Mayor Bill de Blasio this week signed legislation into law, authored by Council Member Ben Kallos in collaboration with DEP, aimed at reducing overnight and weekend construction noise and making New York City more livable. Intro. 1653-B allows inspectors to take noise readings from the roadway or sidewalk, rather than requiring that the reading be taken from inside of a complainant’s apartment, empowers inspectors to shut down equipment that is too loud, and calls for new rules for responding when the noise is most likely to happen again.
Virginia is considering a bill aimed at getting out in front of workplace violence by allowing companies to communicate freely with police about potential perpetrators.
Legislation introduced by Del. Chris Hurst, D-Blacksburg, would grant civil immunity to employers who share information about violent acts or threats made by current or former employees to potential employers or law enforcement.
Indecision and communication issues during an emergency on board an American Airlines flight put the lives of 161 passengers and nine crew members in jeopardy, but fortunately, there were no fatalities during the Oct. 28, 2017 episode.
That was one of the conclusions about the incident at Chicago O’Hare International Airport that was already released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Factory workers participating in a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) study had urinary BPA levels that far exceeded those found in the public.
For years, manufacturers have used the industrial chemical BPA, or bisphenol A, to make polycarbonate plastic, epoxy resins, and other specialty materials. Although BPA’s effects on people remain unclear, health concerns about the chemical have arisen because it weakly mimics the hormone estrogen.
Serious injuries to two employees brought OSHA inspectors to a vinyl floor manufacturing facility in Fostoria, Ohio, where they found multiple safety violations. Nox US LLC, an Ohio manufacturer of luxury vinyl tile, now faces $514,236 in proposed penalties and has been placed in OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program. Both injuries occurred in June 2017.
On Jan. 2, civil penalty amounts for violations of workplace safety and health standards increased by two percent from last year. In accordance with the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015, the Department of Labor is required to adjust penalties for inflation each year.
The EPA’s proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) will get three public hearings in the months ahead, as the agency continues its effort to dismantle President Obama’s initiative to reduce emissions from power plants in order to combat climate change.
Work-related accidents in 2017 in Bangladesh in 2017 claimed 1,242 lives and injured 371, according to a report by the country’s Occupational Safety, Health and Environment Foundation (OSHE). Nearly 300 fatalities and 101 serious injuries occurred during the first three months of the year.
In the early 1970s, a Johnson & Johnson official posed a question that haunts the company today. If Johnson’s Baby Powder contained asbestos at a level of, say, 1 percent, how much of the cancer-causing substance would a baby inhale when dusted with the powder?
Opioid prescribing has increased 471 percent from 1996 to 2012, according to a new Annals of Emergency Medicine study, “Emergency Department Contribution to the Prescription Opioid Epidemic.” But, emergency departments are not a major source of opioid prescriptions. In fact, their share of opioid prescribing is small and declining.
RSS
