The most important machine design step is ensuring operator safety. During the design process, hazards are often identified that can be removed, but when a hazard cannot be removed, then various levels of safeguarding must be provided. These typically take the form of machine access guarding and point-of-operation guarding.
Starbucks is installing needle-disposal boxes in bathrooms at its locations in dozens of U.S. markets, due to employee concerns about sharps injuries from hypodermic needles left by drug-using customers. According to Business Insider, two employees of the giant coffee chain were stuck with hypodermic needles in 2018 at a store in Eugene, Oregon. OSHA investigated and fined Starbucks $3,100.
New York City has passed a measure that caps emissions for large buildings – part of a handful of bills called the Climate Mobilization Act that are intended to combat climate change on a municipal level. The measure will likely create thousands of blue collar jobs – and likely cost the city’s landlords billions of dollars.
The Walt Disney Company has been fined $13,260 for failing to report two workers’ injuries in a timely manner. The injuries occurred at the company’s Epcot Center and Beach Club Resort in December 2018. One was serious enough that the employee required surgery.
A fatal fall, hazmat exposure and trenching hazards are among the workplace conditions that resulted in federal and state OSHA violations in recent cases.
"Knowingly and repeatedly" ignored fall protection requirements
April 22, 2019
OSHA has cited framing contractor Navy Contractors, Inc. for willfully exposing employees to fall hazards at residential construction sites in Royersford, Collegeville, and Center Valley, Pennsylvania. The company faces $603,850 in penalties.
The agency initiated inspections at the three jobsites after inspectors saw employees performing framing work without fall protection.
The EPA has announced $84,500 in penalties against StarKist Co. and its subsidiary, Starkist Samoa Co., for violating the terms of a 2018 settlement designed to remedy deficiencies at their tuna processing facility in American Samoa to achieve environmental compliance.
“EPA will continue to work closely with StarKist to ensure the needed safety and pollution control upgrades are realized, per our agreement,” said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Mike Stoker.
Appendix A to federal OSHA’s 1978 lead standard (current today) provides that blood lead level (BLL) of workers, both male and female, who intend to have children should be maintained below 30 micrograms per deciliter (ug/dL) “to minimize adverse reproductive health effects to the parents and to the developing fetus.
A label showing added sugars content on all packaged foods and sugary drinks could have substantial health and cost-saving benefits in the United States over the next 20 years, according to a new study published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation. Using a validated model, researchers were able to estimate a significant reduction in cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes cases from 2018 to 2037, if such a mandated addition to the Nutrition Label was implemented.
A coalition of New York City labor organizations is holding a protest today about safety training inadequacies in the city, particularly for immigrant workers. The protest comes on the heels of a particularly deadly week in the city’s construction industry, which saw three immigrant workers killed in incidents at three different worksites.