SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 117, NUMBER 8
IN THIS ISSUE
WOrkErS MEMOrIAL A list of workers killed on the
job in Oregon in 2015. | Page 6
NIgHTY-NIgHT Lack of sleep impacts workplace safety.
| Page 11
Meetings p.8 AFSCME hires new executive director p.10
PORTLAND, OREGON
APRIL 15, 2016
Workplace deaths rising
Job-related deaths are on the rise
in Oregon and throughout the
United States.
A preliminary total of 4,679
fatal work injuries were re-
corded in 2014, an increase of 2
percent over the final count of
4,585 fatalities in 2013 — and
the highest since 2008, accord-
ing to the Census of Fatal Occu-
pational Injuries (CFOI) con-
ducted by the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics. Final data for
2014 won’t be released until
later this spring.
Work-related fatalities in Ore-
gon increased by 20 over that
same time period — from 49 in
DEADLY DUST
OSHA’s new silica rule will save lives
The silica rule, covering 2 million
construction workers, is OSHA’s
most significant workplace
health intervention in decades
By Don McIntosh
Associate editor
Starting June 23, American
workers will have the right to a
workplace where they don’t
have to breathe tiny particles of
glass that cut their lungs.
The new “silica standard”—
announced March 24 by the Oc-
cupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) — will
cover as many as 2.3 million
workers. They’re in construc-
tion, on road crews, in ship-
yards, and in foundries, glass-
making and fracking — all
those who use sand or who saw,
drill, blast and crush rock, brick,
or cement. Those activities gen-
erate airborne microscopic crys-
talline silica particles 100 times
smaller than ordinary sand. The
particles aren’t caught by the
body’s filter mechanisms and
instead go right into the lungs.
Over time, they can cause crip-
pling and fatal lung diseases like
silicosis, chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease, and lung
cancer. The new rule will re-
quire employers to control silica
dust using vacuums or water, or
have workers wear respirators
when those other methods aren’t
feasible.
AFL-CIO workplace health
expert Peg Seminario — who
has fought for better silica pro-
tections since today’s construc-
tion apprentices were in diapers
— calls it the most important
new OSHA rule since the
agency got serious about as-
bestos in 1986.
“In the construction in-
dustry, it’s very simple.
You wet it down. You
suck it up. If you control
the dust at the source,
you’re done. You don’t
have to do anything
else.”
— Chris Trahan, worker safety
expert for North America’s
Building Trades Unions
Industry fights back
Within weeks of OSHA’s an-
nouncement, industry groups
filed multiple lawsuits to try to
stop it. They may try to stop it in
Congress as well.
“We know they’re up on the
Hill asking their Republican
friends to put riders in appropri-
ations bills, ordering OSHA not
to enforce it,” Seminario said.
But President Barack Obama
has pledged to veto any attempts
to undo the silica rule, and the
law that created OSHA is very
clear about the agency’s author-
ity to write rules protecting
workers health. Seminario is
confident the silica rule will
hold up in court.
Each year, an estimated 600
workers die from the effects of
breathing silica dust, and thou-
sands more are short of breath
and in pain after decades of hard
work. To prevent that, the new
rule sets a “permissible expo-
sure limit” of 50 micrograms of
respirable crystalline silica per
cubic meter of air. That limit
was first recommended by the
National Institute for Occupa-
tional Safety and Health
(NIOSH) — in 1974.
“Unfortunately, it has taken
over 40 years for the politics to
catch up with the science,” said
Labor Secretary Thomas Perez
at the March 24 press confer-
ence announcing the rule.
When OSHA sets a limit for
hazardous chemicals, it nor-
mally requires employers to col-
lect air samples and send them
to a lab to show the workplace
is under the limit. But because
construction industry groups ar-
gued that would be too expen-
sive, North America’s Building
Trades Unions worked with
OSHA to come up with a better
way. The new rule for the con-
struction industry contains a list
of tasks, along with what can be
Turn to Page 2
2013 to 69 in 2014. Two cate-
gories accounted for over half of
the deaths; 29 resulted from
transportation incidents and 13
from contact with objects and
equipment.
Fatal occupational injuries in
Oregon have ranged from a high
of 88 in 1992, to a low of 43 in
2012.
Nationally, increases in job-
related deaths were highest
among older employees, con-
tract workers, and the self-em-
ployed. The number of workers
55 years and over who were
Turn to Page 10
Workers Memorial Day: April 28
OREGON WORKERS WHO DIED ON THE JOB LAST YEAR WILL BE
REMEMBERED AT CEREMONIES IN SALEM AND PORTLAND The
Oregon AFL-CIO and Northwest Oregon Labor Council will hold
memorial services the last week of April to honor workers who
were killed on the job in Oregon in 2015. Both services are part of
the national AFL-CIO’s Workers Memorial Day, which recognizes
the thousands of U.S. workers who die each year and the more
than 1 million who are injured at work. The Oregon AFL-CIO’s ob-
servance will be at noon, Thursday, April 28, at the Fallen Workers
Memorial outside the Labor and Industries Building, 350 Winter
St. NE, on the Capitol Mall in Salem. The service will feature the
reading of the names of the Oregon workers who died on the job
in 2015. On Monday, April 25, the Northwest Oregon Labor Coun-
cil will hold a memorial service at its monthly delegates meeting.
Delegates will raise an American flag in honor of each Oregon
worker who died on the job last year. The meeting starts at 7 p.m.
at the IBEW Local 48 Hall, 15937 NE Airport Way, Portland. For a
listing of Oregon workers killed on the job, see Page 6.