Occupational Safety

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Whose jobs are more dangerous—construction workers, farmers, or pilots? Do workers get paid in proportion to danger? The results may surprise you!

A proposed bill that would allow some teenagers to work in the logging industry is drawing opposition from safety advocates. House Bill 1215 was introduced to a congressional committee last month by Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho). The bill, called the “Future Logging Careers Act,” would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to be exempt from child labor laws if they work in logging or mechanized operations under parental supervision.

On the heels of Workers’ Memorial Day, a coalition of safety groups has released the U.S. Worker Fatality Database, with accompanying maps and infographics.

Whether you call it “Workers’ Memorial Day” or “World Day for Safety and Health at Work,” today’s focus is the same: improving conditions for workers so that injuries and illnesses are prevented and lives are saved.

International Labour Organization (ILO) Director-General Guy Ryder: The news is punctuated periodically by intense coverage of dramatic, heartbreaking stories that capture global attention: health workers infected while caring for patients with deadly diseases, trapped miners who may or may not resurface, factory building collapses, plane crashes, explosions of oil rigs and nuclear accidents.

Today is International Workers’ Memorial Day, established to recognize workers who died or suffered from exposures to hazards at work. But it’s not only an occasion to look back at what’s already happened.

In observance of Worker’s Memorial Day tomorrow, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) has released its annual report on U.S. worker fatalities. The database, a comprehensive effort to gather specific information about workplace deaths, covers some 1,500 fatalities – about one-third of all workers who died on the job in 2014.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has recognized several NIOSH researchers and partners for their significant contributions to the field of occupational safety and health over the past year.

A manufacturer of custom-sized resin balls used in the petroleum industry exposed its employees to a breathtaking array of hazards, according to OSHA, which has leveled 48 violations and $105,200 in fines against A. Hyatt Ball Co., Inc. in Fort Edward, New York.

A welder died because Metal Shredders of Miamisburg, Ohio failed to protect him from an energized electrical line while he was cutting a metal roof off an industrial transformer substation, according to OSHA, which initiated an investigation at the company’s facility after the worker’s death.