State remembers workers killed on the job

Stronger OSHA enforcement urged by state & national advocates

More than 4,600 workers were killed on the job in the United States in 2011 – the latest year for which complete data is available, and in Wyoming, 29 workers were killed on the job that year.

Kathy Morgan holds a photo of her deceased husband David. Morgan talked about the impact of a job-related death on families and their communities.

An analysis by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) found Wyoming had the worst rate of worker fatalities in the country from 2005-10 and that its 6-year average was at least double the average fatality rate in all but eight other states. The state’s fatality rate in 2011 was second worst in the U.S., trailing only North Dakota.
The number of job deaths in Wyoming dropped in 2012. State officials report that 23 workers were killed in events in Wyoming’s oil and gas fields, on construction sites, highways, and on its ranches.

A Wyoming commemoration of Workers Memorial Day April 29 featured the widow of a Casper man who was killed while working in a warehouse last summer. Kathy Morgan wants people to know that job deaths bring loss “not to just our families” but also “to our communities and our state.”

David Morgan was killed on the job in August 2012 when he was crushed by a 4,000-pound storage container that contained gasoline additives at a Baker Hughes building. He had been only weeks away from his retirement.
Ed Simmons asked to speak near the end of the event. Simmons is the father of Anthony Simmons, who was killed while working at

Ed Simmons

Teton Homes in Casper on April 10. Simmons demanded to know why OSHA and state politicians don’t do more to assure safety on the job. His son, he said, was not trained to be doing the work he was doing when he was killed.

Other speakers included Riverton attorney and former mayor John Vincent, long an advocate for safety in the oil and gas patch; John Ysebaert, administrator of the Department of Workforce Services Office of Standards and Compliance; Mark Aronowitz, an attorney for SAFER, the Spence Association for Employee Rights; and two state legislators, Rep. Don Burkhart of Rawlins, and Sen. John Hastert of Green River. Gov. Matt Mead supported the event with a lettercalling for more to be done.

The ESPC believes there is much to be done to ensure that Wyoming workers return safe and whole from every shift. The state has hired more inspectors, but still has just nine compliance inspectors to monitor thousands of job sites. The Mine Health and Safety Administration has nearly six times that number of inspectors to ensure safety in Wyoming’s coal, trona, and other mines.

Efforts to make the oil patch safer are hampered because state inspectors don’t know where drilling rigs are operating. Those inspectors could do more if the state required drilling companies to report when they move to a new well location and begin drilling. At present, there’s no central reporting point to inform state inspectors exactly where drilling rigs are making holes. Reporting a GPS location to OSHA when drilling starts and when a drilling company departs a completed well would provide that information.

The National COSH released its report, “Preventable Deaths: The Tragedy of Workplace Fatalities,” April 23 as part of Workers Memorial Week.

“Each worker killed is a tragic loss to the community of family, friends and co-workers – and the worst part is, these deaths were largely preventable,” Tom O’Connor, executive director of National COSH, said when the report was released.

“Simply by following proven safety practices and complying with OSHA standards, many of these more than 4,600 deaths could have been avoided. But as companies decry regulations and emphasize profits over safety, workers pay the ultimate price.”

The National COSH report points to the following reforms that are needed:

• State legislation to implement minimum penalty amounts for serious safety citations related to workplace fatalities, which can be modeled after Minnesota’s legislation that requires its state OSHA program to levy fines of no less than $25,000 for every serious violation and, in cases involving repeat or willful violations, no less than $50,000.

• Meaningful immigration reform, which would bring undocumented workers out of the shadows and give them protections afforded to all workers.

• A stronger Occupational Safety and Health Act, which would make felony charges possible when repeat or willful violations result in a worker’s death or serious injury, and would increase the penalties OSHA can impose on negligent employers.

• An Injury and Illness Prevention Standard, which would require employers to find and fix health and safety hazards in the workplace.

• States should examine health impacts from silica dust during hydraulic fracturing and consider possible state regulations.

• And many other reforms reviewed in the report.

Wyoming Workers Memorial Day is sponsored by the Wyoming State AFL-CIO, the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association, the Spence Association for Employee Rights (SAFER), and a new project of the Equality State Policy Center, the Wyoming Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health: WyCOSH.

Visit www.workersmemorialweek.org for more information.

This post was updated following the Wyoming Workers Memorial Day event Monday morning, April 29.

Wyo legislators deserve Workers’ Compensation

Insurance coverage can prevent family economic disaster

Sens. Drew Perkins, left, and Ray Peterson on the floor of the state Senate.

Wyoming legislators deserve Workers Compensation coverage when they drive across the far-flung reaches of Wyoming to attend committee meetings around the state and while serving in legislative sessions in Cheyenne.
The coverage will cost little. It simply insures that if a citizen legislator suffers an injury, he or she will get the medical care they need to enable them to return to work as quickly as possible. Wage benefits coverage means the legislator’s family may be able to avoid dire economic losses because of an injury suffered while on official legislative business.

If the legislator’s injuries result in death, Workers Comp benefits may help surviving family members avoid bankruptcy while they scramble to replace income lost as a result of a fatality.

Never happen, you say? We know at least one legislator was killed while traveling. In 1971, Rep. Nancy Wallace, a Uinta County Republican, died in a crash while driving home from Cheyenne.

Unfortunately, the Star-Tribune has chosen to attack the idea. The ESPC and the League of Women Voters suggested a study by the Legislature’s Management Council after it learned of the economic troubles faced by Rock Springs Rep. Steve Watt after he fell at a legislative training session last December and was taken to the local hospital by ambulance. Watt had no personal medical insurance to cover the medical costs.

Rep. Steve Watt

But that didn’t stop the Star-Tribune from attacking Watt personally in an attempt to discredit the idea.

“ … Rep. Steve Watt miscalculated a sneaky chair that slipped out from under him. Will the state cover the rest of us who fell off our chairs laughing when we read about the idea?” the CST wrote in its March 23rd Cheers and Jeers section.

Sometimes, Steve Watt does have a difficult time sitting and walking. Sometimes the former Wyoming Highway Patrolman must use a wheelchair because of the injuries he suffered when he was shot five times by a bank robber during a 1982 traffic stop in Sweetwater County. One of the bullets remains in his body, near his spine, more than 30 years later.

Providing Workers Compensation coverage to legislators is not a radical idea. Others states already do. For instance, “employee” is defined under Connecticut’s Workers’ Compensation Act to include any person who “is elected to serve as a member of the General Assembly of this state.” See: CSG 31-277 No matter if the legislator is part time or full time, if a legislator is collecting a salary and is otherwise on the state’s “payroll,” she should be eligible to be covered by Workers’ Compensation while providing services to the state.

The cost of ensuring Wyoming legislators would be low, just over $300 a year per legislator, according to initial estimates provided by the Department of Workforce Services.

When a state legislator like Rep. Watt does incur an injury on the job, justice dictates that we provide him fair and equal treatment in consideration of his injuries. These civil servants should be afforded the same protection as other state employees – many of whom also have families to support whether they are healthy or otherwise.

Workers’ Compensation exists to provide the medical care an injured worker needs to get back to his or her job after an injury. It means a family suddenly deprived of a primary breadwinner has decent support from the Workers Compensation fund.

In return, employers know they face no civil liability for ordinary or even willful negligence. The insurance policy buys them protection, too.

That’s the promise of Workers’ Compensation in the private market. It protects both parties to the contract. We urge the Management Council to give the idea careful consideration.

(ESPC op-ed on this proposal was published April 5, 2013 in the Casper Star-Tribune.)

Sponsor gives up on tip pooling

Withdraws bill from “free committee” consideration

HB112 took wages for distribution to others by employers

The tip pooling bill finally expired this week when the sponsor withdrew it from consideration by a conference committee Thursday.

Rep. Ruth Ann Petroff

Sponsor Rep. Ruth Ann Petroff convinced legislative leadership to name a “free committee” to take the bill up. Unlike an ordinary conference committee, which is restricted to working only on the differences in the versions of the legislation passed by the House and Senate, a free committee can work on all aspects of a bill.
But Petroff called off the discussion. In a Thursday story that appeared in the Sheridan Press, she blamed the media for distorting the bill’s effect.
“Because the perception has gotten so far off base because of some of the media coverage, we didn’t want to proceed and have people think we were trying to harm the employees,” Petroff told the Sheridan paper.
Though couched in assurances that the bill, HB 112 Tip distribution policies, would ensure fair pooling of tips to a “team” of employees, the ESPC believes one intention of the sponsors was to legalize an employer’s use of money that servers contribute to tip pools to pay the federal minimum wage owed other workers.
Here’s how it would work: State law says a worker cannot be considered a tipped employee unless they receive at least $30 per month in tips. Most bus staff and many other workers don’t meet that threshold. Employers must pay those workers the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
But if employers can force those workers into a tip pool, they will receive more than $30 a month in tips.
Once a worker hits that threshold, the employer can pay the state authorized “tipped minimum” wage of $2.13/hour rather than the federal minimum of $7.25/hour. With the pool set up, the employer then can close her checkbook and take money from the tips pool to bring the bus staff (and/or other “qualifying” employees) up to the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
The bill is dead for 2013, however, the restaurant industry will not give up its effort to get their hands on wages earned via tips. Tip pools have been legalized in many other states. They are authorized under federal law with fewer restrictions than those Rep. Petroff included in her bill.
Unfortunately, most of the targets of this legislation are low-wage workers with few benefits. A 2011 paper titled “Tip-Misappropriation, Minimum Wage, and other Common Service Industry Wages Issues” notes this:
“The typical tipped employee is an adult woman who is poor and has few fringe benefits. Of all tipped employees, 70% are women, 47% have a high school education or less, 45% are age 30 or older, and almost 15% are below the federal poverty line (more than double the rate for all workers).
“Compared with all working people, food service workers are only about half as likely to have health insurance, sick leave, and retirement benefits, and only two-thirds as likely to have paid vacations.”

Tip pooling bill on edge of grave

Fails in conference committee; Will it rise again?

Hike in fuels tax clears Senate; pension bill in limbo

A bill allowing restaurant owners to establish and manage tip-sharing pools may be dead for the session – or maybe not.

Meanwhile, more money for Wyoming roads will be coming soon in the wake of the passage of a 10-cents-a-gallon hike in fuel taxes.

Servers in the state have been watching the tip pooling measure. The Senate on Wednesday approved House Bill 112 Tip distribution policies, engrossed, but tacked on two amendments. Both addressed criticism that the bill imposes a wealth distribution plan on tipped employees and paved the way for employers to use tips taken in by one server to bring the earnings of other servers up to the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour.

Sen. Drew Perkins, SD29, R-Casper, authored one of the amendments to make the bill, as he said, more capitalistic. His change gave servers the right to “opt out” of an employer’s tip pooling plan. Several critics noted that server could expect fewer and less desirable work shifts.

A second amendment added on Third Reading by Sen. Curt Meier, SD3, R-LaGrange, aimed to prevent employers from using the tip pool to pay the “offset” necessary to assure that all employees make at least $7.25/hour. The language was criticized as vague and off the mark when debated on the floor but Meier made his intention clear and the amendment was approved.

The Meier amendment became the linchpin of compromise efforts in the conference committee. The bill’s prime sponsor, Rep. Ruth Ann Petroff, HD16,

Rep. Ruth Ann Petroff

R-Jackson, accepted the Perkins amendment but called the Meier amendment “circular” and said it would make the tip pooling unworkable. She said employers already use voluntary tip pools to bring the pay of some employees, such as bussers and drink servers, up to the federal minimum wage,

Federal law allows employers to pay a base minimum wage of$2.13/hour to tipped employees. If their total tips do not make up the difference between the base minimum and the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour, the employer must make up the difference. The payment is known as the “tip offset.” Petroff said employers already use shared tips to pay that difference, essentially taking wages from one employee to ensure that a second employee’s pay meets the federal minimum.

Sen. Phil Nicholas, one of the Senate members of the conference committee, complained that the bill “sanctions the food industry to run roughshod over everybody.” When fellow Sen. Leland Christensen noted that 47 other states allow tip pooling, Nicholas challenged him to show a statute from another state that does the same thing as HB112.

The bill puts the state in the position of enforcing the federal minimum wage law, Nicholas said. “It’s not the state’s responsibility to enforce federal law,”

Christensen made a motion to approve a compromise leaving the Perkins amendment in the bill but removing the Meier amendment. Petroff supported the motion but Perkins, Nicholas, Rep. Patrick Goggles, HD33, R-Ethete, and Rep. Mike Madden, HD40, R-Buffalo, opposed it.

“We’ve finished it,” Madden said as the conference committee adjourned.

Madden said later that he believes the bill is dead. Christensen indicated Thursday evening that an effort may be made to resume the discussion with a second conference committee.

Other bills

Fuels tax hike approved –The Senate passed HB 69 Highway funding on Third Reading on an 18-12 vote. With no amendments on the bill it was immediately signed by the House Speaker and Senate President as House Enrolled Act 38. The bill now goes to the governor for his signature.

ROLL CALL

Ayes:  Senator(s) Anderson JD S02, Anderson JL S28, Burns, Christensen, Craft, Emerich, Esquibel, F., Geis, Hastert, Hines, Johnson, Landen, Nicholas P, Nutting, Ross, Rothfuss, Schiffer and Von Flatern.

Nays:  Senator(s) Barnard, Bebout, Case, Coe, Cooper, Dockstader, Driskill, Hicks, Meier, Perkins, Peterson and Scott.

Ayes 18    Nays 12    Excused 0    Absent 0    Conflicts 0

Pensions –A bill originally aimed at strengthening three of the state’s pension plans also must go through a conference committee to address major differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. House Bill 250 Public employee retirement plans originally directed the state to pay for increasing contributions to the pension funding formula. The Senate added amendments requiring state and other public employees to pay half those contributions. A conference committee has been appointed but as of late Thursday afternoon, no meeting had been scheduled.

Educators don’t want guns in class

Panel hears the good, bad, and ugly about guns in schools

UW, college presidents,districts, teachers, police oppose HB 105

The haunting tones of the theme to The Good, The Bad and the Ugly rang from Wyoming Gun Owners Association Director Anthony Bouchard’s cell phone as yet another witness stepped up to tell the Senate Education Committee why it’s a bad idea to allow concealed guns in state schools, community colleges, and at athletic events.
Bouchard quickly turned the sound off, but not before Chairman Hank Coe asked if Clint Eastwood was joining the packed hearing of HB 105, Citizens’ and Students Self-Defense Act. The bill opened the door to guns in schools by allowing school employees with concealed carry permits to take a concealed gun into school district buildings after notifying the school district superintendent and school principal or other person responsible for a district building.

University of Wyoming President Tom Buchanan outlined a long list of reasons why the UW campus should remain gun free, chief among them the fact that college-age students are much safer on university campuses that bar guns compared to the risks they face off campus.
Weapons in classrooms “would have a chilling effect” on academic instruction for both students and faculty, he said.

Jason Vela, chief of police for the Northern Wyoming College District said the Gillette campus has well-trained officers. He was among many speakers who noted that obtaining a concealed carry permit does not require any crisis training.

Proponents hit the gun lobby’s often recited talking points that ‘a good guy with a gun might stop a bad guy with a gun’ and that recent gun mass gun shootings have taken place in “gun-free zones.” Bill sponsor Rep. Allen Jaggi referred to holders of state concealed carry permits as “this select group.”

But opponents noted that a person pulling a private weapon to fire at a shooter might find himself the target of a SWAT team responding to an emergency at a school. “A person with a gun will be taken out,” said Steve Barlow, assistant dean for student services at Central Wyoming College in Riverton.

Others expressed worries that students would quickly learn which teachers “carry” and could try to get their guns. One administrator expressed deep concern about allowing guns in school athletic events. He said he once had to shield a door to a referees’ dressing room from a hostile crowd. He said he faced them down but wondered how differently he would have reacted if he knew the crowd was armed.

Others noted that virtually all teachers have stories of confrontations with angry parents. Some get physical, one Cheyenne administer said. He reported that a parent had to be pulled off a school employee the parent attacked in a school office.

Upon conclusion of nearly two hours of testimony, Chairman Coe called for a motion. When none of the committee members offered a motion on the bill, Coe declared HB105 dead for the session.

(Editor’s note: Jason Vela’s name and title were corrected Feb. 9.)