September 2014 marks the one-year anniversary of the forced resignation of Cal/OSHA Chief Ellen Widess and the start of direct rule by Department of Industrial Relations Director Christine Baker. A year later there is no permanent leadership team, the roster is riddled with vacancies, and policy decisions have lurched between “political spin” crises and administrative diktats in response.
A contractor was killed and two others were injured Saturday morning while working on a Chevron natural gas pipeline off the coast of Lousiana. Two other workers sustained minor injuries.
September is Emergency Preparedness Month. To mark this event, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) announces the new NIOSH Emergency Preparedness and Response Directory web page.
A preliminary total of 4,405 fatal work injuries were recorded in the United States in 2013, lower than the revised count of 4,628 fatal work injuries in 2012, according to results from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Since its creation 83 years ago by H. W. Heinrich, the safety triangle offered a ratio formula that encouraged safety professionals to focus on the causes of minor injuries as a way to reduce the probability of having major accidents. It sparked a new way of interpreting safety data that may be flawed.
The site of an injury work accident that occurred Friday in Pennsylvania was so remote that rescue workers had to use all-terrain vehicles to reach the accident victim.
The death of a contract employee at Detroit Metropolitan Airport Friday has been ruled accidental, according to Wayne County spokeswoman Mary Mazur. An autopsy has determined that said 24-year-old VonDre Gordon died of multiple injuries.
The vast majority of federal contractors play by the rules, but every year tens of thousands of American workers are denied overtime wages, not hired or paid fairly because of their gender or age, or have their health and safety put at risk by corporations contracting with the federal government that cut corners, according to a White House press statement.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) September 2 levied $1.4 billion in penalties against Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s (PG&E) for thousands of violations leading up to a September 9, 2010 pipeline explosion in San Bruno, Calif.that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes, according to a press release from the CPUC.
It is estimated that 5 to 10 arc flash incidents occur in electrical equipment everyday in the United States. These events have the potential to cause serious injuries and even death due to burns and other trauma.