Building collapses
(Nov. 5, 2003)
In the wake of the fatal collapse of a parking garage in Atlantic City, N.J., IRE and NICAR have compiled data, Internet resources and stories that have been written in the past about building collapses.
Databases
OSHA Workplace Safety Data
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration database includes inspections and accidents in U.S. states and territories from 1972 through August 2002. The information is arranged in four main tables that can be joined by a common field. One table has the location and name of the company and includes past OSHA violations. Details about the accident are located in another table, and another shows types of violations and penalties for violations. There is also a table with accidents involving hazardous materials.
Federal Contracts
The Federal Procurement Data System, maintained by the U.S. General Services Administration, consists of federal contracts from 70 Executive Branch agencies, excluding the U.S. Postal Service. The data, available from fiscal year 1979 through fiscal year 2002, includes contracts in U.S. states and territories and some foreign countries. Information about contractors includes location and type of business, as well as services and products provided. It is possible to analyze contracts based on specialized businesses such as minority or veteran-owned. A state slice of this data has information on contracting agencies and contractors in the state and contracts performed in the state. Keating Group and its subdivisions have had federal contracts. Keating Group is the parent company of Keating Building Corp., general contractors on the Tropicana parking garage.
Federal Campaign Contributions
The Federal Election Commission's database contains campaign contribution information on all candidates seeking federal office and federal political action committees from 1991 through 2002. The data, available in two year cycles or as an annual subsciption, is contained in four tables able to be linked by a common field. One table has information about each candidate, another about each committee. Two more tables consist of individual and political action committee contributor information. Keating Building Corp., general contractors on the Tropicana parking garage, is listed as having made contributions.
To order the data, call the Database Library at 573-884-7711 or download an order form.
Stories
To order stories from the IRE Resource Center, send e-mail to rescntr@ire.org or call us at 573-882-3364.
Story #2812
The Hartford Courant runs special section on bridge inspections in Connecticut a year after a fatal bridge collapse; probe finds the state's revamped bridge inspection program marred by falsified records, wasted time, inconsistent performance and poor supervision.
Story #10056
Dateline NBC conducts a computer-assisted investigation to reveal the deteriorating and potentially dangerous condition of thousands of bridges nation-wide; focus is primarily on cases where bridges collapsed with fatal results.
Story #674
Hartford Courant articles use government reports and contractors' logs to show that a Hartford building collapse that killed 28 workers could have been avoided; problems in construction method foretold disaster.
Story #2450
The Detroit News publishes article about the poor design and construction that led to the near collapse of the world's largest concrete segmental bridge and the largest cost overrun in the history of Michigan roadbuilding.
Story #9875
Kansas City Star reveals how the transformation of Branson, Mo. into a booming tourist town was accomplished at the expense of poor building inspections; one inspector is in charge of hundreds of projects and some buildings catch fire or collapse before they're even finished and then are not investigated.
Story #20647
The Atlantic Monthly examines the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks from an engineering perspective. He discusses how the rescue teams went about deconstructing the collapsed towers, the physics behind the building structures and how different engineers involved in the original construction felt about the attacks.
Story #2283
Cocoa Today examines the cause of the collapse of a condominium complex and the shortcomings in condominium construction and building regulations statewide.
Story #2204
Kansas City Star and Times examines construction documents of the Hyatt Regency, where a skywalk's collapse killed guests; indicates trouble signals were missed, contractor faced bankruptcy, skywalks were never inspected.
Story #13070
This Morning Call series found that the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration fails to shield workers from injury and death in Pennsylvania. OSHA inspects few worksites, misses accidents that maim workers and has no way of telling which workplaces are the most hazardous.
Story #6767
Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., publishes the White Paper "Prosecuting Workplace Injuries and Death: Trends and Analysis," focusing on the loopholes, investigation boondoggles, and bargained-downed fines.
Story #10795
The Kansas City Business Journal series examines the issue of federal regulation of business, focusing on the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The series documents how the cost of many regulations far exceeds their benefits, the unrealistic risk assessments that the EPA relies on, the arbitrary nature of OSHA's enforcement actions and the effectiveness of workplace discrimination rules that fall under the EEOC.
Story #7323
Pittsburgh Press finds the American workplace is growing more and more dangerous for its workers; work-related deaths since the Occupational Safety and Health Act became law in 1970 almost equal American deaths during World War II; three workers are suffering disabling injuries every minute across the country; construction, industry and health care workers are at risk.
Story #4200
The Wall Street Journal reports that safety in the workplace has taken a back seat to saving time and money as work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths increase.
Story #6304
National Safety Workplace Institute's guide for public and private sources of information on job safety and health.
Story #14944
The Arizona Republic examined OSHA inspection records and took an in-depth look at the estate workers' compensation system. Using an OSHA database, the paper established the median fine assessed in connection with a workplace death in which a serious safety violation was found - $3,000. The project also included several sidebars that profiled workers that were killed on the job and showed the dramatic impact on their families.
Story #12200
The Post-Dispatch reports that "Since 1974, 57 workers have died in falls in the St. Louis area--including 20 in the last six years. Falls were the No. 1 workplace killer in this region... Falls accounted for one-fourth of all workplace fatalities..."
Story #18971
This two-part series investigates on the superficial way in which Cal-OSHA conducted inquiries in work-related deaths. Also provides an analysis of the labor fatalities from 1998 to 2000 that points out the increasing number of deaths among Hispanic immigrants compared to a 3 percent drop in workplace deaths nationwide. Specific cases and discussions of the Cal-OSHA reports are provided.
Story #11001
The Boston Globe investigates the safety of elevators and finds that crippling accidents and deaths occur frequently, inspections are not done as often and as thoroughly as they should, and the industry was free from federal supervision. As a result of the series, the states Public Safety Commissioner ordered a major overhaul of the inspection system and punishment for inspectors who were not doing their jobs.
Story #8861
ABA Journal looks at how the weak enforcement measures of OSHA, coupled with the declining power of labor unions, is allowing more workplace accidents and deaths, with the injury rates of American workers rising 6 percent and occupational illness rates jumping 17 percent in 1990.
Story #19350
The death of an electrical lineman in Maine prompted the Sun-Journal to look at Central Maine Power Company's safety records. An OSHA investigation showed that CMP worked many of their workers for far too long. The man who died had worked his last 55 1/2 hours on about five hours of broken sleep. The investigation prompted the company to reach an agreement with its union to hire more workers, cut back on worker hours, and increase safety standards.
Story #20118
The Progressive magazine looks at workplace safety and OSHA.
Search for more stories in IRE's Resource Center.
Tipsheets
To order tipsheets from the IRE Resource Center, send e-mail to rescntr@ire.org or call us at 573-882-3364.
Tipsheet #1608
Natalya Shulyakovskaya of The Orange County Register offers Web addresses of federal, NGO and academic organizations involved in occupational safety and health related domains, agreements and resources towards worker's compensation and a guide on how to report on OSHA activity.
From 2002
Tipsheet #1758
Mary Fricker of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat compiled a detailed collection of resources and story ideas on worker's compensation.
From 2002
Tipsheet #1757
Diana Hembree of Consumer Health Interactive has a list of federal, state and local sources for covering job profiles and occupational health.
Tipsheet #31
From Mike Casey and Russ Carollo of the Dayton Daily News: Outlines how to proceed in a workplace safety project; includes source list, background on Occupational Safety and Health Administration, computer vs. non-computer reporting and public records. Also includes who to write for the OSHA database, institutions that have the OSHA tapes and can perform analysis, sample federal inspection list, reported occupational injury incidence rates by industry.
From 1992
Tipsheet #1399
From the 2001 annual IRE conference, Ken Ward Jr. provides a listing of Web sites beneficial to finding inspection/enforcement actions, records of injuries/fatalities, annual studies and government research.
Tipsheet #627
In this handout from the 1997 computer-assisted reporting conference, Natalya Shulyakovskaya, Nancy Amons and David Herzog cover how to analyze public pension funds, and how to cover safety in the workplace. The tipsheet includes agencies to contact and Internet sites to access for information on workplace safety.
Tipsheet #36
Margaret Engel of The Washington Post lists resources for investigating the workplace, including organizations, publications, computer data bases, unions and universities with occupational health and safety programs.
Tipsheet #1456
In this handout from the 2001 annual IRE conference, Mike McGraw, Jim Steele and Joe Stephens list almost 40 little known or rarely used documents and sources. Among them: subminimum wage certificates; reports on workplace fatalities; gasoline credit card receipts; and letters written by companies and individuals commenting on proposed regulations.
Search for more tipsheets in IRE's Resource Center.
IRE Publications
The Investigative Reporter's Handbook, Brant Houston's Computer-Assisted Reporting book and other helpful publications are available from IRE and NICAR.
Chapter 12 of the Investigative Reporter's Handbook covers "Investigating the Private Sector: For-profit businesses and their workers" including information about safety and health in the workplace (pp. 337-339). See related Web sites.
Chapter 11, "Where Government and Private Sector Meet: Investigating licensed professionals," discusses using professional associations as sources.
The IRE Journal
Interview both sides of mouth: Compare what industry experts say in public to what they say in professional conferences
Ellen Schultz of The Wall Street Journal offers a tip for reporters who cover the workplace: obtain tapes from industry conferences to hear what industry experts really think about workplace issues. Schultz says that industry experts "often speak very bluntly and unguardedly at professional conferences... Many of these sessions are taped, and the tapes are for sale to professionals who missed the sessions. They're also available to enterprising journalists."
Published: May/June 2000
Institute offers help probing job safety
Steve Weinberg explains how the National Safe Workplace Institute could help journalists in their coverage of workplace safety issues.
Published: Spring 1989
Workplace records as alternative routes
Mike McGraw of The Hartford Courant writes about what information can be obtained from the state employment insurance commissions, the National Labor Relations Board and its branch offices, the Department of Labor, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and other agencies.
Published: Winter 1989
Dealing with OSHA
Mike McGraw of The Hartford Courant writes about how to use OSHA for information on construction and other workplace accidents.
Published: Winter 1989
Uplink
After a bridge on Interstate 40 collapsed in Oklahoma, the Tulsa World got to work analyzing the DOT's bridge data. Instead of looking at the whole state for problem bridges, they focused their attention on bridges that were on the detour routes given to the public. Their results showed that six of the bridges on the detour routes needed to be replaced.
Published: July/August 2002
Workplace data resources
This is a great resource for reporters planning to do workplace stories. Stephanie Armour gives three specific story ideas concerning the workplace. She also lists seven databases you can build on your own or existing databases you can mine for stories.
Published: March/April 2002
Mining workplace data
David Herzog outlines multiple story angles to take with workplace data. With the fall of Enron, pensions are an important story that is easy to localize with the web applications outlined in this article. Other angles Herzog discusses are workers compensation, and foreign or immigrant workers.
Published: March/April 2002
Death on the job
Bill Muller writes about a computer-assisted reporting project he did about workplace deaths in Arizona.
Published: December 1998
Beyond OSHA
In this column, Cassandra Sweet gives information and hints on where else to look for workplace data other than OSHA.
Published: November 1995
Beware of OSHA data: Perils and pitfalls
Government databases can be very useful but many contain dangerous hazards that are difficult to avoid. The Occupational and Health Administration's inspections database is a perfect example. In this story Ron Nixon brings up what problems exist with the OSHA database and some ways to overcome them.
Published: March/April 2002
IRE members can search the indexes of The IRE
Journal and Uplink. Back issues of The IRE Journal and Uplink may be purchased for $10 each. There is
an additional $10 user fee for nonmembers. Check with the Resource Center at 573-882-3364 or
rescntr@ire.org for availability.
Web Links
- OSHA Assistance for the Construction Industry, provides links to OSHA construction standards and policies
- Occupational Safety & Health Administration
- OSHA Region 2 offices (New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands)
- OSHA's Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health, "a continuing advisory body established by statute that provides advice and assistance in construction standards and policy matters to the Assistant Secretary. There are 15 members of this advisory body."
- Safety and Health Topics: Construction: Concrete and Masonry from OSHA
- Statistics and data from OSHA
- Federal Safety and Health Regulations for Construction. Concrete and masonry construction is dealt with in Subpart Q.
- Workplace Injury, Illness and Fatality Statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
- OSHA release: National Ready Mixed Concrete Association Partners with OSHA to Reduce Injuries and Illnesses
- Links to articles about Concrete and Masonry and health effects
- Concrete and Masonry Construction: sets forth requirements with which construction employers must comply to protect construction workers from accidents and injuries resulting from the premature removal of formwork, the failure to brace masonry walls, the failure to support precast panels, the inadvertent operation of equipment, and the failure to guard reinforcing steel.
- Keating Building Corp., general contractors on the Tropicana project
- Fabi Construction Company, concrete contractors on the Tropicana project
- National Concrete Masonry Association
- Construction Management Association of America
- New Jersey Department of Labor
- Safety information from N.J. Dept. of Labor
| For
more information, contact: |
Jeff Porter
Database Library Director
IRE and NICAR
E-mail: jeff@ire.org
Voice: 573-882-1982
Fax: 573-882-5431 |
Beth Kopine
Research Director
IRE Resource Center
E-mail: beth@ire.org
Voice: 573-882-6668
Fax: 573-884-8151 |
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