Across the country, people are skipping meals and falling behind on housing payments while layoffs, automation, and diminishing labor protections deepen insecurity. The message many workers hear is simple: You are replaceable.
Before joining National COSH earlier this year, COSHCON was something I had only heard about from afar. Working as a consultant in the NYC labor movement, I knew it was a respected, bilingual gathering that brought together workers, organizers, and health and safety leaders, but it was still just a concept to me, something other people experienced.
Isola, Mississippi, U.S.A.-based Consolidated Catfish Producers has been named to the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH)’s 2026 Dirty Dozen report.
Spanning across industries, the report documents 12 companies annually that National COSH deems to have exhibited “recurring corporate failures” that place workers at risk, including extreme heat, hazardous machinery, toxic chemicals, wage theft, retaliation, and exploitative labor practices, among other issues.
Consolidated was included in this year’s report “due to a pattern of serious workplace safety concerns documented over multiple years,” National COSH Executive Director Jessica Martinez told SeafoodSource.
A National Council for Occupational Safety and Health report raises alarm over increased heat-related jobsite risks as the construction industry enters “the most dangerous time of year for heat exposure.”
Released during Workers’ Memorial Week, noting those who have died or suffered work-related injuries and illness, the 2026 Dirty Dozen report says it has identified 12 companies that “put workers’ lives at risk through unsafe practices, inadequate protections, and systemic neglect.” Among those are home builder D.R. Horton and Massachusetts contractor Revoli Construction, which is facing a $4.6 million fine after a fatal trench collapse.
Silicosis is a lethal workplace illness that killed thousands each year up through the 1960s. In recent decades, thanks to union workplace safety fights, it became much rarer. Annual deaths dropped to the hundreds. The disease affected mostly older workers with longer exposures.
So it was hard for stonecutter Gustavo Reyes Gonzalez, 35, to get a clear diagnosis in 2019 when he first developed a cough and shortness of breath. It wasn’t until two years later that he was told he had silicosis—and only had a year to live.
Reyes Gonzalez had worked for 15 years in a fabrication shop cutting and shaping the manufactured stone now commonly used for countertops and showers (also known as quartz or engineered stone).
OSHA now has 20% fewer inspectors, and the number of willful violations issued has fallen by 42%. According to a report issued by Good Jobs First last December, wage and hour enforcement cases have declined by 97%, and workplace health and safety penalties have dropped 47%.
Consolidated Catfish was one of the 12 employers named in the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health’s annual “Dirty Dozen” list, released that day. They included D.R. Horton, the nation’s largest homebuilder; the Hyundai-Kia parts-supply chain; and two leading airport-support companies, Alliance Ground International and LSG Sky Chefs.
