A third vital force in the struggle to protect workers in the age of climate change is the Council on Occupational Safety and Health (COSH), shaped through a network of regional COSH groups, worker centers, justice groups, health care providers, and scientists. The COSH movement emerged alongside of OSHA and represents the democratization of science on behalf of working people. Jessica Martinez, COSH’s co-director, offers this profile of their efforts:

Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, said the provision in the Iowa bill that shields businesses from some liabilities essentially acknowledges the legislation would create dangerous working environments.

"This one is so blatantly saying, 'We know that what we're doing is going to harm young people, so we may as well just call a spade a spade and exempt businesses from their responsibility for what we created,'" Goldstein-Gelb said.

Storytelling and Communications Strategist Melissa Moriarty of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health appeared on the America’s Work Force Union Podcast and spoke about NCOSH, their Dirty Dozen list and new protections for immigrant workers.

Moriarty explained that NCOSH is a federation of 26 grassroots worker groups and the home of the workers' health and safety movement in the U.S. The council offers many support programs, such as WE RISE, a program dedicated to help people of color become leaders in the workplace through training, mentoring and a source for advocacy. Another NCOSH program is Empowering Immigrant Workers, which ensures immigrant workers have the tools and resources to assert their voice, power and influence in the workplace and policy arenas.

The words ring hollow to Peter Dooley, a certified industrial hygienist for the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, which promotes worker safety.

“They brag about their safety program. They brag about being such a great employer,” Dooley said. “This shows the reality of how dangerous their whole way of work is.”

According to The Guardian, similar concerns were also shared by Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.

“In the Iowa legislation, one of the provisions is to exempt employers from civil liability due to the company’s negligence. It is astounding that they would have the gall to knowingly acknowledge that more young people will be harmed, but focus on exempting businesses,” she said. 

In an article for Vox, author Emily Guendelsberger describes her experience working in fast food, noting that various ‘innovations’ made to improve productivity have led to worker burnout and incredible stress.

For example, Guendelsberger notes that a 2015 survey from the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health claims that “79 percent of industry workers had been burned on the job in the previous year — most more than once.”

“My managers kept pushing me to work faster, and while trying to meet their demands, I slipped on a wet floor, catching my arm on a hot grill,” fast-food worker Brittney Berry said in a statement quoted in the article. “The managers told me to put mustard on it.”

The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, a worker safety advocacy organization, said the new OSHA authority is “a step forward” for immigrant workers. 

“Protecting workers who are witnesses to illegal workplace abuses not only means workers can be treated fairly, it also creates a level playing field for employers,” Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, co-executive director of National COSH, said in a news release. “Companies that provide a safe workplace, use above-board hiring and recruitment practices and pay workers what they are owed should not have to compete with those who break the law to gain an unfair advantage.”

Opinion: The federal government almost stepped in to enforce worker safety laws in Arizona. That's a wake-up call for state agencies.

Josefina Ahumada, Alison Harrington and Katelyn Parady opinion contributors

Josefina Ahumada is a community social worker and a founder and member of the Southside Worker Center, a work program for day laborers. Alison Harrington is pastor of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, which runs the center. Katelyn Parady is a Phoenix-based worker health and safety professional with the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. Reach them at josefina40@cox.net, pastoralisonharrington@gmail.com and katelyn@nationalcosh.org.

And Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, points out, not only are children working more, they’re getting injured more as well

Young workers have much higher rates of non-fatal injuries on the job and the highest rates of injuries that require emergency department attention, Goldstein-Gelb noted. She argued that due to the vulnerability and inexperience of young workers, data on these workers is likely an undercount due to fears or barriers in being able to speak up and report dangerous situations or child labor law violations.

Safety leaders are applauding the new protections.

“This is a step forward for immigrant workers in the U.S., including millions who are undocumented,” said Jessica E. Martinez, co-executive director of National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH). “These workers are essential to our economy and communities but are all too often victimized by unscrupulous employers. These same employers frequently threaten to use immigration status as a way to silence workers and prevent them from speaking up about abusive and illegal practices in their workplaces.”

“When workers have a voice, they can join together to stop illegal conduct and exploitation by their employers,” said Martinez. “Millions of immigrants — including undocumented workers — in the U.S. grow, prepare and serve our food, build our homes, care for our children and perform many other vital functions. It’s absurd to claim these workers don’t ‘belong’ here. They are here, and they deserve the same dignity, respect and safety on the job as everyone else.”

The protections being sought for companies are of particular concern to labor activists.

“In the Iowa legislation, one of the provisions is to exempt employers from civil liability due to the company’s negligence. It is astounding that they would have the gall to knowingly acknowledge that more young people will be harmed, but focus on exempting businesses,” said Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.

Goldstein-Gelb explained that throughout her career she has worked with families and co-workers of young workers who have died on the job, oftentimes in violation of child labor laws that industry groups have fought to repeal, such as in a case where a 16-year-old in Massachusetts was killed in 2000 while operating a golf cart on the job.

Melissa Moriarty, storytelling and communications strategist on the National COSH staff, reflected on this year’s gathering:

“Workers know their jobs and know what is needed to stay safe. But employers and public officials don’t always listen to those who pay the price for preventable hazards in the workplace. At COSHCON, we create the space for workers and advocates to share ideas for creating positive change – and that includes strategies for making public what happens behind closed doors. We were delighted to have a superb media panel this year, hearing from top journalists who are telling important stories about sexual harassment, undocumented workers and the horribly high rate of injuries at Amazon.”

“For vulnerable workers where retaliation is rampant and getting blacklisted is rampant, folks who get injured tend to either deal with it on their own or ignore it,” said Jessica Martinez, co-executive director at the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.

The worker death rate across all industries was 3.6 per 100,000, the highest since 2016.

Jessica Martinez, co-executive director for the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, released a statement calling the death rate for all industries “unacceptably high,” and advocating for reform.

“We need an urgent wake-up call to our employers and our government,” Martinez said in the statement. “Listen to workers. Enforce our safety laws. Remove known hazards, and let’s work together to make sure every worker comes home safely at the end of every shift.”

El Comité committee is sponsored by the Coalition for Restaurant Health and Safety (CRSH) and 215 People’s Alliance. CRSH has been supported by PhilaPOSH, a labor and community-based organization with a long track record of advocating for safer workplaces. PhilaPOSH is an affiliate of my organization, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH).

The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health listed Dollar General as one of the “dirty dozen” employers earlier this year.

“Dollar General has shown a pattern of alarmingly willful disregard for federal safety standards, choosing to place profits over their employees’ safety and well-being,” said Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health Doug Parker in the November news release. 

“We know they don’t treat us right, it’s not safe most of the time,” said Eh Phaung, a forklift operator at a mattress factory near Albany, New York. She attended the Summit with National COSH affiliate NENYCOSH, and said she and her co-workers face hazards from long hours and repetitive carrying and heavy lifting.

National COSH and allies in the movement for workplace justice worked together prior to the Summit and advocated strongly for an inclusive, accessible event to genuinely represent and uplift the voices of workers who face dangerous, life-threatening hazards every day on the job. Collaborating with our COSH Network of 26 local health and safety groups, we reached out to engage workers whose voices are overlooked: Low-wage workers, temp workers, immigrants and workers of color.

Through its WorkedUp initiative, which seeks to bring together worker organizations to support and amplify each other’s struggles, National COSH is running a petition on behalf of the factory workers as they continue negotiations with Refresco.

“Companies like Refresco have big PR firms to do their dirty work for them, but what do workers have? That’s why, with the support of unions and worker centers from all over the country, National COSH created WorkedUp. It gives workers a place where they can document workplace injustices and tell the public how they’re overworked, underpaid, and underprotected,” said COSH’s Melissa Moriarty, a storytelling and communications strategist. 

“When workers are sitting at the table, providing input into the program, that’s when you have a workforce that is engaged and has a buy-in into the safety program,” said Jessica Martinez, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. “I could never sit down and say I know what the job of a construction worker is. When you ask them, ‘What are the issues at your worksite and how can we come to a solution?’ you have workers who are more engaged. They feel empowered to use their voice.”

What do a group of factory workers in New Jersey and domestic cleaners in Manhattan share with dairy and poultry workers all across rural America? They know their workplace stories have power, and they’re using WorkedUp, a collective storytelling campaign, to organize and make change happen.

WorkedUp makes it easy for hardworking people to document what happens in the workplace via YouTube videos and written testimonials. The simple yet powerful resource was started by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH) — a W.K. Kellogg Foundation grantee — through its 26 local and state affiliates.