MassCOSH Applauds OSHA Appointment

WORKER SAFETY ADVOCATES APPLAUD OSHA APPOINTMENT, CALL FOR ORGANIZATION OVERHAUL

Boston, April 8 -- Today, the Obama administration announced the nomination of Jordan Barab as Deputy Assistant Secretary for OSHA and Acting Assistant Secretary, effective Monday, April 13. Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH), issued the following statement:

"MassCOSH is extremely pleased with President Obama's appointment of Jordan Barab to this vital post. You could not find anyone with a better combination of technical expertise and dedication than Jordan. We believe that Jordan will have the vision and know-how to oversee a much needed overhaul of the nation's system for ensuring worker safety, which has failed to provide adequate protections to America’s workforce over the past eight years. We are looking forward to working with Jordan to ensure workers' rights to a safe and healthy workplace.”

Jordan Barab comes to the administration from the House Education and Labor Committee as Senior Labor Policy Advisor for health and safety. Prior to that he served at the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. He served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Director of Labor for OSHA from 1998 to 2001, and directed the safety and health program for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees from 1982 to 1998. From 2003 to 2007, he was also the creator and author of the award-winning weblog, Confined Space.

In January, 2009, MassCOSH joined with its national organization, the National COSH, the American Public Health Association and more than 100 other organizations in submitting to the Obama administration a platform of recommendations for fundamental changes to the Department of Labor's oversight of worker safety.

MassCOSH is a private, non-profit coalition of labor unions, health and technical professionals that promotes safe, healthy working conditions.  The National COSH is a federation of 21 local and statewide "COSH" groups--Committees/Coalitions on Occupational Safety and Health.