Workplace
Sago Anniversary
On the anniversary of the Sago Mine explosion, The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette continues to probe safety issues behind the blast that killed 12 miners. Ken Ward Jr. reports that “the Sago disaster might not have happened if regulators and the coal industry had heeded the warnings… from a series of other lightning-induced explosions in the…
Read MoreMine safety
The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette and reporter Ken Ward Jr. continued an ongoing series on coal mine safety with a story about coal dust violations and an article that explains that investigators do not always pinpoint the cause of coal-mining disasters.
Read MoreBeyond Sago – a series on mine safety
Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette analyzed government reports and data and found that 9 out of every 10 coal mining deaths nationwide over the last 10 years could have been avoided if existing safety rules had been followed. Ward’s report, the first in a series of special investigative stories, appeared in Sunday’s…
Read MoreMine deaths avoidable
Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette analyzed government reports and data and found that 9 out of every 10 coal mining deaths nationwide over the last 10 years could have been avoided if existing safety rules had been followed. Ward’s report, the first in a series of special investigative stories, appeared in Sunday’s…
Read MoreFaulty escape tunnel blamed for miners’ deaths
The Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail‘s Ken Ward Jr. reports that a federal-state probe has found out why two coal miners died in a January fire at a Massey Energy mine in Logan County, W.Va. Contrary to federal law, the Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine’s primary escape tunnel was not totally blocked off from a conveyor belt…
Read MoreWorkplace safety in Canada
The CBC’s investigative unit obtained data from workplace safety insurance boards across Canada to track top national trends in the workplace of today. “Canada’s record for reducing workplace fatalities over the previous 20 years was the worst. The project looks at health-care workers, mines, fatalities by province, and more. Audio reports are included in the…
Read MoreMining disaster might have been prevented
Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette found that Sago Mine officials knew of a buildup of explosive methane behind mine seals where a Jan. 2 blast is believed to have occurred, in a two-day series of stories about the explosion. Twelve miners died in the explosion, making it the worst coal mining disaster…
Read MoreLA Fire Department faces costly lawsuits
Dan Laidman and Jason Kandel of the Los Angeles Daily News used records from the City Attorney’s Office to show that, despite a decade of efforts to end harassment and discrimination within the Los Angeles Fire Department, the agency still faces frequent costly lawsuits. The number has ebbed and flowed over the years, but rose…
Read MoreProgram for disabled exploited
Jeff Kosseff, Bryan Denson and Les Zaitz of The Oregonian used hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of documents and visits to more than a dozen charities in seven states to show that a program created to benefit Americans with severe disabilities is being exploited at the cost of the people it was supposed to…
Read MoreBrake plant workers suffer serious work-related health effects
Randy Ludlow of the The Columbus Dispatch reports that nearly five years after more than a quarter of TRW brake plant’s 400 workers contracted respiratory illnesses, dozens remain disabled and out of work. Federal investigators concluded the outbreak was workplace-related but did not determine the exact cause. Ludlow reveals that TRW Automotive, a $10 billion…
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