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The E-Newsbrief of the National Clearinghouse for Worker Safety and Health Training is a free weekly newsletter focusing on new developments in the world of worker health and safety.
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The Worker Training Program (WTP) 2025-2030 Strategic Plan is now available. The WTP Strategic Plan is a living document that provides an overview of the vision, mission, and strategic priorities and objectives of WTP. Notably, the plan is consistent with several themes and areas outlined in the NIEHS 2025-2029 Strategic Plan.
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The Worker Training Program (WTP) 2025 Operational Matrix is now available. The matrix is a useful tool for WTP staff, award recipients, and contractors; it is used to plan and track progress on various activities.
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This new resource guide was developed collaboratively by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Feedback from mining community constituents, existing workplace opioid use prevention guidance, and prevention research literature all informed the design of this guide. The goal of the guide is to provide mine operators, occupational safety and health managers, and others with actionable tools to more effectively plan, implement, and integrate a range of workplace interventions to prevent opioid use and opioid use disorder among mine workers.
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According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), H5N1 bird flu was confirmed in a pig on a backyard farm in Oregon, the first detection of the virus in swine in the country. Pigs represent a particular concern for the spread of bird flu because they can become co-infected with bird and human viruses, which could swap genes to form a new, more dangerous virus that can more easily infect humans. The USDA said there is no risk to the nation's pork supply from the Oregon case and that the risk to the public from bird flu remains low. The Oregon farm has been quarantined, and other animals there, including sheep and goats, are under surveillance.
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Laborers have suffered as summers have grown progressively hotter with climate change, but health policy and occupational health researchers say that worker deaths are not inevitable. Employers can save lives by providing ample water and breaks and by building in time for new workers to adjust to extreme heat. Based on extrapolations from heat injury data, the advocacy organization, Public Citizen, estimates that as many as 2,000 U.S. workers die of heat annually. More than 70% of workers who die of heat do so within their first week on the job, and delayed medical care is a common theme.
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Twenty days after Hurricane Helene brought torrential rain and deadly floods to western North Carolina, over 100,000 people still lack potable water. Federal and state officials have been sending water, but supplies are limited, and as service is restored, locals are being told to boil anything that didn’t come out of a bottle. The state Department of Environmental Quality has received more than 1,000 reports of potentially worrisome incidents in the wake of Helene: oil drums leaking into ponds, homeowners pumping pooled sewage into creeks, and wastewater treatment plans critically damaged by the flood. Even as hundreds of thousands of people continue digging out from the devastation wrought by the storm, the risk of disease is mounting.
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For more than two days, a vital shipping passageway in the Port of Los Angeles was shut down, and the cause was surprising to some. A big rig overturned, sparking a fierce lithium-ion battery blaze that spewed toxic gases, snarled port traffic, and resulted in what one official said was massive economic losses from delayed shipments. The incident focused new attention, and fears, on the fuel cells helping drive the state's clean energy transition. These batteries are generally safe with proper care and storage, but there is serious reason to worry about a crash involving a truck transporting these batteries or a battery storage facility catching fire — two types of incidents that can generate massive blazes, emitting toxic gases for several days.
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Transmission of the H5N1 bird flu virus through U.S. dairy herds took off when last winter’s flu season was effectively over, making the job of looking for people infected with H5N1 an easier task in theory, but many human hurdles have impeded those efforts. In the months since the outbreak was first detected, the spread of the virus in cows has not been contained, with infections reported in 380 herds in 14 states so far. Now, with cold and flu season looming, it is likely to become more difficult for the country’s public health departments to track the virus. In the weeks and months to come, when farm workers or others develop influenza-like symptoms from culling infected poultry flocks, what ails them could be a common cold, COVID-19, regular influenza, or a bird flu virus.
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In March 2024, officials in Postville, Iowa, shut down the town’s water treatment facility for two days as city employees worked to prevent polluted water from a meatpacking plant from entering the water supply. Agri Star Meat and Poultry had discharged more than 250,000 gallons of untreated food processing waste — blood, chemicals, and other solid materials — into the city’s wastewater system. In majority-white Iowa, most Postville residents are people of color, with more than 40% identifying as Hispanic. Many work at Agri Star Meat and Poultry, the town’s largest employer. Across the Midwest, meatpacking plants often pollute non-white communities and low-income neighborhoods, according to an analysis of two decades of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcement data.
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According to a new study, a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus, isolated from the eye of a farm worker who became infected through contact with dairy cows, was lethal in mice and ferrets infected in a high-containment laboratory environment. The study investigators also found that the virus isolated from the worker, who experienced mild inflammation of the cornea, could be transmitted through the air between separated ferrets and might be capable of binding to and replicating in human respiratory tract cells.
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Interest in how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) will affect U.S. workers has been growing in recent years, especially with the recent rapid increase in capabilities and adoption of large language model-based chatbots and other generative AI. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is hosting a webinar that will explore its new report on AI’s implications for the future of work. The report reviews what is known about likely workforce implications of AI and related technologies, including for economic productivity and growth, job stability, equity, and income inequality. The webinar will take place November 21, 2024, 1:30-2:30 p.m. ET.
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The Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau is hosting a webinar exploring the inspiring career journeys of tradeswomen. This event will feature insights from tradeswomen at various stages in their careers, including apprentices, journeymen, foremen, project managers, and contractors. Speakers will discuss the importance and good practices of recruiting more women into pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs. The webinar will take place November 21, 2024, 6:00-7:30 p.m. ET.
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The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, in collaboration with the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University, is hosting the 10th Anniversary Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Climate Change Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. Conference sessions will dive into pressing issues like climate justice, community resilience, and the impact of severe weather events. Registration is now open for the conference, which will take place March 5-9, 2025.
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As the nation contends with the fourth wave of the opioid crisis, shortcomings in data collection continue to paint an incomplete picture of overdoses in Indian Country. A new bill, however, would fund tribes, state and local governments, and law enforcement task forces to collect near real-time data on overdoses. The Opioid Overdose Data Collection Enhancement Act will help communities adopt and implement the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP). ODMAP is currently being used by 4,800 agencies across the country and more than two million overdoses have been logged into its database. The system could bridge the divide between jurisdictions and disparate data systems that hinder accurate data keeping in Indian Country.
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Spurred by two separate fatal incidents this year, the Federal Railroad Administration is re-emphasizing the importance of rules and procedures to protect workers who operate or work near roadway maintenance machines. The new advisory recommends railroad operators and contractors review and update their rules regarding communication between roadway workers and those who operate roadway maintenance machines. For example, roadway workers should be prohibited from entering a work- or red-zone unless communication is established and maintained with operators of roadway maintenance machines.
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the selection of 55 applicants across 27 states and territories to receive nearly $3 billion through EPA’s Clean Ports Program. These grants will support the deployment of zero-emission equipment, as well as infrastructure, climate, and air quality planning projects at ports across the country. The grants will advance environmental justice by reducing diesel air pollution in U.S. ports and surrounding communities while promoting good-paying and union jobs that help America’s ports thrive.
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The Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced the award of $7.6 million in funding for cooperative institutes to transform satellite observations and other data into information that communities can use to prepare for and recover from floods and heavy precipitation. The awards will fund work to create street-level maps of potential flood and inundation, improve models of how water cycles through the nation’s rivers and streams, and develop a new data set of hourly-precipitation information to help businesses and communities better understand the effects of extreme rainfall.
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The Biden-Harris Administration has approved more than $1.2 billion in direct assistance to Hurricanes Helene and Milton survivors. These funds help survivors with housing repairs, personal property replacement, and other essential recovery efforts. Additionally, over $1.1 billion has been approved for debris removal and emergency protective measures, which are necessary to save lives, protect public health, and prevent further damage to public and private property. More than 1,400 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Disaster Survivor Assistance team members are in affected neighborhoods helping survivors apply for assistance and connecting them with additional state, local, federal, and voluntary agency resources.
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Partnering with Tribal Employment Rights Offices (TERO) directors from the Nez Perce Tribe and Lummi Nation, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced today the release of new public service announcements in video and downloadable audio formats to help educate Native Americans and Alaska Natives about their employment rights. The EEOC is committed to working with Native American and Alaska Native tribes in a manner that respects Tribal self-government and sovereignty, honors Tribal treaty and other rights, and meets the Federal Government’s Tribal trust responsibilities.
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The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children and families who are harmed by pollution and vulnerable to climate change in the Gulf Coast Region. The DSCEJ works to better the lives of these vulnerable groups through research, education, and community and student engagement for policy change, as well as through health and safety training for environmental careers. DSCEJ currently has five positions open: 1) Community Investment Recovery Center (CIRC) Deputy Program Director; 2) Junior Salesforce Administrator; 3) National Black Environmental Justice Network Coordinator; 4) Project Coordinator, Louisiana Gulf Coast Grantmaking Project; and 5) CIRC Network Director.
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The Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) has three positions open currently: 1) Labor and Good Jobs Lead; 2) Community Engagement Specialist; and 3) Community Benefit Specialist. OCED was established in December 2021 to help scale the emerging technologies needed to tackle our most pressing climate challenges and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. OCED is managing more than $25 billion in funding to deliver clean energy demonstration projects at scale in partnership with the private sector to accelerate deployment, market adoption, and the equitable transition to a decarbonized energy system.
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