A workplace fatality that brought attention to the issue of crowd control in the retail industry appears to be – finally – headed toward a resolution, after Walmart recently withdrew its appeal of a $7,000 OSHA fine over the incident.
Agency head speaks at National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association meeting
March 19, 2015
Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health Joseph A. Main told members at the annual convention of the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association in Baltimore earlier this week that mining industry improvements in the past five years have laid the foundation for better protections for miners.
A 58-year-old maintenance worker was killed after he was pinned between a scrap metal table and a railing at Hussmann Corp.'s Bridgeton facility, an OSHA investigation found. The agency said the company failed to prevent the table from lowering unintentionally*.
An oil field rig exploded in West Texas in March, killing three workers, according to the Associated Press. Investigator Dusty Kilgore of the Upton County Sheriff's Office told AP the accident happened about 40 miles south of Midland.
The July 2010 explosion and fire at the former Horsehead zinc refinery in Monaca, Pennsylvania, likely resulted from a buildup of superheated liquid zinc inside a ceramic zinc distillation column, which then “explosively decompressed” and ignited, according to a technical analysis released by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB).
After a worker was killed in September 2014 by electrocution at Seldat Distribution Inc. in Dayton, N.J., OSHA investigators found 10 serious violations at the warehouse. The fatality was caused by an improperly wired, powered conveyer system.
Former Florida tree service owner John Wilkes was sentenced to 15 years in prison last month after pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter of a child.
The death of a sound technician who was shot while working on the television show “COPS” has led to OSHA issuing a hazard alert letter for reality show producers.
Falls are a persistent hazard found in all occupational settings. A fall can occur during the simple acts of walking or climbing a ladder to change a light fixture or as a result of a complex series of events affecting an ironworker 80 feet above the ground.