On March 2, 1893, President Benjamin Harrison signed the Safety Appliance Act. This critical act finally created a modicum of safety on American railroads, mandating air brakes and automatic couplers
Often, even with unions, one of the only ways to see real improvements in workplace conditions, especially health and safety, is in response to a disaster. For example, maybe the candle factory in Ken
I am so not happy to have my Oregon time include another of these insane heat waves. Good times. But my work is in air-conditioned archives or wherever else I want to work during the summer. No real p
With fire season upon us and the now annual plumes of smoke everywhere, pouring into our lungs and making us forget what summer in the Northwest used to be like, the Washington Farm Bureau is making s
I yield to no one in my love of a good beer or whiskey. But there’s a time and a place for things, including drinking. Airplanes and other highly public places are not the time and place. For ye
On May 16, 1910, the federal government created the U.S. Bureau of Mines to investigate the terrible conditions that killed thousands of miners a year and to attempt to regulate those conditions. It w
On April 27, 1939, Senator James Murray, a Democrat from Montana, introduced SB 2256 into the Senate. This bill authorized federal funding to states to pay out claims to workers suffering from silicos
OSHA is just a nearly non-functional regulatory agency at this point. In 2012, it had enough inspectors to inspect every workplace in America….once in every 129 years. Things have not improved s