As the occupational safety, health and environmental (SH&E) profession continues to grow as do the number of students pursuing this career, the American Society of Safety Engineers’ (ASSE) Columbus-based Central Ohio Chapter announced that they have organized and chartered an ASSE Ohio University (OU) Student Section, according to a recent press release.
The National Solid Wastes Management Association (NSWMA) has expressed support for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) announcement prohibiting texting by drivers of commercial vehicles such as large trucks and buses, according to a NSWMA press release.
Blogger Dr. Celeste Monforton of the popular public health blog “The Pump Handle” questions if OSHA should be spending $128 million in compliance assistance programs at a time when the Obama adminstration is clamping down on federal agency spending. She zeroes in the the Voluntary Protection Program, questioning the wisdom of spending millions in free OSHA on-call expert services for elite, EHS resource-rich OSHA-designated VPP sites such as Pfizer, GE, Lockheed, Northrup, Grumman, Entergy, Shell Oil and Delta.
OSHA recently updated its guidance document Recommendations for Workplace Violence Prevention Programs in Late-Night Retail Establishments that addresses issues causing late-night retail workers to be killed on the job
OSHA has scheduled two informal stakeholder meetings to solicit comments and suggestions on combustible dust hazards in the workplace. OSHA will use comments from these meetings in developing a proposed standard for combustible dust. The meetings are scheduled for Feb. 17, 2010, 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., at the Marriott Perimeter Center, 246 Perimeter Center Parkway, Atlanta, Ga., 30346.
Every year since 1996 the OSHA has collected work-related injury and illness data from more than 80,000 employers. For the first time, the agency has made the data from 1996 to 2007 available in a searchable online database, allowing the public to look at establishment or industry-specific injury and illness data. The workplace injury and illness data is available at wwwosha.gov/pls/odi/establishment_search.htmlhttp://www.osha.gov/pls/odi/establishment_search.html
OSHA has scheduled two informal stakeholder meetings to solicit comments and suggestions on combustible dust hazards in the workplace. OSHA will use comments from these meetings in developing a proposed standard for combustible dust. The meetings are scheduled for Feb. 17, 2010, 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., at the Marriott Perimeter Center, 246 Perimeter Center Parkway, Atlanta, Ga., 30346.
“I've long advocated that every employer establish a Comprehensive Workplace Safety and Health Program that features management leadership, worker participation, and structure that fosters continual improvement. While thousands of responsible employers already operate this way with excellent results, many other employers haven't gotten the message,” said OSHA chief Dr. David Michaels in a December speech at a NIOSH meeting, his only public remarks to date.
How might Dr. Michaels’ advocacy turn into action? Safety and health experts always point to California’s workplace safety and health program standard as a possible guiding light.
OSHA’s plans for updating permissible exposure limits, ergonomics, and setting workplace safety and health program requirements are nebulous, to say the least in early 2010.
But one hot potato issue OSHA can’t duck regards revising the hazard communication standard to conform with the United Nations' (UN) Globally Harmonized System of
Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS).
From the blog OSHA Aboveground, penned by a longtime agency hand: “Any one who follows OSHA's press releases has probably noticed a recent jump in the number of sig-cases (a sig or significant case is any OSHA case where the proposed penalty exceeds $100,000). I've certainly noticed a jump, although I don't have the numbers to back it up.
The left-wing politicos will, of course, claim it's the current administration doing what the previous one failed to do. And the right-wing politicos will, of course, claim it's another example of the left's assault on business. But here's the thing, no one has told me to do more sig-cases, just like under the previous administration, no one told me not to do sig-cases. There was no memo. There was no directive.
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