Today's Safety News

RSS

For several years I have been attending EHS expos. They generally are kicked off by a rotating group of speakers who have an impressive list of companies and organizations to which they consult on EHS matters.

Some of us are blessed to step into an EHS role where “the table is set.” Top management daily walks the talk, and supports and publicly acknowledges our efforts. We operate in a Positive Safety Culture.

While increasing profits and lowering costs are still primary business goals; history and research have shown it is less expensive to support incentive programs that promote safety education and compliance than it is to dismiss them.

Do Not Pass go: The New York Times reports that “the owner of two Brooklyn construction companies was charged with manslaughter on Wednesday because the authorities said he ignored complaints about a poorly maintained retaining wall that collapsed at a work site in 2015, killing an 18-year-old laborer and injuring two others.”

U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta says the fiscal year 2018 budget request for the U.S. Department of Labor he released last week will “help American workers develop the necessary skills to meet the demands of a 21st century economy and get good, safe jobs, provide working families access to paid leave, assist employers in meeting their responsibilities under worker protection laws, and restore fiscal responsibility.”

A commercial grower in Hawaii misused pesticides in a way that endangered both its workers and its basic crop, according to the EPA, which has just announced a settlement with the company.

A Florida woman has been convicted of workers’ compensation fraud after footage from a surveillance camera showed her trying to fake a workplace injury. Sheyla White, an employee of Cinque Terre Energy Partners in Fort Lauderdale, claimed a sprinkler head from a ceiling emergency sprinkler system fell, bounced off her desk and struck her in the head in 2015.

Automotive steel manufacturer Republic Steel faces $279,578 in proposed penalties OSHA after agency investigators found workers at its Canton plant exposed to machine hazards and lead.

When President Donald J. Trump released his full budget request for Fiscal Year 2018 he did many in the OEHS community a favor, because he ignited a needed conversation about the real value of worker health and safety to the people of this nation.

Inadequate manning and the resultant crewmember fatigue caused the March 12, 2016, sinking of the tugboat Specialist in the Hudson River, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board.