COSH Network in the News

  • EHS Today

    Safety Group Says Government Heat Protection Efforts for Workers Isn't Enough

    1 Aug 2023

    On  July 28, leaders of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) said that modest steps announced by the White House to protect workers from extreme heat are insufficient.

    “Tragically, workers are getting sick and dying every day from the extreme heat driven by climate change,” said Jessica E. Martinez, co-executive director of National COSH, in a blog post on the organization’s website. “This is no time for modest steps. The President, Congress, federal OSHA and state and local officials must take bold action now, to reduce risk and save lives.”

  • HR Dive

    Biden taking steps to protect workers from extreme heat

    28 Jul 2023

    Advocacy groups, like the National Council of Occupational Safety and Health, have called for a national standard protecting workers from climate change’s effects, including smoke, heat stress and severe weather events, like wildfires— as the country continues to deal with extreme heat and air pollution from wildfires in Canada and the western U.S.

  • Bay Today

    White House escalates extreme-heat efforts as record July marks 'global boiling' era

    28 Jul 2023

    Not good enough, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health complained Friday. 

    "Workers are getting sick and dying every day from the extreme heat driven by climate change," said co-executive director Jessica Martinez

    The group called on Biden to order an emergency temporary standard to better protect workers from heat stress, establish a more stringent permanent threshold for protections and urge states to impose their own rules. 

    "This is no time for modest steps."

  • KQED

    Lawmakers Push for National Heat-Related Worker Protections Amid Scorching Temperatures

    28 Jul 2023

    All employers nationwide are already required to take steps to protect workers from any known hazards on the job. But issuing heat-specific regulations would clearly outline employers’ responsibilities, said Jessica Martinez, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, which advocates for safer workplaces.

  • Big Arizona Media

    Tips for Arizona workers on staying safe in the extreme heat

    24 Jul 2023

    “Federal law is crystal clear,” said Katelyn Parady, a Phoenix-based worker health and safety professional with National COSH. “Employers are required to provide a workplace free from recognized hazards – and that definitely includes the very dangerous hazards created by current record-breaking temperatures here in Arizona.”

  • People's World

    Republicans hate workers, schools, children, teachers and people of color

    20 Jul 2023

    The Republican money bill also reduced OSHA by more than $100 million, drawing criticism from Jessica Martinez, co-executive director of the National Council on Occupational Safety and Health. Martinez called the cuts “dangerous to workplace safety…heartless and ill-advised.”

  • Stateline

    Workers lack protections when wildfire smoke makes the air dangerous

    18 Jul 2023

    Like all worker protections, these rules aren’t foolproof: Both labor and business groups have criticized aspects of their implementation. Neither California nor Oregon requires employers to offer more paid breaks on smoky days, a provision unions had requested, said Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, the co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, which advocates for workers’ rights.

  • Jacobin

    Workers Are Organizing to Demand Protection Against Extreme Heat and Wildfire Smoke

    16 Jul 2023

    The deadly combination of rising temperatures and wildfire smoke has to be understood as “climate injustice,” says Nancy Lessin, an advisor with National COSH. “This is yet another reason why the labor movement and the climate justice movement need to come together stronger than ever, to look to the future for the kind of prevention needed.”

  • Labor Notes

    In Heat and Smoke, Workers Fight Negligent Bosses

    12 Jul 2023

    But “workers don’t just need respirators,” said Peter Dooley of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH). “The idea that outside workers are going to be wearing respirators all day is just not realistic.”

  • Money Talks News

    12 Companies Putting Workers at Risk

    27 Jun 2023

    But reasonable precautions are expected — for instance, not having children as workers or making people work around human waste. Those are two of the issues called out in the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health‘s latest annual list of “dirty dozen” employers.

  • Workday Magazine

    Amazon Says a Worker’s Death Was Not Work-Related. But a 911 Call Appears to Contradict the Company’s Narrative.

    26 Jun 2023

    Meanwhile, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health placed Amazon on its 2023 “Dirty Dozen” list of unsafe employers.

  • Documented

    Swissport LaGuardia Airport Workers Announce Strike

    22 Jun 2023

    Across the country, Swissport workers have been sounding the alarm about the myriad of health and safety issues they say they have been forced to endure. This past April, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health listed Swissport as one of its Dirty Dozen unsafe employers in the country.

  • ISHN

    Wildfire smoke shows need for urgent action on worker protections, says National COSH

    8 Jun 2023

    The wildfire smoke spreading across the United States and Canada shows the need for urgent action to protect workers from the ongoing effects of climate change, say leaders of the National Council of Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH).

  • HR Dive

    Wildfires show need for climate change-related federal protections for workers, advocacy group says

    9 Jun 2023

    The wildfires raging in Canada and sending clouds of haze across U.S. cities are proof of the urgent need for federal standards to protect workers from the effects of climate change, the National Council of Occupational Safety and Health said Thursday.

  • Restaurant Business

    Dangerous smoke levels in the East spark calls for more worker protections

    9 Jun 2023

    Groups like the National Council of Occupational Safety and Health, also known as National COSH, point out that wildfires have polluted the air in a number of states in recent years, a hazard they and environmental experts attribute to climate change.

    “This is not a one-time crisis,” Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, co-executive director of the organization, said in a statement. “Dangerous pollution in the air we breathe will be a fact of life for years to come, because climate change has greatly increased the occurrence of wildfires and other extreme weather events.”

  • Occupational Health & Safety

    Exploring Outdoor Worker Safety in Wildfire Smoke

    9 Jun 2023

    “Right now, only two of 50 states—California and Oregon—have specific safety rules which protect workers from wildfire smoke,” said Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, co-executive director of The National Council of Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH), in a recently published news release. Washington State filed proposed permanent wildfire smoke rules for workers in May 2023.

  • The City

    Drenched in Fecal Matter’: Feds Probe Working Conditions at LaGuardia Cargo Company

    24 May 2023

    Swissport was cited nearly 20 times by OSHA investigations nationwide in the past decade for safety violations, from injuries to violations for the agency’s standards on heavy machinery and seatbelts. Last month, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health listed Swissport among the twelve most dangerous employers in the country, alongside Amazon, Norfolk Southern and Packer Sanitation Services, which was the subject of a national Department of Labor probe on migrant child labor.

  • Eagle Tribune

    Commentary: Better, safer workplaces are worth fighting for

    1 May 2023

    Another alarming trend: Black and brown workers die on the job at a higher rate than other workers, a consequence of past and current workplace discrimination. Some of the most egregious offenders, like FedEx, are highlighted in the 2023 Dirty Dozen report released this week by our organization, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.

  • Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen

    Class I railroads included on “Dirty Dozen” list of unsafe employers for 2023

    28 Apr 2023

    The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) announced today the “Dirty Dozen” list of employers who put workers and communities at risk due to unsafe practices. The Dirty Dozen report is released each year as part of the observance of Workers’ Memorial Week, which takes place this year from April 23 through April 30.

  • The Week

    Should child labor laws be loosened?

    8 Apr 2023

    It's easy to see why employers like young workers, Jessica Martinez and Marcy Goldstein-Gelb write at The Progressive. "With less information, less power, and fewer options, they are easier to exploit." There are good reasons to keep kids out of the workplace: They're more prone to injury, and they usually end up falling behind in their education as well. That means it is urgent "to enforce the child labor laws that already exist and push back forcefully against any attempts to weaken them."