The Supreme Court decision that killed the federal vaccine-or-test rule for large businesses is a defeat for employee health and safety. But even aside from the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government doesn’t devote sufficient resources to protect workers in high-risk environments.
The agency that monitors workplace conditions, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, has the authority to send investigators to workplaces known to expose workers to occupational hazards and, if warranted, issue citations and levy substantial fines on business owners.
Yet, OSHA has only sparingly applied this authority to some of the country’s most dangerous workplaces.
Meatpacking plants, factories and greenhouses employ many of America’s lowest paid and most vulnerable workers. Many are immigrants and people of color laboring in crowded or otherwise hazardous conditions. The pandemic has shown how the front-line, essential work done by this “brown-collar” workforce is critical to keeping the economy and communities going. Yet on top of being at high risk of COVID-19 illness and death, these workers have always been exposed to higher occupational health and safety risks than those in other industries.
Long before the pandemic, greenhouse workers — such as those handling the hothouse tomatoes that brighten many American salads — suffered from a slew of health and safety violations, including lack of protective gear for handling toxic chemicals and lack of water breaks in...
An Indian-origin man in the US has been charged with allegedly submitting $66.2 million in bogus claims for COVID-19 tests that were never conducted, US Department of Justice said.Rajesh “Raj” Pat...