case study:Boeing's 737 Max airliners
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Hello, and Welcome to Week 4. This week you will be participating in the first of four graded discussions.
Last week you were introduced to some of the foundational principles and concepts of occupational safety and health. Understanding why work safety and health problems are so intractable and difficult to solve requires understanding the important role politics play. My public health students sometimes protest that health, particularly the health of the public, can’t be political because health is above politics. Well, one only has to pick up a newspaper to see that that just isn’t reality – health, health care and public health are nothing if not political. Women’s reproductive health, the care of wounded veterans, the well-being of disaster victims and other problems that are highly political are often at the red-hot center of controversy.
To unravel how politics and power influence work health and safety it helps to pose the type of questions that an investigative journalist would ask when following a story. What really happened? Who was involved? And why did it happen?
This week’s case will look deeper into one health and safety issue – the use of a chemical flavoring for popcorn. The objective is to gain an understanding of who has the power to make decisions or influence outcomes in the case. These “influencers” may also be referred to as stakeholders, partners, actors or players. Being able to identify who holds power in a work safety and health issue will help understand the current state of occupational health and safety. Who decides what a workplace hazard is? How risky does a hazard have to be before rules and regulations are enacted to control it? What is an acceptable level of danger for a worker to be exposed to and what is unacceptable?
Occupational safety and health is more than regulations and standards. This course will give you an overview of the field of occupational safety and health with a focus on understanding the forces that shape it. Who holds power is paramount to the state of work safety and health in the US and the world.
So let’s get started!
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Next let’s take a closer look at one enduring work health problem problem and how power and politics shape it. To do this a power map model will be used.
Some version of mapping power is used by organizations across the globe to forge alliances, build support, plan strategies, and to be politically relevant. In Discussion #1 you can use this tool to present a workplace hazard to your group.
You now know quite a bit about asbestos from watching Libby, Montana and reading “The Magic Mineral”. So let’s use the example of asbestos and frame the issue (the issue is the problem being addressed) as: Asbestos production and use must be more stringently regulated to prevent asbestos related disease and fatalities. The very act of framing an issue is influential. Generally it is an advantage to be the influencer that frames the issue.
The issue in the slide above reflects the point of view of those who would like reduce or even eliminate asbestos production. If those that will benefit from the production and use of asbestos framed the issue, it would look quite different. It might be: Asbestos is safe when used correctly and provides great societal benefits that will be hampered by overregulation .
For the purposes of this exercise, we will use the former framing of the issue: Asbestos production and use must be more stringently regulated to prevent asbestos related disease.
Positions taken on issues depend on the “lenses” they are viewed through (in other words, the viewers’ point-of-view). Different ways of seeing an issue change perspective about the issue. Things are usually not as simple as they seem at first glance! For instance, in Week 3 if I had chosen an article for you to read written by the W.R. Grace (http://www.grace.com/About/default.aspx) instead of “The Magic Mineral” or a film to view produced by The Chrysotile Institute (a U.S. association that represents asbestos manufacturers) the perspective would have been quite different from that of Broeder’s in the “Magic Mineral” or that of the documentary, Libby, Montana.
For instance, I personally view the asbestos issue through my lens of a public health practitioner; a lens formed by years of education, training, and practice. My professional experience contributes to how I make sense of information about asbestos and disease and helped to form my point-of-view that asbestos is harmful to human health. If all you knew about me was my profession, you might have been able to guess this . What would be unknown to you is that my family occupational safety and health history also shaped my perspective on asbestos. My father was a welder from 1955 - 1965 at U.S. Steel in Gary, Indiana. His job was to repair pipes in the steel mill after he cut the asbestos insulation off. I remember him coming home from work at night covered in the white powder of asbestos dust. Decades after he left his welder j ob, we learned that my father had asbestosis and this fact has influenced my point-of-view about the issue we are power-mapping this week. Ten years ago, when my mother was hospitalized with pneumonia, it was discovered that she, too, had asbestosis. Her exposure to asbestos mos t likely occurred when she washed my fathers contaminated clothes more than half a century ago (a case of “take home toxins”). My personal experience with asbestos reinforced my professional and personal opinion on the issue of asbestos.
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Step 2: Who are the players?
• Who has an interest in this issue and what side of the argument do you think they will be on? • The players you identify may support the issue as framed above because they (or their constituents) think they will benefit from the change or may oppose it because they think the change will not be beneficial to them (or their constituents). Other players may be neutral because they are not interested in the issue, are unaware or uninformed about the issue or are undecided. For instance, potential consumers of asbestos products may be neutral about asbestos because they do not have information about the risks of exposure. Depending on the information they receive about asbestos and their beliefs about th e asbestos, they may become supporters, opponents, or continue to be neutral. • It is important to keep in mind that power-mapping is not a static process and the players can change their positions as more information is available, alliances are forged or broken, or public opinion shifts.
Based on your understanding of the material you read and viewed in Week 3, the film Libby, Montana and the article “The Magic Mineral”, who do you think the power players in this issue are?
How are the players linked?
• Do the players you have placed on the map have a relationship with each other? Do they link somehow? How players are linked may not be easily seen or identified and often significant research and investigation is needed to figure out who is connected and how. • This task may be performed by investigative journalists or by opponents or supporters of the issue. Sometimes whistleblowers will divulge information. • Links can be represented on the map using one-way or two-way arrows between the players.
As you will read this week, the asbestos manufacturers and asbestos industry associations have strong links; the manufacturers are likely members of the association and fund the functions of the association such as lobbying, public relations, and research.
Notice that OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and NIOSH (the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health; which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) are straddling the middle between support and oppose. That is because governmental agencies serve at the pleasure of the president and to a greater or lesser extent reflect the agenda of the current administration. Most presidents are “hands-off” scientific agencies like OSHA, CDC, NASA and NOAA, but the President has the power dictate the actions of agencies. As you will see when you view the presentation on regulating diacetyl, under President Bush, OSHA would be in the oppose column, whereas under President Obama there would be a shift to the support column.
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Step 3: How influential are the players?
• The final step, is to quantify how influential you think each power player is. Does the player have the power or authority to make decisions? If they cannot directly make decisions, do they have the power to influence the decision-makers (for instance, as lobbyists)? You can use any scale you chose.
• Keep in mind that even in a real-life situation, power-mapping is a subjective process and is based to some degree on opinion or speculation.
• The players’ positions on the map are fluid and changeable. As we know from issues currently in the news - the power and influence of politicians, corporate CEOs, and even governments can be here today and gone tomorrow!
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Listen to the audio clip embedded in the Week 4 page in Canvas now: National Public Radio. (2015, September 21) Center for Public Integrity details the dangers of paint stripper solvent. (4:05)
The diacetyl case study you will view this week; methylene chloride; and the asbestos case in Week 3 are all examples of how hazardous substances continue to injure and kill workers even when the danger is well-known.
• Using the power mapping tool, who are the power players identified in the methylene chloride segment?
• Have you ever used a product containing methylene chloride in your work or home? • Were you surprised that there is opposition to stronger warnings on the product label?
The process of creating a power map necessitates thinking about the power in relationships and how those relationships impact an issue. The map can be revisited to see if assumptions were correct and to make changes as the situation changes. Also, having a model – in this case the model is a visual representation in the form of a map– can assure that others you are working understand the issue and are in agreement on a plan of action.
Methylene chloride update: As of 3/15/2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule to prohibit the manufacture (including import), processing, and distribution of methylene chloride in all paint removers for consumer use. EPA has taken this action because of the acute fatalities that have resulted from exposure to the chemical. At first glance this might seem like a win for consumer and worker safety, but the rule that was passed was a significant scaling back of the ban that the Obama administration proposed that would have affected commercial and consumer use of the chemical. This was a disappointment for environmental and consumer watch-dog groups, while the industry association representing manufacturers of methylene chloride was disappointed that any
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ban had been enacted.
Power-mapping may be familiar to students who belong to campus advocacy or activist groups where it can be used as a way to plan and strategize to reach the goals of the organization. Others may use a version of power-mapping at work. Are there situations in your life in which a power map could be useful?
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The next part of the lecture will present some statistics on the current state of occupational safety and health in the U.S. But firs t a bit about the numbers…
Where do occupational safety and health statistics come from?
Employers and industry organizations may compile and disseminate their own safety and health statistics. We will be using statistics from the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA), the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Most BLS data are from voluntary annual employer surveys.
Can the numbers be trusted?
Numerous studies have shown that government counts of occupational injury and illness are underestimated by as much as 69 per cent.* Additionally, the data exclude some categories of workers (self-employed individuals; farms with fewer than 11 employees; employers regulated by other federal safety and health laws; federal, state and local government agencies; and private household workers). The result of these exclusions is that 1 in 5 workers are not counted in the annual BLS health and safety survey. Also, employers may underreport injuries because of concerns that their insurance costs will rise or that they will be targeted for OSHA inspection. Employees may not report injury or illness for a number of reasons, for instance because of concerns about being disciplined or because they are undocumented workers afraid of being reported to the immigration authorities. (Exam alert)
But data collected and analyzed by federal agencies like NIOSH, OSHA, EPA and many others, although not perfect are by and la rge considered trustworthy. At this point in time, there is controversy and concern as scientists and experts in many federal agencies relate that the openness and free f low of scientific information that has for decades has been the way that government operates is being impeded. This situation is of great concern to experts across fields and professions. The article you will read this week - “Worker Safety Rules Are Among Those Under Fire in Trump Era” - addresses this concern. You can access this article on the Week 4 page in Canvas. As you read or view your credible news sources, you may want to be on the lookout for news about this issue.
Source: Rene Marsh & Dan Merica. January 17, 2017. Trump administration reviewing EPA website, curbs agency communication. CNN News. Fabian, Jordan. January 24, 2017. Trump clamps down on federal agencies. The Hill. Valerie Volcovici & P.J. Huffstutter. January 24, 2017. Trump administration seeks to muzzle U.S. agency employees. Reuters News Agency. Jade Sipioni. January 25, 2017. White House Fires Back Amid Claims it Told EPA to Erase Climate Change. Fox Business.
Statistics have limitations.
As a consumer of the data, you will have to make your own judgment about what the numbers mean. For instance, how many workp lace deaths are acceptable? Are workplace injuries unavoidable accidents and the cost of doing business or are they unnecessary and the price of taking safety shortcuts for the sake of higher profits? If the data show the “tip of the iceberg” of work-related illnesses, what is the true magnitude of disease caused by the work? Who should be responsible for the health and safety of workers? People hold strong and divergent opinions on these and other occupational safety and health issues.
* Leigh, J. Paul, James P. Marcin, J. and Miller, T.R., “An Estimate of the U.S. Government’s Undercount of Nonfatal Occupati onal Injuries,” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Vol. 46, No. 1, January 2004.
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Workplaces are much safer today than when the OSH Act was passed in 1970. The job fatality rate has been cut by 81 percent. More than 492,000 workers’ lives have been saved since the passage of the OSH This chart shows a gradual decline in fatal work injuries from 1992 to 2006; however, workers remain at serious risk of injury, illness or death. I should add that some enti ties (generally, industry groups and elected officials who are against regulation) attribute the decline in workplace fatalities t o reasons other than the OSH Act and oversight by OSHA; for instance, changes in the nature of work and new technologies. (Exam alert)
On April 17, 2013, an explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, killed 15 people, most of them volunteer emergency responders. The facility, and ammonium nitrate stored at the plant that exploded, were exempt from OSHA and EPA chemical safety regulations. The plant was a small facility that hadn’t been inspected by OSHA since 1985. On April 5, 2010, 29 coal miners were killed in an explosion at the Massey Energy Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia. It was the worst mining disaster in 40 years. A few days earlier, an explosion at the Tesoro Refinery in Washington State killed six workers, and in February 2010 six workers were killed in an explosion at the Kleen Energy Plant in Middletown, Conn. Eleven workers were killed on April 20, 2010 when the BP oil rig, Deepwater Horizon exploded. Arguably, these disasters were all preventable. But many other workplace disasters that do not make the headlines kill and disable thousands of workers each year.
In 2012, 4,628 workers were killed on the job in the United States, and an estimated 50,000 died from occupational diseases, resulting in a loss of 150 workers each day from hazardous working conditions. Over the past four years, the job fatality rat e largely has been unchanged, with a rate of 3.4 deaths per 100,000 workers in 2012.
In 2012, nearly 3.8 million work-related injuries and illnesses were reported, but many injuries are not reported. The true toll is likely two to three times greater, or 7.6 million to 11.4 million injuries a year. Due to limitations in the injury reporting system and underreporting of workplace injuries, this number understates the problem as the next slide illustrates. The true toll i s estimated to be two to three times greater—or 9 million to 14 million injuries and illnesses a year. (Exam alert)
* AFL-CIO. Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect – A National and State-by-State Profile of Worker Safety and Health in the United States. 23rd Edition, 2014
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Exam alert (exam questions will focus on general trends e.g. increase or decrease, rather than actual numbers and percentages)
A comparison of injury and illness reports from various reporting systems found that only one in three workplace injuries and illnesses were reported to OSHA and captured by the BLS Statistics Survey. This slide conservatively estimates the actual state of occupational injury and illness.
Except from: AFL-CIO. Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect – A National and State-by-State Profile of Worker Safety and Health in the United States. 23rd
Edition, 2014
The BLS data underestimate the extent of workplace injuries and illnesses in the United States for a variety of reasons. Firs t, the data exclude many categories of workers (self-employed individuals; farms with fewer than 11 employees; employers regulated by other federal safety and health laws; federal government agencies; and private household workers). This results in the exclusion of more than one in s ix workers from the BLS Annual Survey.
In addition to the built-in exclusions, there are several other factors that may contribute to underreporting by employers: • Concern about increased workers’ compensation costs for increased reports of injuries; • Fear of being denied government contracts due to high injury rates; and • Concern about being targeted by OSHA for inspection if a high injury rate is reported.
There also are many reasons why workers may not report an injury or illness to their employer: • Economic incentives can influence workers. Employer-implemented programs that offer financial rewards for individuals or departments for
going a certain number of days without an injury may discourage workers from reporting. A 2006 report by the California state auditor documented one such case where the use of economic incentives on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge project was identified as a likely cause of significant underreporting of injuries.
• Employees do not want to be labeled as accident-prone. • Employers implement programs that discipline or even terminate workers when they report an injury, discouraging workers from reporting. • Workers may be reluctant to apply for workers’ compensation; many others do not know how to use the workers’ compensation sys tem. • Foreign-born workers, whether in the country legally or not, face additional barriers to reporting injuries. They may not know h ow or to
whom to report the injury. They may fear being fired or harassed or being reported to the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services.
In 2008 and 2009, the problems of underreporting of workplace injuries and illnesses were the subject of congressional attention and action. In June 2008, the House Education and Labor Committee held an oversight hearing to explore the extent, causes and impact of inju ry underreporting. In conjunction with the hearing, the committee released a report—Hidden Tragedy: Underreporting of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses—that documented the widespread problem of underreporting
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The cost of occupational injuries and deaths in the United States is staggering, estimated at $250 billion to $330 billion a year, according to two recent studies. A 2011 comprehensive study on the “Economic Burden of Occupational Injury and Illness in the United States” by J. Paul Leigh at the University of California, Davis examined a broad range of data sources, including data from the BLS, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Council on Compensation Insurance and the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, to determine the cost of fatal and nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses for 2007. This study estimated the medical and indirect (productivity) costs of workplace injuries and illnesses $250 billion annually.
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In The Magic Mineral, you read about how the family members of Grace workers were exposed to asbestos through “take home toxins.” Protect Your Family – Reduce Contamination at Home is a brochure produced by NIOSH on take home toxins. The brochure is assigned reading for Week 4 – you can access it on the Week 4 page in Canvas.
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Understanding statistics, political relationships, and industrial hygiene concepts are important in learning about occupational safety and health, however, sometimes as technical aspects of the field are focused on, the human dimension can be minimized. You may have noticed when you read The Magic Mineral, that Dr. Irving Selikoff was driven to undertake asbestos research at a time when there was little professional interest in asbestos and no money to support the work. His concern about the magnitude of disease he discovered in asbestos workers and his compassion for the victims of asbestosis and mesotheleoma came through in the article even though he remained very much the scientist.
In addition to this Powerpoint presentation, you will be viewing a presentation about a chemical used to flavor food – diacetyl . You can access this presentation on the Week 4 page.
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