It’s time for North Dakotans “be angry” at major oil companies that dodge accountability for workers’ deaths and toxic spills, John Oliver said on his HBO news satire show.
Mississippi is one of two states, along with Idaho, that doesn’t have criminal laws that clearly forbid unwanted sexual touching such as groping and fondling.
The oil boom in North Dakota and elsewhere has claimed the lives of dozens of workers. In response, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said it plans to survey 500 oil field employees starting next year in an effort to improve safety.
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In Reveal’s July episode, we examine the hidden problem of sexual assault of female janitors on the night shift; explore the legacy of toxic chemicals used in electronics manufacturing, both here and in Asia; and take to the fields to explore why it was so hard to ban a tool that was injuring agricultural workers.
A historic battle over workers’ rights in California started over a simple tool: the short-handled hoe. Known as a “cortito” in Spanish, this short hoe became a symbol of cruelty, oppression and literally back-breaking labor until a lawyer in the early 1970s was able to bring the issue to the state Supreme Court.
In 1975, when she was 18, Yvette Flores got a job assembling parts for some of the first supermarket checkout scanners. It took 30 years before she connected her daily chemical exposure at the Silicon Valley manufacturing plant to her son’s severe disabilities.
Working under the cover of darkness, night shift janitors are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment and rape. In this segment, we hear from members of a nonprofit who try to root out abuses in the cleaning industry; women who’ve sued janitorial companies for failing to protect them; and an accused rapist who has run his own cleaning company.
Since the 1980s, the electronics industry largely has moved overseas in search of cheaper labor. Reporter Sandra Bartlett went to South Korea to learn more about a movement that has sprung up to investigate the illnesses and deaths of factory employees at Samsung, one of the largest electronics companies in the world.
Following a Reveal investigation into worker deaths and injuries in the Bakken oil fields, a top federal workplace safety regulator in North Dakota announced plans for a tougher enforcement strategy intended to hold major energy companies accountable for workplace accidents.
Learn more about potential solutions that could help address on-the-job sexual assault among night shift janitors, some of the country’s most invisible workers.
