Policy Priorities

  • Access to Workers' Compensation

    MassCOSH and other worker centers across the Commonwealth regularly see workers like Jose, employed in dangerous industries such as construction, landscaping, restaurants, janitorial work, and window washing.  Despite their vulnerability to workplace injuries, immigrant and other low wage workers face tremendous barriers to gaining access to the workers’ compensation system.

  • Families of Fallen Workers Burial Benefits Bill

    Every week, a Massachusetts family loses a loved one to a workplace fatality.  The loss is devastating – leaving a deep hole in the hearts of the family, and in many cases the loss of a critical bread-earner.
    On a moment’s notice, families must begin to prepare to bury their loved one.  As they do they will soon face the additional tragedy of knowing that in addition to all their other financial worries, they may not be able to afford basic funeral costs.

  • Temp Workers Right to Know Law

    Thousands of temporary workers in Massachusetts are sent off to work without having any idea where they are going, the type of work they will do, their rate of pay – even the name of their. The Temporary Worker Right to Know Bill (Senate Bill 680/ House Bill 1797) requires temporary agencies to provide in writing basic information, including the name of the employer; the kind of employment; whether the employee must receive special training; and rate of wages.

  • Public Employee Health and Safety Protections

    When the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) was passed in 1970, the law made it an option for states to provide OSHA protections to their public employees.  Massachusetts did not exercise that option – until 2014. 

  • Access to Quality Jobs

    Emerging industries, from “green jobs” (such as recycling and weatherization) to high tech jobs (such as nanotechnology), put our state and country at a crossroads.  We can create employment with the same dangerous, precarious, exploitative conditions, or we can insist on quality jobs with decent wages that are safe, healthy, unionized and accessible to disenfranchised populations. 

    MassCOSH will join with community, labor and environmental groups to support policies and initiatives that foster quality, accessible jobs by: