Blog

Although vaccination rates continue to rise and coverage on COVID-19 is fading away from prominent news dashboards, our rates are still higher than in summer 2020. While we still adapt to living and working with COVID-19, we must prepare for future public health emergencies so we do not lose another year figuring out our response.

A recent Maryland law requires the state's Commissioner of Labor and Industry, in consultation with its Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board, to develop and adopt regulations that require employers to protect employees from heat-related illness caused by heat stress. Those standards are due by October 2022. The law also requires the state to hold four public meetings to collect input from residents. This month, the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health Division (MOSH) scheduled those meetings, and I testified at the September 20 session.

Soaring rates of voluntary resignations, widespread labor shortages, and the ubiquity of "Help Wanted" signs put the "labor" back in the Labor Day holiday this year, as employers struggle to respond to a jobs market that seems, for once, to have given workers the upper hand. Story after story blames current labor market conditions on "burnout," an occupational phenomenon the World Health Organization describes as a combination of symptoms that includes emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment. "Burnout -- and opportunity -- are driving record wave of quitting," the Deseret (Utah) News declared in August. But what if the diagnosis -- or rather, what we call it -- is a symptom of the real problem? Naming the phenomenon for its toll on workers, rather than for the working conditions that drive it, skews our understanding of what's wrong and how to fix it.

Economists are scratching their heads furiously — why is there a labor shortage amidst high unemployment? Everywhere employers are posting “Help Wanted” signs but still face shortage of workers. The last six months of worker disillusionment with the job market shows a new source of power: the power of workers when they withdraw the services of their labor.

No federal standard currently protects workers from heat or heat stress. Between 1992 and 2017, heat killed 815 workers on the job and seriously injured 70,000 more, according to federal records. It's time to support America's laborers and their many contributions workers make to America’s strength, prosperity, and wellbeing. Here's how.

Four years ago, Hurricane Harvey slammed into the coast of Texas, causing severe flooding in the Houston area and leading to a loss of electrical power throughout the region. During the blackout, a local chemical plant lost its ability to keep volatile chemicals stored onsite cool, and a secondary disaster ensued: A series of explosions endangered the lives of workers and first responders and spurred mass evacuations of nearby residents. This infamous incident was a classic "double disaster" — a natural disaster, like a storm or earthquake, followed by a technical disaster, like a chemical release or explosion. These events pose a severe and growing threat to public and environmental health — and to workers in particular, who are hurt "first and worst." Hundreds of thousands of Americans have been injured, killed, or forced to shelter in place or evacuate in the wake of such disasters in recent decades, and countless others have been needlessly exposed to toxic pollution. Today, the Center for Progressive Reform published a policy brief with Earthjustice and the Union of Concerned Scientists, which contains recommendations to EPA on how to address this problem.

For the last century, the Supreme Court has tried to operationalize the idea that a government regulation can be so burdensome that it amounts to a seizure of property. In the process, it has created a house of mirrors, a maze in which nothing is as it seems. Rules that appear crisp and clear turn out to be mushy and murky. Judicial rulings that seem to expand the rights of property owners turn out to undermine those rights. The Court's decision last week in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid illustrates both points.

The Labor Department’s emergency COVID standard, released June 10, is too limited and weak to effectively protect all workers from the ongoing pandemic. Workers justifiably expected an enforceable general industry standard to protect them from COVID-19, and the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) has been calling for such a standard since June 2020. But what emerged after more than six weeks of closed-door White House review was a largely unenforceable voluntary guidance document, with only health care workers receiving the benefit of an enforceable standard.

When I think about climate, I also think about jobs. Jobs that don’t expose workers to toxins, COVID-19, or abuse. Quality jobs for workers and communities that reduce our carbon footprint and facilitate our transition to a clean economy. Jobs with protections and security in a changing economy. We simply cannot protect public health and the environment without addressing workers’ rights. With this in mind, it's perhaps no coincidence that we’re hiring two new policy analysts to enhance our research and advocacy around climate and worker justice. We'd love to have your help finding great candidates for these positions. Please spread the word and maybe even consider applying to one of these jobs yourself! CPR encourages people with underrepresented backgrounds in the nonprofit sector to apply, including people of color.