The Occupational Safety and Health Administration says the deaths of two workers in a northwestern Illinois grain bin could have been prevented. Via the Springfield State Journal-Register, the Associated Press reports that on Wednesday two workers were fatally entrapped in a grain bin in Mount Carroll, Illinois. Run by Haasbach LLC, the bin stores

The Labor Dept.'s Occupational Safety & Health Administration has fined a Belvidere, Illinois crystal manufacturing plant $510,000 for seven "serious" and five "willful" safety violations. However, Ken Hennessy, the president of NDK Crystal, vowed to appeal the fine, reports the Rockford-Star Register's Betsey Lopez Fritscher. The fines stem from an explosion last December at the plant that killed one worker.

With mine safety front and center after the deaths of 29 miners in West Virginia just weeks ago and the recent mine collapse in Kentucky, the Department of Labor rolled out its regulatory agenda last week, including proposals to revamp mine safety rules.  Will compliance or enforcement be at the heart of Labor's regulatory efforts?

The Wall Street Journal's Melanie Trottman and Alexandra Berzon report that the Labor Dept. will step up its federal-state workplace safety programs: The action follows calls from unions and senior congressional Democrats -- including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and U.S. Rep. George Miller of California -- for a tough response to 12 construction deaths that occurred on the Las Vegas Strip between December 2006 and June 2008 amid a building boom.

The New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Steve Greenhouse had a Labor Day piece on the relationship between Barack Obama and labor unions. Labor is of course happy to have a Democratic president in the White House -- someone they spent $450 million on (that's from labor political ...

Barack Obama has nominated David Michaels, a public health professor at George Washington and assistant secretary Energy Dept. in the Clinton administration Energy Dept., to head the Labor Dept's Occupational Health and Safety Administration. According to Ames Alexander of the Charlotte ...

Multiple press accounts and a Labor Dept. audit yesterday paint a portrait of a derelict Occupational Safety and Health Administration over the last several years. Now, R. Jeffrey ...

The beat goes on. R. Jeffrey Smith of the Washington Post reports on a Labor Dept. audit that finds a Bush administration workplace safety program failed to monitor especially hazardous workplaces. Bush's Occupational Safety and Health Administration unveiled the Enhanced Enforcement ...

Melanie Trottman reports in today's Wall Street Journal that Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration will set strict standards to limit worker's exposures to the chemical diacetyl. Diacetyl is a chemical found in microwave popcorn and has caused lung problems for food processsors. It has been linked to three ...

A New York Times editorial today distills the conventional left-center wisdom on whether Rep. Hilda Solis, a California Democrat, is the right choice to lead Barack Obama's Labor Dept. On the one hand, Solis champions workplace rights and is a favorite of labor unions, a ...