A poll released last month by the San
Francisco-based Employment Law Alliance, found that workplace safety was the
top reason given by respondents for organized labor, narrowly edging benefits,
wages and job security. Of those polled, 63 percent listed workplace safety as
a major factor driving them toward unionization.
The legislation would apply federal safety
standards to workers who are not currently covered, including federal, state
and local employees, and some private sector employees; increase penalties for
repeated and willful offenses; and allow OSHA to apply felony charges for
repeated or willful violations that result in a worker death.
ASSE
recently announced the approval of the new American National Standard Institute
(ANSI)/ASSE Z359.2-2007 standard. The standard, Minimum Requirements
for a Comprehensive Managed Fall Protection Program, is the first
approved in a series of standards that focus on fall protection and related
systems.
OSHA is reminding employers that they must
provide cave-in protection whenever their employees work in excavations five
feet or deeper. The warning follows an investigation into the Jan. 10, 2007,
death of an employee at the Tamarack Country Club, Greenwich, Conn., who was
killed in a cave-in while installing drainage pipes in an unprotected six-foot
deep trench on the club's golf course.
ASSE Governmental Affairs committee chair Thomas
F. Cecich, CSP, CIH, of Apex, N.C., testified today on the benefits of OSHA's
cooperative programs before a Senate subcommittee.
Half
of employers with 1,000 employees or more in the United States had an incident
of workplace violence in 2006, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in a
study conducted for NIOSH.
The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration has formally begun its probe of last week's deadly wall collapse at a Tri-Star Mining strip mine in Barton, Md.
OSHA signed an agreement April 6, 2007, with the
Building Construction Trades Department (BCTD), AFL-CIO, Laborers’
International Union of North America, and International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
to settle their challenge to OSHA’s hexavalent chromium standard (BCTD, et al.,
v. OSHA, Case No. 06-2433 (3d Cir.).
OSHA is making available its look-back study for
the agency's construction standard on excavations. The Regulatory Flexibility
Act of 1980 directs OSHA to review and evaluate the effectiveness of its
standards and the impact those standards have had on lowering injuries,
illnesses and fatalities in the workplace.
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