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.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) said an explosion and fire that killed five workers during a fireworks disposal operation in Hawaii in 2011 resulted from unsafe disposal practices; insufficient safety requirements for government contractor selection and oversight; and an absence of national guidelines, standards, and regulations for fireworks disposal.
As we enter another influenza season, one question continues to vex medical and public health professionals: How do you stop people from catching the flu? The best way to prevent the flu is by getting an influenza vaccine every year. However, in the event of a large-scale influenza outbreak of a new virus strain or a pandemic, when influenza vaccine may not be promptly available, we will see tremendous demands on the health care system and its workers.
Fired for failing to inspect a broken chair; temp workers to get equal training; roofers exposed to 30' falls and a diesel hazard alert were among the OSHA news items this week.
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