The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)" ...
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Model Workplaces, Imperiled Workers
The Center's series exposed serious problems with an ever-expanding government program that promises results through cooperative regulation but often has failed to protect the nation's working men and women. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Voluntary Protection Programs, known as VPP, recognize "model workplaces" and offer them an exemption from regular inspections. But in many cases, this government stamp of approval was a hollow trophy, allowing companies to avoid scrutiny and to attract employees. Even after preventable tragedies at these sites, OSHA rarely cracked down.
Tags: OSHA; occupational safety and health administration voluntary protection program; model workplace
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Renegade Refinery
Just weeks after the Deepwater Horizon disaster began, an analysis of inspection data obtained from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that two oil refineries owned by BP accounted for a staggering 97 of the most flagrant violations found by OSHA inspectors. Most of these citation's were categorized as "egregiously willful."
Tags: Deepwater Horizon; BP; oil spill; OSHA; Gulf of Mexico
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"Lifesaving Drugs, Deadly Consequences"
This investigative piece looks at worker safety issues that affect "the nation's healthcare providers." Health care employees are often put in harms way by handling drugs that are meant to save the "lives of cancer patients," but can be "human carcinogens," too. This report shows that regulation on exposure to these types of drugs in the workplace is weak.
Tags: FOIA; health insurance; Occupational Safety and Health Administration; cancer; OSHA; drugs; chemotherapy
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Discounted lives
The KC Star analyze the Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspection database for the Kansas City metropolitan area, reviewed public records and interviewed more than 100 people in order to determine how well OSHA protects workers. The study found that OSHA fines employees in workers' deaths less than it should and downgrades its most serious violations in workers' deaths, hurting workers who are trying to sue employees. OSHA is behind in its safety standards.
Tags: CAR; worker safety; corruption; OSHA; Occupational Safety and Health Administration; Kansas City; Missouri; health; inspections; workplace
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The fine print: Bush forces a shift in regulatory thrust
This three-day series revealed how small, subtle regulatory changes by the Bush administration at three federal agencies have had large consequences for the American people. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has eliminated nearly five times as many pending regulations as it has completed. The Data Quality Act, slipped into an appropriations bill, directs the Office of Management and Budget to ensure all information disseminated by the government is reliable, but in practice it allows industries to challenge the need for stiffer regulations. A one-word change in another regulation accelerated "mountaintop removal" mining because the debris was reclassified from "waste" to "fill."
Tags: federal regulatory process; Occupational Safety and health Administration; OSHA; Office of Management and Budget; OMB; Data Quality Act; federal government; Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.
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Violators: How they stack up
A Dayton Daily News computer analysis of Occupational Safety and Health Administration Records shows that from 1972 to 1990, Sparrows Point, a steel corporation, was inspected and cited 26 times in workers' deaths or serious-injury accidents. This is more than any other facility in the country. Employees say the company has put steel ahead of workers' lives. The records show the company violated government safety standards, failed to adequately train workers, and failed to at on employee complaints about hazards. This is part 2 of a 5 part series.
Tags: OSHA; Bethlehem Steel Facility; injury accidents; Occupational Safety and Health Administration Records; steel; hazards; safety practices; forklift; cranes; Sparrows Point; storage tank; carbon monoxide; OSHA violations; Armco Steel Corp; The Sorg Paper Co.; Dayton Walther Corp.; General Motors Corp.; Butler County Common Pleas Court; union; faulty breaks; steel corporations; amputations; burns; eye injury; concealing injuries
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On the Job of Last Resort
The Omaha World-Herald reports on how the U.S Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has provided only "minimal oversight" over the contractors who clean up meatpacking houses every night. The World-Herald found that "most of these contractors are undocumented workers, and that their cleaning is every bit as dangerous as day-time meatpacking" -- and in fact their injury rate is four times higher than normal workers in the industry. In the demand for speed from employers, many of these workers "have lost fingers, arms and even legs when they tried to keep pace. Harried workers have been known to clean cutting and grinding machines while they are still running, which is a clear violation of federal safety rules." But with undocumented workers fearful to come forward because of their legal status, and some pushed out of their jobs by their bosses when they raise safety concerns, the situation is only getting worse. The World found OSHA gave considerably less scrutiny to the problem, in part because it lumped those cleaning packinghouses into the same industry category as "janitors and maids."
Tags: OSHA; meatpacking; meat; packing; food; industry; safety; workers; workplace; cleaning; cleaner; machine; agriculture; undocumented; illegal workers; immigrants; human resources; occupational safety; USDA; hispanic; latino; union; contracting; contractor
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What a pain. Proposed OSHA rules for workplace injuries make companies ache. Agency stretches data to fit burgeoning mission; cost of compliance debated. Looking for 10 Pallbearers?
According to the article, "When the Occupation Health and Safety Administration set out to protect employees from repetitive motion injuries, it was attacking one of the greatest scourges of the modern workplace. The government estimated that about 200,000 workers a year were hurt doing the same chore over and over. A decade later, OSHA finally is on the verge of adopting new ergonomics rules, but its crusade has mushroomed, igniting a war with American business."
Tags: OSHA; Occupational Health and Safety Administration; employees; repetitive motion injuries; government; workers; business; safety
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Building a record of death
National Engineering & Co., a construction company in Ohio, came under fire in the early 1990s after recording eight worker deaths in 12 years. This rate was three and one-half times the construction industry's national average. In 1992, they were overseeing the construction of the Main Avenue Bridge, even though they had paid numerous legal settlements, including one to the family of a mother and daughter who died after a temporary bridge built by National collapsed as they were driving over it.
Tags: Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA); National Engineering & Contracting Co.; construction accidents
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OSHA penalties: A double standard
A Free Lance-Star investigation reveals that state government agencies are among the most common violators of worker safety standards, but - unlike private bodies - they never get fined. The story lists the top violators in the Fredericksburg, VA area in the last 25 years. The No. 1 local violator over this time period is Keller Industries, a private company that stopper operating in 1996, and No. 2 is the Virginia Department of Transportation. Among the top ten violators are also the City of Fredericksburg and the County of Stafford. "Virginia is one of eight state-run OSHA programs that never fine governments for violations," the Star reports. The article includes a table of the most common injuries and sources of injury.
Tags: Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA); state government; local government; deaths; injuries; CAR