Unfortunately, electrical work by its very nature is dangerous due to the high energy levels involved and, until an accident occurs, electricity is odorless, colorless, and invisible. As an electrical worker, you’ve chosen the third most dangerous profession, according to OSHA.
Electric shock is one of the most serious and immediate risks facing a welder. Electric shock occurs when welders touch two metal objects that have a voltage between them, inserting themselves into the electrical circuit.
The most common type of electric shock is secondary voltage shock from an arc welding circuit, which ranges from 20 to 100 volts.
A steelworker in Gary, Indiana is recovering from injuries sustained last week in a workplace incident at Gary Works, a sprawling steel mill along Lake Michigan.
News sources say the man, a maintenance technician, was working on a blast furnace when the incident occurred, leaving him with multiple serious injuries
OSHA inspections increase, the crew of a fishing vessel escapes a sinking ship and two young UPS workers lose their lives in a California workplace incident. These were among the occupational safety and health stories featured on ISHN.com this week.
After more than two decades years of legal wrangling, OSHA has finally collected $412,000 in penalties assessed to a New Jersey construction company for safety violations – plus interest.
The action comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in July found Altor Inc. and its president Vasilios Saites in contempt for failing to pay the fines. Even that decision – which followed litigation that included multiple hearings before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) and the Court of Appeals – was followed by subsequent briefings and negotiations before the case came to a close.
Workplace violence was a common theme in some of the workplace incidents that killed or injured employees in the U.S. There were also incidents involving machinery, a fall and a struck-by fatality. Here are some of the occupational safety news stories of the week:
OSHA has released fiscal year (FY) 2019 final statistics showing a significant increase in the number of inspections and a record amount of compliance assistance to further the mission of ensuring that employers provide workplaces free of hazards.
Federal OSHA conducted 33,401 inspections—more inspections than the previous three years.
An incident that occurred Friday on the set of a Hollywood movie being filmed in British Columbia left a crew member with injuries, according to TMZ.
EMTs were summoned to the set of “The Last Victim,” a movie starring Ron Perlman. TMZ is reporting that the driver of the truck involved accidentally accelerated, missing its stop and “sending the crew scrambling to safety.”
A worker who knows all the ins-and-outs of their position and has spent years on the site will be more efficient than someone who has just started. But, learning on the fly in situations like this could be riskier than you may think. Research from Toronto’s Institute for Work & Health shows that workers who had been at a job for a month or less had three times the risk of suffering a lost-time injury compared to those who had been at a job for over a year.
Whether you shop in a brick-and-mortar store or online, the goods you purchase spent some time in one of 7,000 warehouses in the U.S. before making their way into your home. More than 145,000 people work in those warehouses – some in a seasonal capacity. There, they are subject to an injury rate that is higher than the national average for all industries.
