Investigators from the California Labor Commissioner’s Office issued over $900,000 in fines to businesses in the car wash industry in a two-day statewide enforcement sweep, according to a press release from the California Department of Industrial Relations. The penalties included a total of $600,900 issued to 76 unlicensed carwash businesses that were cited for not having a registration.
New Place Carpentry, a New Haven, Conn., contractor with a long history of fall protection violations, according to OSHA, faces a total of $308,500 in new fines from the agency for willful and repeat fall hazards following the agency's inspections at worksites in Plymouth and Methuen, Mass.
Labels prepared under the European Union’s regulation for classification, labeling and packaging of substances and mixtures (EC/1272/2008), which adopted criteria based on the UN's Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS), are considered to comply with OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) requirements if the EU GHS labels comply with all of the provisions of the HCS, according to a news post on ORC Worldwide’s web site, which picked up an OSHA letter of interpretation posted on the agency’s Web site Nov. 2.
Senator Al Franken (D-MN), on October 15, 2009, introduced legislation entitled the “Nurse Protection Act” (S. 1788), which would require OSHA to issue a standard mandating health care workers to use mechanical lift equipment when moving patients, according to a news post on ORC Worldwide’s web site. ORC Worldwide is an international EHS consultancy based in Washington, DC.
OSHA has cited Northern Wind Inc., a New Bedford, Mass., seafood processor, for 23 alleged violations of workplace safety standards after a worker was killed on May 4 when he became caught in the moving parts of a large industrial ice-making machine that activated while he was performing maintenance work inside it.
The owners of a Southland residential cleaning service were taken into custody and later released after failing to comply with a court order directing payment of $3.5 million in back wages, plus interest, fines and liquidated damages to at least 385 workers, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Tyson Foods Inc., one of the nation's largest poultry producers, has been found in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) at its Blountsville, Ala., facility, according to a Labor Department press release. The jury's verdict in federal court in Birmingham resulted from a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Labor against the company.
According to the November 2009 issue of the Harvard Health Letter, new research is showing that a daytime nap may have health benefits without interfering with nighttime sleep.
In an effort to provide the most current information on slip, trip and fall prevention, the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) announced in a recent press statement the approval of a newly revised American National Standards Institute (ANSI) /ASSE Z359.0-2009 “Definitions and Nomenclature Used for Fall Protection and Fall Arrest” voluntary consensus standard.