{
  "id": "2002-march-april-mining-workplace-data",
  "slug": "2002-march-april-mining-workplace-data",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-march-april-mining-workplace-data.html",
  "year": 2002,
  "month": "March-April",
  "monthNum": 3,
  "headline": "Mining workplace data",
  "kicker": "SPOTLIGHT: WORKPLACE",
  "author_name": "David Herzog",
  "author_title": "",
  "affiliation": "NICAR and Missouri School of Journalism",
  "summary": "An exploration of various workplace data sources, including OSHA logs, pension filings, and workers' compensation records, used by journalists to investigate employer practices.",
  "keywords": [
    "workplace",
    "pensions",
    "OSHA"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Business & Economy",
    "Investigative Methods",
    "Data & Databases"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "spreadsheet",
    "10K Wizard"
  ],
  "full_text": "A quick scan of your daily paper or network news program shows that workplace woes are big news: Enron, once a little-known energy company, now is a household word. Workers - and not just at Enron - are fretting about the health of their employer- backed retirement savings plans. In this issue of Uplink, we focus on workplace data. Stephanie Armour of USA Today recounts how she used computer-assisted-reporting's most basic tool - the spreadsheet - to build her own database of cases of immigrant maids being abused by their employers. In another article, Armour shares some reporting ideas and data sources that you can use to scrutinize employers and suspect workplace practices. Over the years, many journalists have plunged into the massive enforcement database kept by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, only to come up gasping for air. Ron Nixon, the national trainer for IRE & NICAR in this issue offers some guidance for journalists who want to stay afloat while working with the OSHA data. After the fall of Enron flattened out its employee retirement savings plans, heavy in company stock, St. Paul Pioneer Press business reporter Jim McCartney turned to the web for the local angle. McCartney wanted to see whether the retirement savings plans offered by the 15 biggest publicly-traded companies in the Twin Cities were loaded with company stock. So he turned to the online 10k Wizard and looked for 11K annual reports the companies submitted to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission that provide detailed financial information about employer 401(k) retirements savings plans. After looking over the documents and punching the numbers into his calculator, McCartney wrote a Feb. 2 story saying two-thirds of the top companies had 401(k) plans in which company stock accounted for at least 40 percent of the total assets. Pension plan administrators every year submit detailed information about the plans using Form 5500, available with other documents on the Department of Labor's Web site. Foreign/immigrant workers. Data from the Immigration and Naturalization Service can provide some clues. The INS data, sold by the NICAR database library, specifies the sex, age, marital status, country of birth, country of last permanent residency, port of entry and ZIP Code of intended residence for immigrants. State workers compensation data, used by journalists investigating bogus injury claims and injury patterns at problem work sites, can be put to other uses. Last year, reporters at the Washington Post dug through ten years of Maryland Workers Compensation Commission data as they probed the Prince George's County Police Department.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "pre-v2",
    "extracted_at": "",
    "verified": true
  },
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  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-march-april-mining-workplace-data.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-march-april-mining-workplace-data.json"
}