The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has produced a new smart phone app that enhances ladder safety. The app uses visual and audio signals to make it easier for workers using extension ladders to check the angle the ladder is positioned at, as well as access useful tips for using extension ladders safely.

Young and less experienced home building workers are the intended audience for a new publication from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) which is intended to help them avoid injuries.

OSHA has cited Accadia Site Contracting Inc. for alleged willful and serious excavation safety violations found at a water main site at Lewiston Road and McKinley Avenue in Niagara Falls. The Depew-based contractor faces a total of $84,000 in proposed fines after an inspection by OSHA's Buffalo Area Office.

OSHA has announced that it will propose extending the compliance date for the crane operator certification requirement by three years to Nov. 10, 2017. The proposal would also extend to the same date the existing phase-in requirement that employers ensure that their operators are qualified to operate the equipment.

OSHA is investigating the death last week of an Illinois construction worker who died after being struck by a 70-pound falling beam at a worksite.

The Big Apple’s crane regulations trump OSHA’s, according to a recent ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which upheld a lower court ruling.

It isn’t often that the results of one’s safety efforts in the workplace are easily measured, but in the case of Jeremy Bethancourt, that measurement is 11. And counting. Since the Arizona businessman began developing and implementing strengthened fall procedures at Scottsdale, Arizona-based LeBlanc Building Co. in 2006, 11 construction workers employed by LeBlanc have had falls arrested, saving them from likely serious injury or death.

Two short, dramatic worker safety videos presenting the hazard of fatal falls on the job are now available online. Produced by the California Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program, with support from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the videos illustrate true stories about the death of a worker who fell through a skylight and a solar installer who fell off a roof.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released data last week showing that the final count of fatal work injuries in the U.S. in 2011 was 4,693 -- the third lowest annual total since the fatal injury census was first conducted in 1992.