An amputation injury at an ice cream manufacturing facility in Lakewood, New Jersey has earned an employer $103,476 in proposed penalties. The citations issued by OSHA against Mister Cookie Face LLC for machine safety hazards followed an incident in which a sanitation employee suffered a fingertip amputation and a fractured finger when the machine he was attempting to unjam, activated.
The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) last week filed a complaint in the United States District Court for Southern District of West Virginia, charging that the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) unlawfully released Pocahontas Coal Company, LLC’s Affinity Mine from MSHA’s Pattern of Violations (POV) status in August.
Excuse the length of this depressing exercise, but I’ve been away for a couple of weeks and unlike me, workplace death takes no vacation. The usual falls, machinery deaths, vehicle accidents. Also several sanitation workers lost their lives over the past several week, as well as retail workers shot on the job.
Providing clean, safe walkways in public facilities is essential for preventing costly slip, trip and fall (ST&F) accidents. Falls on the same level were the second leading cause of all workplace injuries in 2013 at 16.4 percent of all workplace injuries and resulted in $10.1 billion in direct costs (Liberty Mutual, 2016).
The oil and gas extraction industry continues to expand in the United States, but this growth comes with increased risks for workers in the industry. During 2003–2016, 1,485 oil and gas extraction workers were killed on the job, resulting in an annual fatality rate more than six times higher than the rate among all U.S. workers.
A new website from the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Manufacturing Sector Council features ways in which businesses and companies can safeguard employees from the release of hazardous energy (any source of electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, chemical, thermal, or other energy) during service and maintenance activities.
Class action lawsuits regarding reproductive health rights were recently filed against Walmart, the U.S.’s largest private employer, in Illinois, New York and Wisconsin. Many other employers such as Amazon, Merck and Novartis face similar lawsuits, too, relating to pregnancy discrimination, failure to provide reasonable accommodations and violations of EEOC rules.
A blistering report on small farm safety, Samsung Electronics apologizes for work-related illnesses and a dire warning about the effects of climate change on human health. These were among the top occupational safety and health stories featured on ISHN.com this week.
Workplace safety can be especially challenging when the workplace is…space.
NASA astronaut Anne McClain, Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko are set to launch to the International Space Station on Monday, despite a rocket malfunction less than two months ago than forced them to abort a mission.
The owner of a property maintenance company in McDavid, Florida instructed an employee to ignite wood and debris inside an air burn box using a torch and gasoline. Those directions from to the proprietor of L.A. Disaster Relief and Property Maintenance LLC caused an explosion and left the worker with serious burn injuries. They also resulted in OSHA issuing citations and penalties to the company.
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