One construction worker a day dies on a worksite from a fall. One a day. That’s what the national data consistently tells us, since one-third of all deaths on construction sites are from falls. Every year more than 10,000 construction workers in the private construction industry experience serious, even life-changing, injuries from a fall.

The people who write huge swath OSHA standards are from the same philosophy (big government solves all ) that wrote: 2700 pages of healthcare law, begatting multiple thousands of a pages of regulations; 2300 pages of financial law, with more thousands of pages of regulations, etc. etc.  Enough!!

OSHA might be the only federal regulatory agency that has attempted to keep its activity within the rules mandated by Congress. The US EPA is quite different in that aspect.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the upcoming “fiscal cliff.” Just what is this “cliff” and how does it impact occupational safety and health? First of all, you need to know that no matter who you are or what you do; the fiscal cliff will impact you and your family. Let’s take a quick look –

The scene plays out in Western movies. The villain Jesse James, the most famous member of the James-Younger gang that terrorized the Minnesota area in the later 1800s, is shot in the back, defenseless, by a fellow member of his gang out to collect the bounty on James’ life.

For some time now I have contended we are, and have been for probably 10-15 years, in the post-OSHA era. Remember Al Gore’s attempt to “reinvent” OSHA to be more “customer friendly”? Specifically I am referring to OSHA standards-setting.

When James Gorry fell from a factory roof, he was doing a job he’d done hundreds of times before in exactly the same way he’d always done it.