Friday, February 1 marked, among other things, two months since the work-place deaths of Victor & Carlos Diaz, which occurred while they were cleaning out a 20,000 gallon dilution tank inside the North East Linen plant, an industrial laundry in Linden NJ -- with no respiratory protection at all. (For those who are new to the story and want prior stories with hot links , try my prior posts here , here, here and here . )

Since last I wrote about the Diaz deaths, I’ve learned more both about the state of work site danger and illness and about the events of Dec. 1 at North East Linen. I’ve talked to experts, studied the testimony of witnesses at a Congressional hearing and listened to the stories of individual current and former employees. All of the current and former employees demanded that I not identify them and I won’t. Most of them spoke much more Spanish than English and I heard their stories with the help of translators. So what I know so far is not complete and relies, in part, on third-parties. In addition, management of North East Linen has, thus far, declined to respond to my requests to talk to them. If, as a result, I’m making a mistake, tell me and I’ll try to fix it.

Do you ever get so interested in a subject you chatter on about it while everyone’s eyes are glazing over? This may have happened to me here. So, if you are not interested and only want the punch line it is this: Workers are more at risk of injury, disease and death at work if they work in non-union settings. Unions, which represent an ever shrinking portion of US workers, help workers force management to focus on safety and health issues. I conclude from that that national safety & health improvements on the job will come only after we drive from office Mr. Bush and his Congressional supporters.

There are two parts to the story – unions and safety audits & training.