Articles Tagged with ''workplace safety''

Ohio employers can fire employees who use medical marijuana or refuse to hire them in the first place. Medical marijuana is legal in Ohio, but it remains illegal at the federal level and Ohio employers are testing for it like they would any other illegal drug. “Under Ohio law, employers don’t have to currently hire someone who uses medical marijuana and they don’t have to retain an employee that tests positive for medical marijuana,” said Michael Griffaton, an attorney at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP.

What happens when an electrical lineman is working on a transformer from the bucket truck and accidentally drops a tool that results in what would otherwise be thought of as a simple spark? It could easily trigger a dangerous release of energy known as an arc flash (aka arc fault and arc blast). This release of energy, created when electrical current leaves its intended path and travels from one conductor to another, or from one conductor to the ground, can have serious—sometimes tragic—consequences.

Medical cannabis laws are associated with a 34% decline in workplace deaths for adults age 25 to 44, a new study finds. The reason? Those workers might be drinking less alcohol and taking less pills due to legalization.

OSHA has issued a whopping 22 citations to Kumho Tire Georgia Inc., Sae Joong Mold Inc., and J-Brothers Inc. after a follow-up inspection found safety and health hazards at the tire manufacturing facility in Macon, Georgia. The three companies collectively face $523,895 in proposed penalties.

OSHA’s recent call for comments that may be used to help update its Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) standard highlights an area of growing concern for safety professionals: robotics-human interaction. When the agency’s Control of Hazardous Energy (LOTO) standard was issued in 1989, industrial robots were in use – primarily in manufacturing – but they bore little resemblance to their modern day counterparts. In the 1960s, '70s and '80s, industrial robots were capable of gripping objects, moving them from one point to another and performing assembly tasks.

Some 67 percent of highway contractors report that motor vehicles crashed into their construction work zones during the past year, according to the results of a new highway work zone study conducted by the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). In response, association officials have launched a new radio and media campaign urging drivers to slow down and remain alert in highway work zones.

Certified Human Performance Technologist Shane Bush will lead a special workshop titled, “What Works – What Doesn’t,” at the Pavilion at Hilton Palacio in San Antonio, TX, June 26 – 27. The workshop is presented in conjunction with the Pulp and Paper Safety Association’s (PPSA) 76th Annual Health & Safety Conference.

A New Jersey food manufacturer has reached a region-wide settlement with OSHA and agreed to pay $152,934 in penalties for a range of safety citations. The settlement with Pennsauken-based J&J Snack Foods Corp. will affect the company’s eight food manufacturing and warehouse facilities in New Jersey and New York.

The Alaska Occupational Safety and Health Division issued 14 citations and $270,723 in penalties to Trident Seafood Corporation after two workers were seriously injured by unguarded machinery. Inspectors found that the company failed to provide machine guarding on augers, conveyors, sprocket wheels, and chains.

For motorists and the workers who build, repair, and maintain streets, bridges, and highways, roadway work zones can be dangerous. In these areas, a variety of complicated road signs, barrels and lane changes could increase the risk of motor vehicle crashes.