Plenty of predictions about the future, whether speculative fiction or actual policy goals of governments, involve robots that walk, roll or fly around human beings. They go about their business. They are not impeded by us, nor are we impeded by them. They do our bidding flawlessly and without second thoughts.

It is a pretty neat image. It's pretty awesome to just tell a dinner plate with wheels on to go vacuum the house, and it can - and does. You can do the same with a lawnmower. You may even be able to do that with automated bomb disposal machines, which lack the dexterity and cleverness of human technicians but have the distinct advantage of being replaceable.

Even, some day, we might see machines capable of acting entirely independently of human supervision. Here's where we cut to uncomfortable reminiscences of Terminator or Stealth.

While Cintas laundry workers’ Painful Truth Tour was pulling into the Bay Area, political appointees in the Department of Labor were hard at work on a "secret rule" to delay federal safety agency's process for assessing the risks chemicals and toxins pose to workers.

This episode reminds me of an earlier Bush administration regulation-— one the Cintas Corporation lobbied for— that allows industrial laundries to process shop towels used to sop-up industrial solvents. Cintas workers say they need stronger not weaker protection from chemical exposure on the job.

Crossposted at Politicook.net

Wow, lots has been said about Obama's technically correct response to a question, to paraphrase, asked, "What can we ordinary people do?".  The McCain campaign has been brutal, and ignorantly so.

Nothing is more important, other than the drive train, in making any land vehicle "go" than the instruments that actually touch the road.  Those instruments are tires, or as the Brits say, tyres.

Tires are the agent that converts the energy produces by the engine (for fuel powered vehicles) or the motor (for others) from the source of the motive power to the ground, in most cases a lane, street, road, highway, or Interstate highway.

They're just criminals  - so why should we care about how they are treated in The Big House?

In fact, if we can get "Onshore outsourcing at offshore prices" by using prison labor, what's the problem?

crossposted from unbossed

I write a blog dedicated to the Federal Aviation Administration called the FAA Follies.  The FAA has been trashed by the Bush Administration's idiotic political ideology over the past few years.  A few other blogs have been covering the story; Don Brown does a great job with his Get The Flick; there's also a couple of newer folks blogging at The Potomac Current and Undertowand Jurassic Bark.

Enough pimping (although seriously, anyone who flies on airplanes or is interested in the FAA should read each of those blogs- and the Follies, of course- every single day) and on to today's entry.

A news item in The Birmingham News on Friday, August 1:

The media IS paying attention to labor. Well at least this key AP story is being picked up. So let’s give credit where it’s due for "Cintas workers criticize company's safety record". The A.P. story is about a group of current and former Cintas laundry workers who were injured on the job and are going across the country, speaking out about their working conditions (I blogged about this Tuesday).

This week I attended the funeral of an elderly woman who died in a tragic accident in her home, an accident that could have easily been prevented. It was a situation that I would never have imagined could happen. I want to share her story as a warning to those of us who are caregivers for elderly or disabled parents and loved ones.

"I can’t even open a can of soda because my hand is so injured."  says former Chicago-area Cintas worker Maria Rodriguez who’s injuries caused her to leave her job."  

Today in Chicago, a coalition of injured laundry workers from around the country is taking on unsafe conditions at the Cintas Corporation.  

Human life is important.  We in the progressive space advocacy community believe in the mission of human space precisely because - if cause and effect can be deliberately confused - consciousness is practically the purpose of the universe, and worth elaborating upon ad infinitum.  Yet space is so big and impersonal, terrifying the animal hindbrain beneath all our pretenses, that our reaction is highly emotional when danger in theory becomes catastrophe in fact.  Something in us quails at the notion of death in space above and beyond death itself, and has in ways both subtle and overt held back progress on this most important frontier.  I would like to argue for a fundamental change in emphasis in our approach to these risks, and raise some red flags about how space is being sold by our most promising entrepreneurs.  

Children pointed, tourists snapped photos, and Washington D.C. office workers on lunch break stopped to stare as the gargantuan “Toxic Trader” puppet lurched down Pennsylvania Avenue today past the White House on its way to the Bush administration-backed Import Safety Summit.

Crossposted from unbossed

It is all to easy to bash government agencies reflexively. So I want to make it clear that, in my view, all federal agencies are struggling now as a result of Bush administration mismanagement and malmanagement. But well before Bush was elected, these agencies that regulate the workplace have all been underfunded, year after year, and subject to attacks by judges who refused to enforce the law, a subject I discussed in a multi-part series last year. link to part I

That said,

crossposted from unbossed

What a change in oversight hearings when you have a Democratic majority. Pre-2007, all was well in workplace safety - or at least given the dearth of legislative notice you would think that. But now?

It seems as if there is a hearing every week or two, or even less.  Just yesterday I reported on another hearing on Under-Reporting Workplace Injuries and Illnesses.

crossposted from unbossed

The House Education and Labor Committee last week held a hearing on the underreporting of workplace injuries and illnesses and issued a well-researched report on the same subject. There are a number of reasons workplace injuries and illnesses are underreported, and this study discusses them. But among them, I want to pay attention first to willful actions by the Bush administration to prevent reporting and actions to prevent injuries and then to a brief overview of key points.

There's a piece in today's NY Times with substantial quotes from several construction workers - mostly focused on safety. Having had several high profile construction tragedies in the recent past, this is no surprise. But what struck me in this piece was the universal tone of the workers in crediting unions for being in a safe workplace. A few sample quotes:

This tornado season is shaping up to be the worst of the past few years. I know this is a bit of a departure from the purpose of the site, but I want to know that everyone out there is doing everything they can to keep themselves and their families safe.

When that sky turns green, you need to be prepared no matter where you are. Here's what some of the experts say about tornado preparedness.

crossposted from unbossed

Monsanto is in this picture, as in all things.The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists just awarded John Henshaw one of its highest awards for promoting workplace safety. Of the reasons for this award, they said:

(Crossposted at CtW Connect)

Yesterday, I told you the tragic story of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez -- a 17-year-old girl who died in a sweltering California vineyard last month because her employer didn't provide her with the shade and water required by law.  With her died her unborn child -- a child so young that she may very well have not have even known she was pregnant as she toiled in the fields.

Today, I bring you video of Maria's fiancee, Florentino Bautista, telling the story of how corporate greed cost the life of the woman he loved.

Video and update after the jump...

(Crossposted at CtW Connect)

Meet Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez.

On May 13, seventeen-year-old Maria was a farmworker, working the grape vineyard of West Coast Grape Farming in Stockton, California alongside her fiancee, Florentino Bautista.

Three days later, Maria was dead -- killed after working nine straight hours in the broiling heat of the California summer, without access to water or shade.

Learn more about Maria's story -- and what you can do to help prevent further farmworker deaths -- after the jump...