After more than two decades years of legal wrangling, OSHA has finally collected $412,000 in penalties assessed to a New Jersey construction company for safety violations – plus interest.
The action comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in July found Altor Inc. and its president Vasilios Saites in contempt for failing to pay the fines. Even that decision – which followed litigation that included multiple hearings before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) and the Court of Appeals – was followed by subsequent briefings and negotiations before the case came to a close.
Workplace violence was a common theme in some of the workplace incidents that killed or injured employees in the U.S. There were also incidents involving machinery, a fall and a struck-by fatality. Here are some of the occupational safety news stories of the week:
OSHA has released fiscal year (FY) 2019 final statistics showing a significant increase in the number of inspections and a record amount of compliance assistance to further the mission of ensuring that employers provide workplaces free of hazards.
Federal OSHA conducted 33,401 inspections—more inspections than the previous three years.
An incident that occurred Friday on the set of a Hollywood movie being filmed in British Columbia left a crew member with injuries, according to TMZ.
EMTs were summoned to the set of “The Last Victim,” a movie starring Ron Perlman. TMZ is reporting that the driver of the truck involved accidentally accelerated, missing its stop and “sending the crew scrambling to safety.”
A worker who knows all the ins-and-outs of their position and has spent years on the site will be more efficient than someone who has just started. But, learning on the fly in situations like this could be riskier than you may think. Research from Toronto’s Institute for Work & Health shows that workers who had been at a job for a month or less had three times the risk of suffering a lost-time injury compared to those who had been at a job for over a year.
Whether you shop in a brick-and-mortar store or online, the goods you purchase spent some time in one of 7,000 warehouses in the U.S. before making their way into your home. More than 145,000 people work in those warehouses – some in a seasonal capacity. There, they are subject to an injury rate that is higher than the national average for all industries.
A workplace incident last week claimed the lives of two part-time package handlers at the UPS operation in Ontario, California.
News reports say 20-year-old Austin Stache and 22-year-old Noe Tinoco Jr. were killed in the incident, which occurred early in the morning of Nov. 25 at the UPS hub at Ontario International Airport.
A controversial rule with worker safety implications gets sidelined, construction company personnel charged with felonies after an occupational fatality and making sure holiday decorating is safe were among the stories featured this week on ISHN.com.
A multinational construction, property and infrastructure company based in Australia is using Moms to promote jobsite awareness and safe behavior at its worksites and offices. Lendlease, which is headquartered in Barangaroo, Sydney, assembled a team of real-life mothers of Lendlease employees to accompany their children to work and talk about the importance of safety for its “Moms for Safety” campaign, which has garnered international awards.
Three workers were injured this morning – one seriously – when a southeast Texas refinery was rocked by a chemical explosion followed by a fire.
Residents within a half mile of the plant in Port Neches, about 90 miles east of Houston, were ordered to evacuate during the emergency.
