Sheri Farley suffers from an excruciating and debilitating condition known as “drop foot,” a form of nerve damage caused by five years of breathing glue fumes at an upholstery plant in North Carolina:

For about five years, Ms. Farley, 45, stood alongside about a dozen other workers, spray gun in hand, gluing together foam cushions for chairs and couches sold under brand names like Broyhill, Ralph Lauren and Thomasville. Fumes from the glue formed a yellowish fog inside the plant, and Ms. Farley’s doctors say that breathing them in eventually ate away at her nerve endings, resulting in what she and her co-workers call “dead foot.”

A chemical she handled — known as n-propyl bromide, or nPB — is also used by tens of thousands of workers in auto body shops, dry cleaners and high-tech electronics manufacturing plants across the nation. Medical researchers, government officials and even chemical companies that once manufactured nPB have warned for over a decade that it causes neurological damage and infertility when inhaled at low levels over long periods, but its use has grown 15-fold in the past six years. [NYT]

Some 40,000 Americans die prematurely each year from exposure to toxic substances at work, Ian Urbina reports for the New York Times, ten times as many as are killed in industrial accidents, yet the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) devotes less regulatory energy to making sure workers breathe clean air on the job. 

Backed by over 200 pages of source documents, Urbina’s feature is both heartbreaking and thought-provoking, it deserves to be widely read. 

[Photo credit: mag3737, Creative Commons.]

The finalists for the 2013 National Magazine Awards (ASME Awards) have been announced and we are delighted to see so many past Hillman Prize-winners and Sidney Award-winners on the shortlist:

• Sarah Stillman, winner of a 2012 Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism, is a finalist for “The Throwaways,” a New Yorker story about how juvenile offenders-turned-informants have become canon fodder in the drug war. 

• Ta-Nehisi Coates, winner of a 2012 Hillman Prize for Analysis and Opinion, is up for his essay, “Fear of a Black President,” a meditation on Barack Obama’s attempts to grapple with race as our first black president, published in The Atlantic. 

• Pamela Colloff, winner of a 2010 Sidney Award, is up for “The Innocent Man: Part I” and “The Innocent Man: Part II,” the story of a wrongful conviction in the Texas Monthly. Colloff’s “Hannah and Andrew,” a Texas Monthly story of a mother accused of killing her son with salt, is also a finalist.

• Mac McClelland, winner of a 2010 Sidney Award, is in the running for “Shelf Lives,” a work of participatory journalism about terrible working conditions in the warehouse industry, published in Mother Jones. 

Best of luck to all the finalists. 

What if there was a Wal-Mart and nobody came? That’s basically what’s happening right now. Wal-Mart stores are in disarray because the nation’s largest retailer can’t find employees to stock its cavernous new dens of commerce:

It’s not as though the merchandise isn’t there. It’s piling up in aisles and in the back of stores because Wal-Mart doesn’t have enough bodies to restock the shelves, according to interviews with store workers. In the past five years, the world’s largest retailer added 455 U.S. Wal-Mart stores, a 13 percent increase, according to filings and the company’s website. In the same period, its total U.S. workforce, which includes Sam’s Club employees, dropped by about 20,000, or 1.4 percent. Wal-Mart employs about 1.4 million U.S. workers. [Bloomberg]

I wonder why nobody wants to work at Wal-Mart? Hmmm.

Costco don’t seem to have any trouble attracting qualified employees and turning huge profits while raising its minimum wage:

“At Costco, we know that paying employees good wages makes good sense for business,” Jelinik said in a statement last week. “Instead of minimizing wages, we know it’s a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximize employee productivity, commitment and loyalty. We support efforts to increase the federal minimum wage.” [HuffPo]

[Photo credit: racineur, Creative Commons.]

Seemingly determined to lose friends and alienate people, the nation’s largest retailer is suing the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and Our Wal-Mart over last year’s strikes in Florida: 

Wal-Mart Stores Inc has sued a major grocery workers union and others who have protested at its Florida stores, the latest salvo in its legal fight to stop “disruptive” rallies in and around its stores by groups seeking better pay and working conditions.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc has sued a major grocery workers union and others who have protested at its Florida stores, the latest salvo in its legal fight to stop “disruptive” rallies in and around its stores by groups seeking better pay and working conditions. [Reuters]

The store alleges that activists trespassed on Wal-Mart property during rallies.

[Photo credit: matteson.norman, Creative Commons.]