OSHA’s chance for a chief steps aside, pesticide hazards grab headlines and OSHA issues a rule that revises some standards. These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.

OSHA wants to hear from employers about how they’ve been using control circuit-type devices to isolate energy and about evolving technology for robotics. The information request is for a possible update of the agency’s Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) standard.

An Ohio roofing contractor who has never paid penalties for one of the many OSHA citations it’s been issued was ordered earlier this month to get right with OSHA. The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Holland-based Casey Bortles to immediately comply with the final orders resulting from uncontested citations.

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.

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.

Five years of legal wrangling following a workplace amputation – in which retaliation, intrigue and secret photos played a part – ended recently with a decision by a federal jury in Pennsylvania. The jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania found that Lloyd Industries Inc. and its owner, William P. Lloyd, unlawfully fired two employees because of their involvement in an OSHA investigation.

California OSHA issued four citations and $63,560 in penalties to Mercer-Fraser Co. after a worker driving a truck collided with a front end loader and suffered a serious head injury. Inspectors determined that the company failed to require seat belt use, develop and implement safe practices for workers operating haul trucks, and ensure that trucks were operated at safe speeds.

OSHA issued a fine of $75,156 to packaging firm Ampac Mobile Holdings LLC after two workers were injured by machinery at the firm’s manufacturing plant in Mobile, AL, the agency announced in a recent release.

A Texas manufacturing company faces more than a quarter of a million dollars in penalties, after OSHA inspectors determined it exposed its employees to falls and other hazards. Molding Acquisition Corp. - operating as Rotoplas – was cited for a dozen violations by OSHA – ten serious and two willful – for failing to protect employees from serious safety hazards at its location in Fort Worth.