California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) has issued four citations and $71,435 in penalties to Consolidated Disposal Services LLC, after a security guard at the company’s dumpster yard in Gardena was fatally struck by a truck while working in the early morning hours.
An excavation contractor that exposed its employees to trench cave-in and other hazards is contesting the violations issued to it by OSHA – along with the proposed penalties of $454,750.
An OSHA investigation found that while performing work on two municipal water project sites in North Dakota, Kamphuis Pipeline Company failed to:
A company’s failure to realize that welding work was being done near flammable materials was behind a fatal explosion, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB), which has released its final investigation report into the February 8, 2017, blast at the Packaging Corporation of America’s (PCA’s) DeRidder, Louisiana, pulp and paper mill.
Two-thirds of theater technicians and actors have experienced head impacts related to working in theater environments, according to a survey study in the March Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Apparently, though, the old adage, “the show must go on” is adhered to by theatre folk. Despite the fact that many of these injuries cause concussion symptoms, theater personnel usually continue their work onstage or backstage, according to the study by Jeffrey A. Russell, PhD, and Brooke M. Daniell, MEd, of Ohio University, Athens.
The messages to OSHA from the Chamber of Commerce at this week’s House hearing were clear:
1. Don’t (miss)use the General Duty Clause as a substitute for issuing OSHA standards.
2. Don’t issue any OSHA standards.
Rotating Equipment Repair (RER) has had no recordable incidents of worker injuries in the last six years, but that wasn’t always the case. When the Sussex, Wisconsin-based company, that provides parts and services for high-energy pumps reached out in 2008 to OSHA's On-Site Consultation Program for help improving its safety and health program, the company had experienced two recordable injuries that year.
A manufacturer of storage tanks and pressure vessels for the petrochemical, paper, and energy industries sharply reduced its recordable injury rate after reaching out to OSHA’s On-Site Consultation Program to help it identify and reduce workplace hazards.
James Machine Works, LLC (JMW), which has been family owned for three generations, has grown from three to 160 employees since it was founded in 1927.
After an audit at a small Pennsylvania manufacturer revealed some safety complacency cropping up in day-to-day operations, the company reached out to OSHA’s On-Site Consultation Program for assistance. The result: McGregor Industries Inc. has been free of recordable injuries since September 2015, is working to find new ways of reducing injuries and has been able to secure better insurance for individual jobsites.
Dunmore-based McGregor Industries Inc. fabricates, delivers, and installs light structural and metal products for buildings, artistic projects, and anything requiring the shaping and finishing of metal.
The proposed 2018 budget released by the White House last week includes a 21 percent decrease in the Department of Labor’s budget – some of which will come from the elimination of OSHA’s training grants. That line item is expected to save almost $11 million from the 2017 annualized CR level.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), OSHA and partners like ASSE and AIHA are encouraging employers to hold special activities during June 12-18, designated as Safe + Sound Week. The event is a nationwide effort to raise awareness and understanding of the value of safety and health programs among workplaces.
