Nurses Want to Unionize at New Jersey Health Facility Fined by OSHA

November 27, 2023

New Jersey nurses want more protection

More than 40 nurses at Complete Care at The Harborage in North Bergen, New Jersey, are asking the National Labor Relations Board to hold a vote to join the Health Professionals and Allied Employees union.

The Harborage was fined almost $30,000 three years ago by OSHA for failing to give its nursing staff the proper masks to wear while treating COVID-19 residents.

More than 120 workers at The Harborage, including certified nursing assistants, housekeepers, and others, are already members of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees union.

The nurses want to bargain for better staffing standards at the facility so they can better care for their patients.
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Maine contractor faces fines after electrocution

  • The Maine contractor who employed a roofer who was fatally electrocuted before falling from a roof in Friendship in February 2023 has incurred $19,504 in violations by OSHA.
  • Citations were issued in May, June, and August 2023, but because the case remains open, more citations could still be added.
  • OSHA found that employees for the non-unionized Pacific Construction Services, Inc., of Framingham, Massachusetts, were installing a metal roof in Friendship when a worker moved with a piece of metal roofing and hit a 12,470 voltage powerline.
  • The man was electrocuted before falling to the ground.
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OSHA: Fatal explosion could have been prevented

  • OSHA found an explosion that killed one worker at a pharmaceutical chemical plant in Massachusetts could have been prevented.
  • The agency proposed nearly $300,000 in penalties.
  • The investigation found numerous deficiencies in the facility’s safety management program for highly hazardous chemicals.
  • OSHA also found the company did not determine the combustibility hazards of materials used in the production of the chemical Dekon 139 and did not include safe upper and lower temperature limits to prevent the decomposition of Dekon 139.
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Labor Secretary subpoenaed over taxpayer-funded summit

  • A House labor panel has subpoenaed Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su over an OSHA event that some Republicans viewed as a “political pep rally.”
  • The Workers’ Voice Summit, held in September 2022, happened shortly before national elections, included only the administration’s political supporters, and was closed to other stakeholders, said Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina.
  • “The Summit seemed more akin to a political pep rally than a legitimate use of taxpayer funds,” Foxx said in a letter accompanying the subpoena.
  • The Republicans look for impropriety around business exclusion.
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