The Nation : Unions Appeal New Formaldehyde Rules

Two unions asked the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington to order the Labor Department to toughen new regulations it promulgated late last month on worker exposure to formaldehyde, a widely used chemical that is believed to cause cancer. On Nov. 20, the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced that it was lowering permissible worker exposure to formaldehyde by two-thirds, a change it said would benefit 2.1 million workers. But the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union asserted in their suit that the new regulations “virtually ignore the serious cancer risk to more than 900,000 apparel workers.” And, Jay Mazur, president of the Ladies Garment Workers, said: “The new OSHA standard will not even mandate apparel manufacturers to alert workers to the potential cancer risk.”