan.
Your chair is especially important. Ideally, you want one with
adjustable height and lumbar support, that easily reclines and that also
supports the upper and middle back. The seat pan should be at least one inch
wider than your hips and thighs on either side, and not so long that you can’t
sit all the way back without the edge hitting you behind the knees.
Very few people sit back when they work, but they should, Dr. Hedge
said, because when you recline, more of your body weight is supported by your
chair, rather than supported by (and also compressing) your spine. Chair arms
are not essential, but they can support you as you stand up and sit down.
Desks can be tricky for a computer user, because most desks are built
at the correct height for writing, not typing. You don’t want to have to hunch
up your shoulders to type, for example, nor do you want your wrists bending up
or down — an ideal keyboard height is about two inches above your knees.
If your desk is too high, one solution is to get a keyboard tray that
slides out from under the desk and slopes downward, or has what is called a
“negative slope,” because that slope keeps your wrists in
a vertically neutral position. A split keyboard can keep wrists in a
horizontally neutral position as well.
As for sitting versus standing
desks: The research is mixed on terms of what is better, so
it really depends on what feels good to you, Dr. Young said. Sit-stand desks,
on the other hand, have the distinct advantage of encouraging
you to change positions regularly, which is good for your body.
If the furniture you have does not allow you to work in a neutral
position, make tweaks with what you have — create lumbar support with a pillow
or pad, for instance. Then ask your employer for an upgrade.
The best commercial office chairs exceed standards set by the American
National Standards Institute, and products that do usually say so in their
product descriptions. If your boss scoffs at the idea, point out that ergonomic
investments yield as much as a 10-to-1 return on investment.
When employees work safely and comfortably, they are less likely to
get injured and miss work and are also more motivated and productive.
Position your gear
properly and use smartphones carefully.
Once you have adjusted your work space, don’t overlook the tools you
use to do your job. The goal is, again, to keep your body as neutral as
possible, so adjust your equipment to make that happen.
Is your mouse way off to the side? Bring it closer to your body so you
don’t have to reach so far. Your keyboard should be set so that the “B” or “H”
key is at your midline, and your monitor should be straight in front of you and
a height such that you do not have to tilt your neck down or up to see it.
(That was my downfall.)
If you frequently look at papers, consider getting a document holder
and keeping it close to your monitor so you do not have to move your head as
much. Adjust your chair so your feet are flat on the floor, your legs are bent
at a right angle and you can work in a reclined position.
Smartphones present unique problems. For one thing, they increase the risk for “texting thumb,” or de Quervain syndrome, an irritation of the tendon or tendon
sheath on the outside of the thumb. Dr. Hedge suggests downloading a
swipe-to-type keyboard app, which uses predictive text and finger swiping and
is much easier on the thumbs. Even better, dictate texts. And if you talk on
your phone a lot, invest in a handset so you do not have to hold it up to your
ear.
When looking at your phone, don’t hold it down near your chest or
waist, because you have to look down to see it, which strains your neck
muscles.
“When you tilt your head down, you increase the effective weight of
your head six times, from about 10 pounds to about 60 pounds,” Dr. Hedge said.
If you have armrests on your chair, prop your elbows on them and hold your
phone up near eye level. If you do not have armrests, prop your elbow against
your stomach while holding the phone.
Take breaks and make
changes if you’re in pain.
Perhaps the most important tip is one we have the hardest time with:
take frequent breaks and change your position regularly.
“We say, ‘Your next position is your best position,’” said Michelle
Robertson, a lecturer at Northeastern University and the director of the Office Ergonomics Research Committee, a group of companies
that fund ergonomic research. Sitting for a long time in the same position
restricts blood flow and is not good for your muscles, she explained. You also
need to focus your eyes on new objects and distances every 20 minutes or so to
prevent eyestrain.
If you start feeling pain at your desk or while working and don’t know
what to do, consider hiring a certified professional ergonomist to evaluate
your workstation (even better, hire one before you
experience pain). Talk to your company’s human resources department — it may
already have someone it works with.
Also, check out this helpful
Cornell guide, “Where It Hurts,” which identifies common causes of
workplace-related pain. Don’t just work through the aches, because — and I say
this from experience — it will only get worse if you do. But the good news is
that small adjustments can make a really big difference.
