6 ms·

Many went without masks. Some had water spurting from their machines, but others had nothing to tamp down the powder rising in the air. Does OSHA not require m

Many went without masks. Some had water spurting from their machines, but others had nothing to tamp down the powder rising in the air. Does OSHA not require masks in these cases?

wcunning 3y ago
Definitely an OSHA requirement, but there's no guarantee that 1) management supports the necessary supplies, checks, reminders, actions, etc or 2) workers want to wear the respirators/masks in general. On top of that, inspectors may be instructed (depending on inspection management, training, etc) that the water based dust suppression is good enough. Even if they want to see masks, management and workers may only implement them during inspections. Adherence to rules is necessary for rules to do anything anywere, ever.
- WirelessGigabit 3y ago
  Even though there are whistle-blower protection laws, they aren't good enough. No-one should fear risking their job when they stand up for their own health. Management on the other hand should enforce masks as a means to avoid liability.
  - Gibbon1 3y ago
    What should happen is if someone sees it they call 911 and the cops show up. Followed by the county permit inspector. And then the owner gets arrested and the job site shut down for 6-12 months. Seriously that's what happened at friends workplace when an electrician got fried working on a live 440 volt panel. Don't see why a counter top shop should be treated any different.
Zigurd 3y ago
A key insight into things like this is that many regulations are like speed limits: loosely enforced. Sometimes because it is too hard to inspect every shop handling dangerous materials. In cases like these you have to ban the dangerous material, or essentially kill the market for the products that use it. BTW, I'm not sure how solid granite, soapstone, marble, etc. would be any better. Maybe my 30 year old totally fake Corian is back in style. But for the microplastics from scrubbing it?
- icegreentea2 3y ago
  The silica content varies significantly based on the stone being cut. Engineered stone is apparently like 90%+ silica, with the rest being binders. Granite is apparently ~10-45% silica, while marble has a negligible amount. There's a OSHA/NIOSH pamphlet linked through the original article (https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OSHA3768.pdf https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OSHA37...) with table and additional details. The pamphlet said that in one study, a marble shop performing dry grinding (no wetting, nor other engineering controls) had airborne silica levels of 39-45 ug/m3, while a granite shop which also did not use engineering controls say 89-460ug/m3.
willcipriano 3y ago
> OSHA had only 750 safety inspectors in place at the end of FY2021[0] Contrast that with recent efforts to hire nearly one hundred thousand IRS agents to get a sense of the priorities of your leadership. [0]https://www.fisherphillips.com/en/news-insights/workplace-safety-means-fps-osha-inspections-tracker.html https://www.fisherphillips.com/en/news-insights/workplace-sa...
- spankalee 3y ago
  Tax cheats are bad, actually. And those taxes are required to pay those safety inspectors, among others.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    10% of what went to Ukraine would've hired how many safety inspectors? Ukraine is a life or death situation you say? Solicosis isn't? How many tax men do we need before we get the government to do the bare minimum here?
    - gamblor956 3y ago
      Each IRS audit agent annually recovers more than 10x their salary in previously unpaid taxes... That money is used to pay for things that the government does. What exactly is your beef here?
      - spankalee 3y ago
        He wants to get away with cheating on taxes.
bluGill 3y ago
Have you ever wore a respirator? Not a mask (which all already uncomfortable to wear all day), but the full respirator which is what is needed for this dust. I've done it for an hour when working with chemicals (different filter from dust, but otherwise the same) and I was glad to get it off.it is hard to blame someone for not wanting to wear them all day. They still should. If you need to wear a respirator all day i'm told the most comfortable is an air supply and dragging a hose behind you.
- eropple 3y ago
  I have a wood shop, I wear a respirator constantly unless I've got the doors open and the fans on and I'm not going to be doing more than a one-off cut that afternoon. A properly fitted 3M 6800-series full-face respirator is pretty comfortable even for long periods and while wearing glasses. A 6200-series half-mask is even more comfortable, though a little awkward with glasses. The only problem is that a 6800-series costs $200, plus probably $30 a month in P100 cartridges given the level of particulates in the air, and that's more than these companies think their workers' lives are worth.
  - mindslight 3y ago
    I too am a proponent of proper half face respirators (7500 here), and they are quite comfortable compared to the various disposable solutions, but I'd still acknowledge that wearing one does carry some discomfort. Not enough to make me want to get silicosis instead, but also not so little that I can confidently say I'm happy wearing it for 8 hours. What's your solution for the full face with glasses? The spectacle kit looks like it's a frame that you need to get custom lenses put into. The few times I've worn mine (FF-400) I've just suffered the extra ear pressure, but it's not great. It's also a size too small because it was what was in stock at the start of Covid when nobody knew wtf was going to happen, but I don't see that increasing one size would change much. I plan to eventually trying to form a custom thing to hold a regular pair of glasses. And have you really found the P100 cartridges need to be discarded every few weeks? The only things I've found say that particulate filters only need to be discarded when they become difficult to breathe through, and I've never actually reached that point.
convolvatron 3y ago
how big do you have to be to get an actual OSHA inspection? I've worked in lost of small and medium shops of various kinds and the local fire department will show an interest sometimes, but I've never heard of anyone getting involved with OSHA for any reason.
KennyBlanken 3y ago
They do, just like the ATF requires all sorts of record-keeping for gun sales and the EPA has rules about disposal of chemicals and the IRS has all sorts of tax regulations. However, all three organizations have been subject to decades of budgetary cuts/freezes/criticism by republican lawmakers and thus have a fraction of the inspectors they should. https://blogs.luc.edu/compliance/?p=4470 https://blogs.luc.edu/compliance/?p=4470 https://www.kqed.org/news/11875988/minimal-to-non-existent-safety-inspector-shortage-worsened-in-pandemic-leaving-california-workers-vulnerable https://www.kqed.org/news/11875988/minimal-to-non-existent-s... https://peer.org/lack-of-scientists-dooms-epa-chemical-reviews/ https://peer.org/lack-of-scientists-dooms-epa-chemical-revie... https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/environment/bs-md-drinking-water-inspections-20211201-tisqrsbmwvempmttlibcggcna4-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/environment/bs-md-drinking... The Senate also is allergic to appointing a permanent leader of the ATF: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-the-atf-is-often-leaderless-and-how-it-affects-the-agencys-work https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-the-atf-is-often-leade... The way republicans have functioned for a few decades (after realizing that legislatively trying to kill the ATF, EPA, OSHA, etc is unpopular) is to hamstring the budget for those departments, tie up leadership appointments as much as possible, and then in hearings shout about how ineffective the agencies are. It's like starving someone and then criticizing them for being lazy and inactive. The same technique is used to attack social services. WIC, a food stamp program for mothers with infants and children, requires yearly "certification" which involves in-person interviews at offices that few and far between, often not public transit accessible, and so on. How is a mother who is so poor she needs WIC (and thus may not even have a car) supposed to afford to take a day off from work and travel to an office so someone can verify that her child still exists? Compare that to other government programs that benefit the wealthy and corporations. Do people writing off luxury cars, entire homes, and bizjets have to show up at a regional IRS office (annually) to have their records audited, proving that the luxury property is actually being used for business purposes and they're entitled to a writeoff (or being given use of said property without paying taxes on it)?

Many went without masks. Some had water spurting from their machines, but others had nothing to tamp down the powder rising in the air. Does OSHA not require masks in these cases?

wcunning 3y ago

Definitely an OSHA requirement, but there's no guarantee that 1) management supports the necessary supplies, checks, reminders, actions, etc or 2) workers want to wear the respirators/masks in general. On top of that, inspectors may be instructed (depending on inspection management, training, etc) that the water based dust suppression is good enough. Even if they want to see masks, management and workers may only implement them during inspections. Adherence to rules is necessary for rules to do anything anywere, ever.

WirelessGigabit 3y ago
Even though there are whistle-blower protection laws, they aren't good enough. No-one should fear risking their job when they stand up for their own health. Management on the other hand should enforce masks as a means to avoid liability.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  What should happen is if someone sees it they call 911 and the cops show up. Followed by the county permit inspector. And then the owner gets arrested and the job site shut down for 6-12 months. Seriously that's what happened at friends workplace when an electrician got fried working on a live 440 volt panel. Don't see why a counter top shop should be treated any different.

Zigurd 3y ago

A key insight into things like this is that many regulations are like speed limits: loosely enforced. Sometimes because it is too hard to inspect every shop handling dangerous materials. In cases like these you have to ban the dangerous material, or essentially kill the market for the products that use it. BTW, I'm not sure how solid granite, soapstone, marble, etc. would be any better. Maybe my 30 year old totally fake Corian is back in style. But for the microplastics from scrubbing it?

icegreentea2 3y ago
The silica content varies significantly based on the stone being cut. Engineered stone is apparently like 90%+ silica, with the rest being binders. Granite is apparently ~10-45% silica, while marble has a negligible amount. There's a OSHA/NIOSH pamphlet linked through the original article (https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OSHA3768.pdf https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OSHA37...) with table and additional details. The pamphlet said that in one study, a marble shop performing dry grinding (no wetting, nor other engineering controls) had airborne silica levels of 39-45 ug/m3, while a granite shop which also did not use engineering controls say 89-460ug/m3.

willcipriano 3y ago

> OSHA had only 750 safety inspectors in place at the end of FY2021[0] Contrast that with recent efforts to hire nearly one hundred thousand IRS agents to get a sense of the priorities of your leadership. [0]https://www.fisherphillips.com/en/news-insights/workplace-safety-means-fps-osha-inspections-tracker.html https://www.fisherphillips.com/en/news-insights/workplace-sa...

spankalee 3y ago
Tax cheats are bad, actually. And those taxes are required to pay those safety inspectors, among others.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  10% of what went to Ukraine would've hired how many safety inspectors? Ukraine is a life or death situation you say? Solicosis isn't? How many tax men do we need before we get the government to do the bare minimum here?
  - gamblor956 3y ago
    Each IRS audit agent annually recovers more than 10x their salary in previously unpaid taxes... That money is used to pay for things that the government does. What exactly is your beef here?
    - spankalee 3y ago
      He wants to get away with cheating on taxes.

bluGill 3y ago

Have you ever wore a respirator? Not a mask (which all already uncomfortable to wear all day), but the full respirator which is what is needed for this dust. I've done it for an hour when working with chemicals (different filter from dust, but otherwise the same) and I was glad to get it off.it is hard to blame someone for not wanting to wear them all day. They still should. If you need to wear a respirator all day i'm told the most comfortable is an air supply and dragging a hose behind you.

eropple 3y ago
I have a wood shop, I wear a respirator constantly unless I've got the doors open and the fans on and I'm not going to be doing more than a one-off cut that afternoon. A properly fitted 3M 6800-series full-face respirator is pretty comfortable even for long periods and while wearing glasses. A 6200-series half-mask is even more comfortable, though a little awkward with glasses. The only problem is that a 6800-series costs $200, plus probably $30 a month in P100 cartridges given the level of particulates in the air, and that's more than these companies think their workers' lives are worth.
- mindslight 3y ago
  I too am a proponent of proper half face respirators (7500 here), and they are quite comfortable compared to the various disposable solutions, but I'd still acknowledge that wearing one does carry some discomfort. Not enough to make me want to get silicosis instead, but also not so little that I can confidently say I'm happy wearing it for 8 hours. What's your solution for the full face with glasses? The spectacle kit looks like it's a frame that you need to get custom lenses put into. The few times I've worn mine (FF-400) I've just suffered the extra ear pressure, but it's not great. It's also a size too small because it was what was in stock at the start of Covid when nobody knew wtf was going to happen, but I don't see that increasing one size would change much. I plan to eventually trying to form a custom thing to hold a regular pair of glasses. And have you really found the P100 cartridges need to be discarded every few weeks? The only things I've found say that particulate filters only need to be discarded when they become difficult to breathe through, and I've never actually reached that point.

convolvatron 3y ago

how big do you have to be to get an actual OSHA inspection? I've worked in lost of small and medium shops of various kinds and the local fire department will show an interest sometimes, but I've never heard of anyone getting involved with OSHA for any reason.

KennyBlanken 3y ago

They do, just like the ATF requires all sorts of record-keeping for gun sales and the EPA has rules about disposal of chemicals and the IRS has all sorts of tax regulations. However, all three organizations have been subject to decades of budgetary cuts/freezes/criticism by republican lawmakers and thus have a fraction of the inspectors they should. https://blogs.luc.edu/compliance/?p=4470 https://blogs.luc.edu/compliance/?p=4470 https://www.kqed.org/news/11875988/minimal-to-non-existent-safety-inspector-shortage-worsened-in-pandemic-leaving-california-workers-vulnerable https://www.kqed.org/news/11875988/minimal-to-non-existent-s... https://peer.org/lack-of-scientists-dooms-epa-chemical-reviews/ https://peer.org/lack-of-scientists-dooms-epa-chemical-revie... https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/environment/bs-md-drinking-water-inspections-20211201-tisqrsbmwvempmttlibcggcna4-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/environment/bs-md-drinking... The Senate also is allergic to appointing a permanent leader of the ATF: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-the-atf-is-often-leaderless-and-how-it-affects-the-agencys-work https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-the-atf-is-often-leade... The way republicans have functioned for a few decades (after realizing that legislatively trying to kill the ATF, EPA, OSHA, etc is unpopular) is to hamstring the budget for those departments, tie up leadership appointments as much as possible, and then in hearings shout about how ineffective the agencies are. It's like starving someone and then criticizing them for being lazy and inactive. The same technique is used to attack social services. WIC, a food stamp program for mothers with infants and children, requires yearly "certification" which involves in-person interviews at offices that few and far between, often not public transit accessible, and so on. How is a mother who is so poor she needs WIC (and thus may not even have a car) supposed to afford to take a day off from work and travel to an office so someone can verify that her child still exists? Compare that to other government programs that benefit the wealthy and corporations. Do people writing off luxury cars, entire homes, and bizjets have to show up at a regional IRS office (annually) to have their records audited, proving that the luxury property is actually being used for business purposes and they're entitled to a writeoff (or being given use of said property without paying taxes on it)?