According to the fiscal year 2013 Congressional Budget Justification document for OSHA, the agency proposes a total of $73,131,000 and 264 full-time employee equivalents (FTE) for federal compliance assistance, a decrease of $3,224,415 and 31 FTE below the FY 2012 enacted level. OSHA historically ramps up compliance assistance under Republican White House administrations, and de-emphasizes compliance assistance when Democrats control the White House.
Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis last week announced a final rule to strengthen safety in the nation's most dangerous mines. The rule, which revises the Mine Safety and Health Administration's pattern of violations regulation in 30 Code of Federal Regulations Part 104, has been submitted to the Federal Register for publication.
One objection of mine to adding more OSHA standards is that the standards cited frequently (top ten in frequency) remain generally the same year to year. Sometimes they shift position in frequency order. Sometimes the numbers of citations trend up or down, but generally it all remains in a controlled range.
In the spring of 2010, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who announced her resignation January 9th, 2013, put her name on the Department of Labor’s Regulatory Agenda Narrative, where she endorsed a strategy of “Plan/Prevent/Protect.”
Lately, I've been doing a fair amount of management training in the past few months. What I often see is safety folks, both full-time and part-time, who are struggling to do the compliance thing and a management team that is perfectly happy to let them struggle. Essentially nothing has changed in the 44 years I've been doing occupational safety. The problem is most basic---no one wants to see people hurt but neither do they see safety as a core element of their company culture.
After an unexpected release of hazardous materials that led to the temporary shut-down of Dover Chemical Co. and an adjacent highway in Ohio in May, OSHA has cited the company for 47 health and safety violations. Although no injuries were reported as a result of the incident, OSHA opened an investigation focused on the agency's standards for process safety management, known as PSM, at facilities that use highly hazardous chemicals.
ICC Compliance Center (ICC) is proud to announce its 25 year anniversary as a premier provider of hazmat compliance solutions for regulatory transportation and workplace safety.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has introduced a new compliance assistance resource intended to address one of the most commonly cited violations in the metal and nonmetal mining industry: improperly guarded machinery.
The need for safety equipment when performing hazardous tasks is undisputed, yet U.S. workers continue to take risks by failing to wear personal protective equipment (PPE) when it is needed.
