EDITOR'S NOTE: Thanks to Bill Finn for sending us this example of investigative reporting at its finest. We echo his words:
Please take the time to read the series of stories called Fatal Flaws. The stories highlight the failures of the Kentucky Labor Cabinet regarding workplace fatalities. The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting series details numerous stories of Kentucky on-the-job fatalities and how the surviving families are suffering. The Kentucky CIR reports are an ongoing look into the lack of enforcement by the Kentucky OSH program as part of the Bevin administration's "Red Tape Reduction" plan. Federal OSHA conducted an audit of the failures of the KY OSH program. The findings are in the stories.
The lack of enforcement by KY OSH puts our members at risk on the jobsite. This development adds to the 2017-18 attacks on workers by the Bevin administration and the Republican majorities in the state House and Senate. It further proves the Republicans' ongoing disregard for Kentucky workers' well-being. The passage of "right to work," prevailing wage repeal, "paycheck protection" and workers Compensation cuts are part of the ongoing spiral to lower Kentucky workers' standard of living. Now we learn that the only government agency to protect workers admits that safety enforcement is not their priority.
Click here to see Fatal Flaws.
From the KCIR website:
Fatal Flaws is a collaboration between the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, the Ohio Valley ReSource and the Center for Public Integrity.
Over the course of six months, we reviewed thousands of pages of fatality investigations and dozens of federal reports to conclude that Kentucky is failing its workers in how it investigates deaths on the job. Representatives of the Kentucky Labor Cabinet declined repeated requests for comment, as did representatives of U.S. Department of Labor's OSHA program.
Reporters/producers: Eleanor Klibanoff, Jeff Young and Jim Morris
Data analysis: Eleanor Klibanoff and Alexandra Kanik
Editing: Kate Howard and Erica Peterson
Website: Alexandra Kanik
Photos: J. Tyler Franklin and Michelle Hanks
Legal: Jon Fleischaker and Michael Abate
Eleanor Klibanoff is a reporter with the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit investigative newsroom at WFPL News in Louisville, Kentucky. She joined the team in 2017.
She previously worked at Keystone Crossroads, a public radio project covering urban decline and recovery in the Rust Belt. She was a Kroc Fellow at NPR and a recipient of a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grant to cover maternal healthcare in Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Originally from Atlanta, Klibanoff graduated from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., with a degree in Political Communication.
(502) 814.6544 / E-mail / Twitter
Jeff Young is the managing editor of the Ohio Valley ReSource, a regional journalism collaborative anchored at Louisville Public Media.
Young has reported from Appalachian coalfields, Capitol Hill, and New England’s coast, among other places. Jeff worked for West Virginia Public Broadcasting and was Washington correspondent for the nationally distributed program Living on Earth. Recently, he directed communications for ocean conservation with The Pew Charitable Trusts in Boston. Jeff grew up near Huntington, West Virginia, and studied journalism and biology at Marshall University and the University of Charleston. His reporting has been recognized with numerous awards and he was named a 2012 Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University.
(502) 814.6557 / E-mail / Twitter
Jim Morris is managing editor for environment and workers' rights at the Center for Public Integrity. A journalist since 1978, Morris has won more than 80 awards for his work, including the George Polk award, the Sidney Hillman award, three National Association of Science Writers awards, two Edward R. Murrow awards and five Texas Headliners awards. He helped edit the Center's first Pulitzer Prize-winning project, "Breathless and Burdened," a 2013 investigation into the deeply flawed federal black-lung benefits system for coal miners. Morris has worked for newspapers in Texas and California as well as publications such as U.S. News & World Report and Congressional Quarterly in Washington.