According to the fiscal year 2013 Congressional Budget Justification document for OSHA, the agency proposes a total of $73,131,000 and 264 full-time employee equivalents (FTE) for federal compliance assistance, a decrease of $3,224,415 and 31 FTE below the FY 2012 enacted level. OSHA historically ramps up compliance assistance under Republican White House administrations, and de-emphasizes compliance assistance when Democrats control the White House.
Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis last week announced a final rule to strengthen safety in the nation's most dangerous mines. The rule, which revises the Mine Safety and Health Administration's pattern of violations regulation in 30 Code of Federal Regulations Part 104, has been submitted to the Federal Register for publication.
After more than a year of development, safety professionals can now apply for the Certified Safety Management Practitioner (CSMP) from the Institute for Safety and Health Management (ISHM). The cert will be grandfathered during 2013, meaning qualified applicants can achieve the CSMP without taking an exam.
According to the fiscal year 2013 Congressional Budget Justification for OSHA, the agency will be more transparent in divulging information to the next-of-kin of workplace fatality victims. OSHA has long been criticized by activists such as Alabama’s Ron Hayes, whose son was killed in a grain silo, of frustrating victims’ families by leaving them out of the information loop.
Everyone these days is talking about performance indicators for workplace safety. It’s widely understood that if you only measure injuries and follow OSHA injury/illness recordkeeping requirements you have a large blindspot in truly assessing how you safety processes are working, or not working. OSHA has its own set of measures.
The Safety Equipment Institute (SEI) has announced that the first certifications have been issued to the new NFPA criteria for fire service Thermal Imagers, NFPA 1801, Standard on Thermal Imagers for the Fire Service, 2013 Edition. The revised NFPA 1801 standard was issued by the NFPA Standards Council on May 29, 2012, with an effective date of June18, 2012.
Progress in traffic safety is “at risk of being undone,” according to a safety group that has put together a 2013 Roadmap of State Highway Safety Laws, a report card grading all 50 states and the District of Columbia on their performance on 15 basic traffic safety laws.
OSHA held its first of several informal stakeholder meetings Jan. 8 to provide employers, workers, safety professionals and equipment manufacturers with an opportunity to inform OSHA about how workers are injured and killed by vehicle backovers and what can be done to prevent these incidents.
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