{"id":799,"date":"2010-01-17T14:29:40","date_gmt":"2010-01-17T14:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/?p=799"},"modified":"2010-01-18T11:15:23","modified_gmt":"2010-01-18T11:15:23","slug":"us-work-safety-chief-calls-for-good-safe-green-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/2010\/01\/17\/us-work-safety-chief-calls-for-good-safe-green-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"US work safety chief calls for good safe green jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"WORKPLACE

WORKPLACE REVOLUTION David Michaels says the assumption that green jobs are necessarily good jobs is an unsafe one.<\/p><\/div>\n

The newly installed leader of the US government\u2019s workplace safety watchdog has made his first public act a call for green jobs to be good, safe jobs.<\/p>\n

On 9 December 2009 David Michaels<\/a> was\u00a0 confirmed as the Obama administration\u2019s Assistant Secretary of Labor for occupational safety and health.<\/p>\n

The head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) told a\u00a0\u2018Going green\u2019<\/a> workshop, run by the US government\u2019s workplace health research arm NIOSH on 16 December 2009, it was \u201cvery fitting and proper that my first speech as Assistant Secretary should address the issue of green jobs – what green jobs mean for the earth, for our economy and for American workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis \u201chas provided the Department of Labor with her vision, which is simply and profoundly: \u2018Good jobs for everyone.\u2019 And everyone at this conference understands all too well that green jobs cannot be good jobs unless they are safe jobs.”<\/p>\n

Michaels acknowledged the many voices supporting a \u201cgreen revolution\u201d to reform the economy, but warned: \u201cEmployers who race into this green economy without paying attention to worker safety will blunder into many preventable injuries and deaths. We can’t afford this. We can’t allow this to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, he outlined his plan to ensure workplace safety is an integral part of the new greener economy. \u201cIt is vital, now, that we integrate worker safety and health concerns into green manufacturing, green construction and green energy,\u201d he told the NIOSH workshop.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost importantly: We must push worker health and safety as a critical, necessary, and recognized element of green design, green lifecycle analysis and green contracts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not a matter of choosing either a green future or safe jobs. It’s both. It’s all or nothing, and NIOSH, OSHA and everyone else needs to play a role in building this sustainable economy – an economy that will provide sufficient jobs, green jobs, and jobs that are safe for all workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Workers should not be overlooked when planning safer, green ways of working, he added, saying this was OSHA\u2019s \u2018Green Reform Principle Number One.\u2019
\n\u201cClearly one of the best ways to move forward on worker safety at the same time that we move forward on green jobs is to ensure that workers are more engaged in the work process and in the development of green jobs,\u201d he told workshop delegates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s clear that we must move toward a permanent system where employers and workers come together, on a basis of mutual respect, to assess and abate hazards.\u201d<\/p>\n

His action list of five \u2018green reform principles\u2019 also included ditching the assumption that chemicals are \u201cconsidered innocent until proven guilty – and all too often proven guilty by the sick and dead bodies of American workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Third on the reform principles list comes \u2018prevention through design\u2019<\/a>, an approach that \u201cis about fundamental change that integrates safety efficiently and thoroughly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listed at four is decent standards \u2013 something that had been neglected under the Bush administration, when rule making ground to a dangerous halt.<\/p>\n

And green reform principle number five comes full circulate to the workers\u2019 facing the risks: Enhancing workers’ voice in the workplace.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get us up to date and move into a safer, healthier future, it’s also clear that workers must have a stronger voice in workplace safety than they have now,\u201d said Michaels. \u201cGiving that voice impact and value means that workers must have much better information about their rights, the hazards they face and controls for those hazards.\u201d<\/p>\n

He concluded: \u201cThe challenge now is to get everyone else on board across the nation. We need to make the expression \u2018green jobs\u2019 synonymous with \u2018safe jobs\u2019 – because green jobs are good jobs only when they are safe jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The newly installed leader of the US government\u2019s workplace safety watchdog has made his first public act a call for green jobs to be good, safe jobs. On 9 December 2009 David Michaels was\u00a0 confirmed as the Obama administration\u2019s Assistant Secretary of Labor for occupational safety and health. The head of the Occupational Safety and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[136,139,21,137,138,7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":824,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions\/824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}