Every day 1,000 eye injuries occur in American workplaces. Nearly 90 percent of eye injuries are preventable with proper protective eyewear, but a Bureau of Labor Statistics survey found that nearly three out of five workers were not wearing eye protection at the time of the accident. Such stats come into focus as July 1 kicks off National Eye Safety Month.
Dr. Rafael Moure-Eraso has been confirmed and appointed as the new chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB), the agency announced; Mr. Mark Griffon has been appointed as a new board member, filling the other vacancy on the board.
During the national meeting of the American Society of Safety Engineers last week in Baltimore, ISHN spoke to a safety and health consultant who said, “The new OSHA is manna from heaven. Don’t quote me on that.”
Promulgating a sweeping injury and illness prevention program standard, (I2P2) which would require employers to find and fix hazards, and modernizing OSHA’s injury and illness data collection system are the top priorities OSHA chief Dr. David Michaels wants to see completed during his time at the agency, he told a group of reporters following his speech last week to about 500 safety and health pros at ASSE’s national meeting in Baltimore.
OSHA chief Dr. David Michaels made his first appearance at a national ASSE meeting last week in Baltimore. ISHN learned from sources that ASSE’s 32,000 members by and large like what they’ve seen from Dr. Michaels since he took over the agency earlier this year.
There’s no let up in OSHA’s enforcement surge. And no surprises, either. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and then-acting OSHA chief Jordan Barab said one year ago at the ASSE national meeting in San Antonio that there was a new sheriff in town. Here’s what the sheriff has been up to in the past 30 days:
OSHA has announced today that the Severe Violators Enforcement Program (SVEP) directive became effective June 18th. The agency announced in April that it was implementing the program to focus on employers who continually disregard their legal obligations to protect their workers.
OSHA has cited the Ford Motor Co. Buffalo Stamping Plant in Hamburg, N.Y., with an alleged willful violation of safety standards for not repairing or removing unsafe overhead cranes from service, according to a press release. The citation follows an OSHA inspection opened in January 2010 in response to a complaint from workers at the plant.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to Congress in support of reinstating the lapsed Superfund “polluter pays” taxes, says an EPA press release. Superfund is the federal government's program that investigates and cleans up the nation's most complex, uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites. If reinstated, the Superfund provision would provide a stable, dedicated source of revenue for the program and increase the pace of Superfund cleanup.