PAST ISSUES OF WEC@WORK
- November 2009
In this issue: - WEC and the Blue Green Alliance (BGA), along with 104 other labor and environmental organizations from across the nation, are urging U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson to enforce an existing law encouraging worker and union participation during EPA inspections of facilities using highly hazardous substances.
- On December 3, 1984, 25 tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaked from a Union Carbide pesticides plant in Bhopal, India, in the world's worst toxic disaster, killing thousands.
- WEC Awards Reception a success.
- WEC spurs an EPA alert warning the public to be aware of unscrupulous vendors who market ineffective and unregistered products or services that claim to disinfect surfaces or entire rooms against the H1N1 influenza
virus.
October 2009
In this issue:
- Howell Township Education Association stops the Howell Township Public Schools in Monmouth County from pesticide fogging classrooms and school buses.
- The U.S. House of Representatives will soon vote on national chemical safety and security legislation that would set standards at thousands of industrial and water treatment plants.
- The Bergen Record recently reported that more than 1,600 drums of toxic and potentially explosive and flammable chemicals abandoned in a Clifton warehouse and in on-site shipping containers had been removed a year after they were discovered.
- WEC has received a two-year Susan Harwood training grant renewal from OSHA to continue the Preventing Chemical Accidents training project.
- Valorie Caffee, Rev. Fletcher Harper, and Kelly Francis have been appointed to the NJ Environmental Justice Advisory Council for a second term.
September 2009
In this issue:
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson recently announced that the time had come to strengthen EPA's authority to regulate production and use of toxic chemicals.
- Recognizing that the U.S.'s chemicals policy is broken, EPA has targeted PFOA as one of six substances for stepped up regulatory efforts.
- The Steelworkers and Teamsters have quit a stakeholders group on refinery health and safety that includes the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry trade association.
- Welcome to WEC's newest Board member Marie Blistan, NJEA's newly elected Secretary-Treasurer.
Summer 2009
In this issue:
- While many labor organizations support him, Governor Jon S. Corzine faces criticism from many environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and NJ Environmental Federation.
- Not all of America's workers have the same protections to prevent workplace deaths and injuries.
- In July, President Barack Obama announced the nomination of Dr. David Michaels, Ph.D., MPH, to become the Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
- The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has released a new safety video showing the need for emergency response agencies, companies, unions, and communities to work together to prevent and prepare for chemical accidents.
June 2009
In this issue:
- The New Jersey Work Environment Council (WEC), the nation's oldest state labor-environment coalition, has joined the national Blue Green Alliance (BGA) as a New Jersey affiliate.
- WEC has convened a "Green Jobs Forum" to bring together labor, business, environmental, community, and academic constituencies to work for a transition to a more sustainable economy and to monitor government policies.
- No response from Governor Corzine on Kuehne chemical facility in South Kearney, NJ.
- The U.S. EPA declared a public health emergency for the W.R. Grace site in Libby, Montana.