October 8, 2010, 11:45 a.m.
Workplace Safety: Look to China's Coal Mine Solution
. . . and other lessons
(bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
China seems to be doing a lot of things right, and I'm not just talking about what appears to be their stealth monopoly control of the world's essential "rare earth" resources. Keith Bradsher, "China Tightens Grip on Rare Minerals," New York Times, September 1, 2009, p. B1.
At a time when we don't seem to have figured out how to make corporate executives and their government overseers take a more serious approach to workplace safety, the Chinese have come up with an approach that can be applied to improving administrators' behavior generally.
"[N]ine men . . . have died inside U.S. coal mines in the six months since the Upper Big Branch mine disaster in West Virginia, in which 29 men were killed on April 5." David A. Fahrenthold and Kimberly Kindy, "Mine Safety's Black Hole," Washington Post, October 5, 2010. And see Nicholas Johnson, "Honor Workers Every Day," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 6, 2010, p. A7 (and in "Labor Day: Honor Workers Every Day," September 6, 2010); and Editorial, "Miners Die, Congress Dawdles," New York Times, September 19, 2010, p. A20.
What can we do? Where can we look for "best practices"?
Admittedly, it seems counter intuitive to look to China for coal mine safety. There are seven million Chinese coal miners -- more than in the rest of the world combined. In 2004 6000 Chinese miners died in mining accidents. China produces 40% of the world's coal, but 80% of the mining deaths. Chinese miners die at a rate 100 times greater than in the U.S. Mark Gregory, "Why Are China's Mines So Dangerous?" BBC World Service, October 7, 2010.
But last year those deaths dropped to 2600. Id.
And now Beijing has added another innovation that will not only reduce those deaths further, but offers an insight into reforming the attitudes of elected officials, administrators and managers generally.
"New regulations have come into force in China that require managers of mines to accompany workers down the shafts. . . . The authorities hope that putting officials in the mines alongside their workers will act as a strong incentive to improve safety conditions." Martin Patience, "China Introduces Mine Safety Rule," BBC News, October 7, 2010.
As you'd suspect, China's coal mine managers aren't crazy about the idea. "[A]lready there have been reports of some managers trying to manipulate the new regulation. At one mine, seven workers were given jobs as assistant managers to circumvent the new rule." Id.
How else might this principle be applied?
Professorial humility. At one point I applied it to myself. I'm not a good foreign language student. Oh, I manage to learn and use a few expressions in the native language of all the countries where I travel. But the portion of the brain that seemingly enables some individuals to master a foreign language on a single hearing never fully developed for me. Besides, most of the people I was dealing with abroad were fluent English language speakers.
But a time arrived when it looked like I was really going to need more than a few expressions in Russian. So I took a Russian class with about six other students, many of whom were simultaneously studying Japanese and Chinese. That should have been a clue. I spent time in the language lab; I did the exercises in the book. But there was no way I could master the language as thoroughly and quickly as the others.
Now it's undoubtedly true that there are undergraduates and law students who do not do well in class, and on exams, because of binge drinking, other partying, or a lackadaisical attitude generally. But what I learned from my experience -- deliberately taking a class that I knew would be exceedingly difficult for me -- is that there are also students who are not doing well in spite of really making the effort and logging the time.
It was a lesson that has served me well in the years since. Indeed, I recommend it to teachers at all levels. What are the subjects, the intellectual challenges, at which you have the least aptitude -- advanced math, physics, spoken and written Chinese, philosophy, memorization of historical facts and dates? Take a course in one of those subjects. Feel the pain. It will make you a more sympathetic and effective teacher.
Employing minimum wage workers? Lobby in opposition to raising their pay? Take a page out of Barbara Ehrenreich's book; literally. Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (Henry Holt, 2001).
As an absolute minimum, all such individuals ought to at least be required to read and reflect on her report of the consequences of such pay for those who have and hold a job, go to work every day, and play by the rules. The conditions confronting America's "working poor" put all of us -- and our elected representatives -- to shame.
Working conditions. In 1974, when I was running for Congress with UAW support, I was talking to some factory workers about their working conditions. What's a fair wage for working in a foundry, in temperatures often in excess of 100 degrees, around machinery that could remove a limb, and next to vats of molten metal that would instantly kill if one misstep caused you to fall in?
It occurred to me one measure might be to ask the CEO what he would require as a fair wage were he to be doing that work. How much better, I now realize in light of the Chinese practice, if he were required to work there every day for at least a couple of weeks before answering that question.
Similarly the foundry workers could take turns sitting at his desk, with carpet up to their ankles, playing golf one or two afternoons a week, following which they would have to indicate the minimum income they would find acceptable for doing his job.
Other. There are no limits to this approach. School superintendents could be required to eat lunch in the school cafeteria every day for a couple of months, rather than in the swanky restaurants their salaries make possible. Doctors could experience the joys of emptying bed pans in a hospital for a week or so. Hotel managers could try to change the linen, make the beds, replace the towels, and clean the rooms in the time they allow their cleaning crews. University presidents could try to personally figure out the building maintenance challenges that daily confront employees, or work along side a night shift cleaning crew trying to do the job with half the personnel they had not that many years ago. Auto manufacturing CEOs would have to figure out how to get at an engine part needing repair that is seemingly impossible to reach. Airline executives could be assigned to serving all the passengers on a short flight with a full plane -- including how to get those carts in and out of the galley.
Stuff like that. Use your imagination. The Chinese used theirs, and it's saving lives. It would be a better world.
"Dark as a Dungeon"
Where it's dark as a dungeon
And damp as the dew
Where the danger is doubled
And the pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls
And the sun never shines
Oh it's dark as a dungeon
Way down in the mine
Now here's Johnny Cash singing it to you.
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
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Septembe 6, 2010, 7:20 a.m.
Nick's 2010 Labor Day Press-Citizen Column
(bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
For recent blog entries related to labor issues, see Nicholas Johnson, "Finding Jobs on Labor Day; Former Labor Secretary Reich Has Economic Solution," September 5, 2010; and "Danger in the Workplace; Honoring Those Who Built, and Build, America," September 1, 2010.
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Honor Workers Every Day
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen
September 6, 2010 p. A7
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20100906/OPINION02/9060303/Honor-workers-every-day
On Wednesday, Tom Fosdick died from injuries sustained Monday, when he fell while replacing Boyd Law Building windows.
On Tuesday, President Obama reported to the American people that we are, at last, out of Iraq -- albeit leaving 50,000 troops, uncounted mercenaries and contract employees.
In the course of his speech, he paid honor to the "over 4,400 Americans who have given their lives in Iraq."
It is appropriate that he do so. Those who put their lives at risk in the streets and sands of Iraq, and made the ultimate sacrifice, certainly are entitled to our respect and honor.
But there are another "over 4,000" American workers who also have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country. They, too, are entitled to our respect and honor.
Fosdick has joined their number.
In 2006, there were 5,865 workplace deaths. In 2009, there were 4,340. Apparently a benefit from millions of unemployed is that if they don't have a workplace they're much less likely to be killed in one. Even one year's 4,340 dead workers is the rough equivalent of seven years' dead in Iraq. And 5,865 is more than twice the 2,752 killed on Sept. 11.
Moreover, add in the number of workplace non-fatal injuries and diseases and the number in 2008 was more like 3.7 million.
These are the men and women who build and maintain what our military is defending, and the rest of us take for granted. They are the ones who have done the sometimes literally backbreaking work, who risk injury, disease and death on a daily basis. They built the high-rise office buildings and condos, the highways and bridges, hospitals and schools, the networks of power lines and natural gas pipelines. Three of them died building our Hancher Auditorium. Now another has died refurbishing our law school.
Their ancestors built the canals and railroads that spanned our continent. They now maintain those railroads and subways. They sweat in 100-degree heat in the foundries that produce our tractors.
They construct the wind farms, cell phone towers, and radio and TV towers (and then have to climb them to change the little red light bulb on top) -- including the 11 workers who constructed the 2,063-foot antenna tower in North Dakota for KVLY-TV.
Fortunately, none of those 11 died. The 11 on the BP offshore oil rig did. And so did the 29 coal miners working in an unsafe Massey mine a couple weeks earlier. We've yet to hear the fate of the 13 in last week's Gulf offshore oil rig explosion.
I find it hard to understand those in business and legislatures who sacrifice workplace safety for profits, do everything in their power to beat down unions, OSHA funding, project labor agreements, the right to a livable wage or even an increase in the minimum wage. How can they be mystified as to why Iowa's young folks leave the state for jobs in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois?
As someone who spends his days doing finger exercises on computer keyboards, I am in awe of what these men and women are able to do, and are willing to risk in the process. I stop to speak with them when I go into the law building.
But we don't introduce ourselves and certainly don't exchange business cards. So while I've met and visited with Fosdick's mother and brother, I don't know if Fosdick was ever among the workers with whom I visited, though I like to believe he was.
For me, the memory of Fosdick, the gift of his organs to others, will be something like the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington. Someone for whom I grieve, who symbolizes the others we will never know but should remember to recognize and honor every day.
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Nicholas Johnson, a former FCC commissioner, teaches at the University of Iowa College of law.
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
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September 7, 2009, 7:00 a.m.
Labor Day Monday, School Board Election Tuesday
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Labor Day. Although labor day began in Canada a good decade before it made its way south to the U.S. in 1882, it wasn't formally recognized until 1884. President Grover Cleveland had acceded to the corporate pressure from the railroads, and called out the military and U.S. marshals to crush the Pullman strike -- ultimately resulting in the death of 13 workers and serious injury to 57 more. Wishing to distance themselves from the resulting understandably hostile labor union movement, a mere six days later members of Congress unanimously passed legislation making Labor Day a national holiday. So it has been ever since, including today, September 7, 2009.
It is fitting that the day was born out of conflict between government and big business, on the one hand, and working people on the other. For that conflict has continued to the present day -- including additional death and injury to union organizers during the 125 years since.
We continue to see the anti-union business-government axis even here in Iowa.
o Union members underwrite the cost of contract negotiations -- providing benefits to workers who are not required, in Iowa, to belong to the union. (This includes a good many ICCSD teachers who benefit from the Iowa City Education Association's negotiations, but refuse to join their professional association.) The unions proposed a "fair share" bill that would not have required workers to join the union and pay dues, only that they pay their "fair share" of the costs associated with contract negotiations. The legislature went along with business in refusing to pass the bill.
o "Labor went into the 2009 [Iowa legislative] session with four key priorities: 'fair share,' a bill to expand collective bargaining, a bill to give employees their choice of doctor if injured on the job, and a bill to require that government projects pay the 'prevailing wage.' They got nothing." "Final results from the Iowa Legislature's 2009 session," Bleeding Heartland, April 26, 2009.
o What are some of the consequences of this anti-labor stance of Iowa's business-government axis? "The median male wage in Iowa is lower today than it was a generation ago, in 1979." (p. 12) "Iowa’s median wage . . . ranks the state 32nd in the nation and 77 cents below the national average . . .." (p. 9). Colin Gordon and Christine Ralston, "The State of Working Iowa 2009," Iowa Policy Project, September 6, 2009.
o When I was on the school board I tried to get the board to support a "project labor agreement" -- a concept widely accepted elsewhere (and found to be legal in Iowa) -- for school district projects. It would not have required contractors to hire union members, only that they pay workers the prevailing wage. The local contractors objected, and the board majority supported their anti-union, anti-worker position.
o The Gazette reports on page one, ironically on this Labor Day today, that the "project labor agreement" fight is currently continuing full bore in Cedar Rapids, with the Linn County Board of Supervisors, and Cedar Rapids School District board, apparently siding with the non-union, out-of-state contractors against local workers and union members. Dave DeWitte, "Battleground: Linn Flood Recovery Projects Focus of Contractor, Union Debate," The Gazette, September 7, 2009, p. A1.
o An awful lot of the University's contracts go to non-union contractors -- sometimes requiring re-dos on projects that should (and could) have been done right the first time.
As the bumper sticker has it: "Trade unions: Those wonderful folks who brought you the weekend."
Students who start their "weekend" with Thursday evening's binge drinking (what the Daily Iowan refers to as "80 hours" -- of the 168 in a week) may not know why a steam whistle has been blowing at 8:00, 12:00, 1:00, and 5:00 on Saturdays for as long as I can remember. That's because, when I was a very young boy, everyone worked from 8:00 to noon, and 1:00 to 5:00 on Saturdays (including faculty) -- if they were lucky enough to get more than 20 minutes for lunch.
Why are many Americans working 35 and 40 hour weeks instead of 48 hours? Thank the unions.
The Canadian issue out of which its labor day was born was the fight for a nine hour working day.
Why do we have a minimum wage for all workers? Why are the UI students who are working instead of drinking paid the wages they are? Thank the unions.
In fact, most of the efforts at progressive legislation in this country (some successful, some not) have come as a result of unions' efforts.
We complain, and rightfully so, about American businesses that not only do their manufacturing in other countries, but employ children at low wages to do the work. But children were made to work in factories in this country in the 19th Century. The practice was stopped only after unions worked to pass the child labor laws.
Minimum wages. Maximum hours. Unionization and collective bargaining. Social Security. Medicare. The near century-long struggle we're undergoing at the moment to recognize health care as a basic human right. Unemployment compensation. OSHA and other efforts to create safer workplaces.
The list goes on.
So think about it today. Don't just thank union members for the quality work they do. Don't just honor them on "their day." Thank them for what they've done for you and me, for every American, fighting for the basic rights of everyone who's not a Fortune 500 CEO -- whether they're a member of a union or not.
School Board Election. Since I've taken to writing Monday, Wednesday and Friday (for the most part; no promises) during the teaching semester, I wanted to add a word today about the election tomorrow.
While I thought all of the candidates conducted themselves with civility and responsiveness at last Thursday's forum, Sarah Swisher has seemed to me the strongest candidate of the six. Now it turns out that both the Iowa City Press-Citizen and The Gazette have included her in their endorsements. Editorial, "Dorau, Johnson, Swisher will bring change to board," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 5, 2009; Editorial, "Iowa City: Cooper, Dorau, Swisher," The Gazette, September 6, 2009, p. A12.
If you're interested in looking at more of my writing this year on K-12 issues generally, and board issues in particular, here are links to that blog entry about last Thursday's forum, and many, many more:
Nicholas Johnson, "School Board Governance: First Things First; School Board Forum Producers Charis-Carlson and Yates Create Hit, But Where Was Candidates' Awareness of "Job One": Their Governance Model?" September 4, 2009;
Nicholas Johnson, "IC School Board Needs Fresh Thinking; Swisher Starting Dialogue,"
Nicholas Johnson, "School Boundaries Consultant Folly; Tough Boundary Questions Are for Board, Not Consultants or Superintendent, Plus: What Consultant Could Do," August 28, 2009;
Nicholas Johnson, "School Board Members' Advice; So You Want to be a School Board Member," August 19, 2009;
Nicholas Johnson, "UI VPs and ICCSD Consultants; Concerns About Consultants and Vice Presidents," August 14, 2009;
Nicholas Johnson, "Cluster Schools: Potential for IC District?" June 3, 2009;
Nicholas Johnson, "School Boundaries; Tonight's Schools Meeting and the more to come," March 30, 2009;
Nicholas Johnson, " Demolition Disaster; Come Let Us Reason Together," March 10, 2009 (contains links to additional sources);
Nicholas Johnson," Roosevelt: Valuing Our Schools; Process and Substance in School Facilities Decisionmaking," March 9, 2009 (contains "Earlier, Related Writing" section with links to seven additional sources).
However you plan to vote, please do. When only 5 or 10% of us turn out for school board elections it sends an uncaring message to our school children; it tells the board members that we not only don't appreciate what they do for us, frankly we don't even care; and it puts our hard working teachers on notice that, so far as we're concerned, they're on their own and will have to deal with the resources they're handed, and the administrators with whom they must deal, with no help from us.
We're better than that. Let's go vote tomorrow.
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
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