Electrical contractors are responsible for the health and safety of employees who are exposed to a variety of hazards. Some of these hazards are obvious, such as electrical shock and electrocution. Others, such as musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), back injuries, slips and falls, or automobile-related incidents may not be as obvious.
R.C. Bigelow ("Bigelow") is a family-owned company headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, that produces and markets blended teas. The company was founded in 1945 by Ruth Campbell Bigelow, who started her company with "Constant Comment" blended tea, which remains popular today. The R.C. Bigelow facility in Boise, Idaho, is one of two bagging, packaging, and distribution facilities. The company employs approximately 60 workers at the Boise facility and 320 corporate-wide.
In October 2017 we published the first blog in a series to highlight musculoskeletal health research at NIOSH. With the holiday season upon us, this next installment will take the opportunity to discuss how best to promote musculoskeletal health in retail establishments to reduce the incidence of musculoskeletal disorders among temporary retail workers.
Welders are at particularly high risk for eye injuries. A Canadian study reported that welders represented 21% of all eye injury claims. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), welders, cutters, and welding machine operators held about 521 000 jobs in 2000. The welding process exposes workers to a number of sources of mechanical, radiant, thermal, or chemical energy.
What activities and circumstances are proximal to a welding-related occupational eye injury? Researchers categorized and described the activity, initiating process, mechanism of injury, object and/or substance, and the use of protective eyewear from the narrative text data reported for each injury.
Welders in a shop in Augusta, Georgia, were welding a plate onto the outside of a non-pressurized waste water collection tank in preparation for installing a hand rail. The atmosphere was tested surrounding the tank, but the inside was not. The welders didn't know what the gas buildup was, but the air in the tank was combustible. One of the victims in the explosion that occurred at the DSM Resins plant in September, 2017, was working inside a tank when the explosion happened.
One person was killed and approximately three dozen injured in an explosion and fire last week at a cosmetics factory in New York state. Seven of the injured were firefighters who were inside the facility, responding to a first blast, when a second explosion occurred.
After multiple delays, OSHA has finally announced that employers who are required to keep OSHA injury and illness records must send summary information in to the agency by December 15, fifteen days after the deadline announced last June, when the agency proposed to delay the reporting deadline from July 1 to December 1.
OSHA is proposing nearly two million dollars in fines against a Wisconsin corn milling facility, after five employees were killed in 12 others injured in a grain dust explosion. Among those injured in the May 31, 2017 accident at Didion Milling, Inc.: a 21-year-old employee who suffered a double leg amputation after being crushed by a railcar. OSHA found that the explosion likely resulted from Didion’s failures to correct the leakage and accumulation of highly combustible grain dust throughout the facility and to properly maintain equipment to control ignition sources.
