On April 14, three workers were cleaning hydrocarbons out of a compressor in an Exxon Mobil Corp. oil refinery in Baton Rouge, La., when a fireball erupted.

But when an inspector from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration arrived to check the machine, he was told the information was proprietary and sent away, according to Kenneth Duke, president of United Steelworkers Local 1312.

The problems with national health and safety laws, said David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is that they don't have any teeth.

The maximum OSHA fine for a single safety violation that results in death is $7,000, Dr. Michaels said. The maximum criminal penalty -- which can be enforced only in the case of a willful violation of safety laws that results in death -- is six months in prison.

"If you harass a wild burrow on federal land, you can get over a year in jail," Dr. Michaels said, by way of contrast.

Dr. Michaels and Mr. Duke were at the Hilton Pittsburgh, Downtown, on Tuesday attending an emergency meeting called by the United Steelworkers and United Mine Workers to address pervasive occurrences of injury and death that have been highlighted by the recent explosion in the Upper Big Branch Mine that killed 29 West Virginia coal miners and the explosion of the Deep Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20 that killed 11 workers.

"The same mentality that led to the explosion on the Deep Horizon oil rig is the same mentality that led to the explosion in the Upper Big Branch Mine," said Leo Gerard, international president of the United Steel Workers.

"The level of punishment for egregious violations is unacceptable.

"We need to change the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and modernize it."

Mr. Gerard said an average of 14 workers a day are killed on the job.

"It's time to change the law so that people who go to work to earn a living can expect to come home with their lungs and their health and their lives and their limbs all in place," he said.

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