OSHA has issued a final rule that revises 14 provisions in the recordkeeping, general industry, maritime, and construction standards that may be confusing, outdated, or unnecessary. The revisions are expected to increase understanding and compliance with the provisions, improve employee safety and health, and save employers an estimated $6.1 million per year.
Detecting drones near airports is one thing. Taking them out is another, prohibited, thing.
That’s the message the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is communicating to U.S. airports who, frustrated by the incursion of drones into their airspace, are or are considering installing devices which could detect the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).
A Kansas aircraft manufacturer exposed its employees to hexavalent chromium and failed to monitor exposure levels, according to OSHA, which has assessed citations and fines against Spirit Aerosystems Inc.
According to OSHA inspectors, the Wichita-based company failed to
implement feasible engineering controls to limit employee exposure to hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen...
After an investigation by OSHA, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has awarded $40,000 for lost wages, pain and suffering, and punitive damages to a former employee of Fairmount Foundry Inc. The employee claimed that the Hamburg, Pennsylvania, iron-casting company terminated him for reporting alleged safety and health hazards to OSHA.
The EPA has issued a final rule that closes a regulatory loophole for asbestos by prohibiting discontinued uses of the substance by being re-introduced to the marketplace without an agency review. Restrictions on Discontinued Uses of Asbestos; Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) is effective June 24, 2019.
The restricted significant new uses of asbestos (including as part of an article) is manufacturing (including importing) or processing for uses that are neither ongoing nor already prohibited under TSCA.
For Peggy Frank, a Los Angeles letter carrier, any federal or California safety rule ordering her employer—and all other firms—to protect workers from the hazards of excess heat didn’t work.
Frank, a 63-year-old grandmother, collapsed and died from California’s monstrously high heat while delivering the mail in Woodland Hills, a section of Los Angeles, last summer. The temperature in that particular neighborhood the day she died? 107 degrees.
Advocates in Florida are pushing for tougher standards for growers to protect their employees, arguing that rising global temperatures will make outdoor work unsustainable without the proper regulations.
Florida’s agriculture and construction employers could soon be required to train outdoor workers and managers on avoiding heat-related illnesses under proposed legislation.
The heat illness prevention bill, sponsored by Orlando Democrat Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, would set a statewide standard for all outdoor workers to be given plenty of drinking water, access to shade and ten-minute rest breaks enforced after every two hours of outside labor.
The state of California continues to place obligations for preventing employee heat stroke onto employers. In 2015, California heat stroke law clarified that cooldown periods or “recovery periods” must be paid, by state law.
We have a swamp of occupational safety and health theory and practice currently. Lack of nationwide clarity undermines what should be unequivocal reproductive health protections, whether preconceptual, post-childbearing for target reproductive organs, or during pregnancy.
Cooperating with OSHA gets two employees fired – and their employer found guilty of retaliation; health experts want asbestos banned and the Association Health Plans program gets a defeat in court. These were among the top occupational safety and health stories featured on ISHN.com this week.
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