07/23/2008 - 11:45am
Xcel Energy imploded a 570-foot, 5,770 ton smokestack which left the city landmark in a pile of dust.
07/26/2008 - 9:21am
From the Marines Memorial Theatre to the Lusty Lady, San Francisco's great unionized performance and art houses are getting visits today during a 13-site walking tour through labor history.
The "Bay Area Now 5" annual exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is featuring the walking tour and gallery installation it calls "Syndicate." Along the way, artist Jessica Tully will be installing sidewalk stencil images of union workers based on historic photos in front of major theaters and art museums throughout the city.
The sponsors say the walking tour "unearths the sometimes historic, sometimes mundane and sometimes downright sexy union organizing occurring at each venue."
07/25/2008 - 8:21pm
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) today issued 120 citations for safety violations at the Imperial Sugar Co. plant in Port Wentworth, Ga., where incredibly high levels of sugar dust fueled an explosion Feb. 7 that killed 13 workers.
Dozens of other workers suffered serious injuries, and three remain hospitalized, two in critical condition.
Almost all the safety violations related to the accumulation of sugar dust. Along with the citations, OSHA issued $5 million in fines for the violations at Port Wentworth. Also today, OSHA issued $3.7 million in fines for 91 similar violations at Imperial's plant in Gramercy, La.
07/25/2008 - 2:20pm
The Bush administration's secret rule that could increase workers' exposure to dangerous chemicals and toxins and make it more difficult for the next administration to enact new safety rules will meet a congressional roadblock next week when legislation to stop it is introduced.
With the Department of Labor trying to keep details of the proposal secret as it attempts to fast track it, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, this morning announced he will introduce legislation to force the administration to drop the plan.
07/25/2008 - 2:20pm
While the Department of Labor continues its investigation into the role of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) in last year's Crandall Canyon mine disaster, including possible negligence, MSHA has released its own report on the collapse that killed six miners. Three rescue workers later were killed trying to reach the site in Utah.
The report by MSHA, part of the Labor Department, placed the blame for the collapse Aug. 6, 2007, squarely on the coal mine operator, Murray Energy Co., and the engineering company hired to develop the mining plan. The agency levied $1.6 million in fines against the mining company and $220,000 against the engineering firm.
07/25/2008 - 2:20pm
Two more people have been killed in crane-related accidents, while the Bush administration continues its four-year delay in issuing a new crane safety standard. Ironworker Josh Dawe, 33, died Wednesday at a construction site in Normal, Ill., when he was trapped by the collapse of a crane boon.
A 79-year-old man sitting in his car and watching a crane lift a new steeple onto his church in Oklahoma City was killed Thursday when the crane toppled and crushed the car. His 78-year-old wife, who was with him, was injured.
07/25/2008 - 2:20pm
Today adds to the toll of bad news about worker safety and health, and we'll be posting several items on that topic. You'll see that workers have been dying while the Bush administration sits on recommended standards to protect us from workplace hazards. But the administration is racing to implement a secretly written rule that could allow us to be exposed to higher levels of toxic substances at work and could prevent future administrations from protecting us at work.
You'll see that under the Bush administration, federal workplace safety operations have been designed to protect corporations, not working men and women.
07/24/2008 - 5:21pm
Some 13 million low-wage U.S. workers got a pay raise today when the federal minimum wage rose from $5.85 to $6.55 an hour.
The pay hike was the second step of the three-step minimum wage increase Congress passed last year, the first such increase since 1997. The third step, to $7.25 an hour, comes a year from today.
For a decade, Republicans congressional leaders and the Bush administration blocked every effort to raise the $5.15 an hour rate for the nation's lowest-paid workers. But new Democratic majorities in the House and Senate after the 2006 elections made passage possible.
07/24/2008 - 5:21pm
As John McCain tours the country, wherever he goes, he’s met by his biggest fear: a contingent of educated, mobilized union members who know his record. Over the past week, he’s been greeted again and again by union members demanding real answers to the issues facing the country.
In New Mexico last week, more than 150 members turned out to protest McCain’s visit to Hotel Albuquerque, reports Don Manning, Labor 2008 director for New Mexico. The protesters took turns on the bullhorn voicing their disgust with Bush-McCain failed policies on the war, health care and the economy, among other issues.
07/24/2008 - 5:21pm
In his video introduction submitted to last year's AFL-CIO Presidential Candidates Forum, Sen. Barack Obama laid out some of his personal history and connected it to why he’s running for president. It’s worth watching again now that he’s the Democratic presumptive presidential nominee. As he said:
I worked as a community organizer for a group of churches, helping to turn around neighborhoods that were devastated by the closing of steel plants. By bringing people together, we set up job-training and after-school programs, and we taught people to stand up to their government when it wasn’t standing up for them. That’s the kind of organizing we need today.
In the video, Obama said health care, good wages, a secure retirement and the freedom to form unions are at the heart of the change the country needs, and he’s continued to focus on these issues in the general election campaign.
