The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) says its new Association Health Plans (AHP) rule will enable small companies to more easily afford to offer health insurance to their employees. The AHP – which stems from an Executive Order by President Trump, will allow small businesses, including self-employed workers, to band together by geography or industry to obtain healthcare coverage as if they were a single large employer.

A major government reorganization, a union drops its health and safety program and the AIHA gets a new Board of Directors. These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.

Most of the provisions of OSHA’s standard for respirable crystalline silica in general industry and maritime become enforceable on June 23, 2018. The standard establishes a new 8-hour time-weighted average permissible exposure limit, action level, and associated ancillary requirements.

The Black Lung Benefits Program is more than $4 billion dollars in debt, and a 55 percent reduction scheduled at the end of 2018 in the production tax paid by coal companies will cause that deficit to nearly quadruple over the next 30 years, according to a recent report by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO).

OSHA announced Friday that it will extend the comment period on the proposed rule on crane operator certification. Comments will now be accepted through July 5, 2018. This extension allows stakeholders more time to review the proposed rule.

As the nation’s fleet of small recreational and commercial drones keeps soaring — the government projects nearly 3 million will be in the skies by 2022 — safety concerns are rising even as federal enforcement stalls. The Federal Aviation Administration has collected 6,117 reports of potentially unsafe use of drones from February, 2014 through April of this year, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office.

Teenagers from local high schools flock to Brooklyn Vape in downtown Brooklyn. The store is small – a single room with vape paraphernalia stacked to the ceiling in glass cabinets. Many of the teens walk awkwardly through the shop and ask the clerk, a man who goes by Ali and wouldn’t give his last name, if they can buy an e-cigarette.

General industry and maritime employers must comply with OSHA’s silica standard by June 23, except for phase-in dates for medical surveillance and for engineering controls in the oil and gas industry.

In a closely watched election contest, San Francisco voters have upheld a first-in-the-nation ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products, overwhelmingly rejecting an $11.6 million campaign by R.J. Reynolds to scuttle the law. San Francisco officials last June approved the ban but a petition drive funded by Reynolds, the maker of the top-selling menthol brand, Newport, forced the issue onto yesterday’s ballot.

Emergency eyewash systems and drench showers should be easy to access and readily available with tepid water. But as many safety facility managers will attest, these potentially life-saving fixtures aren’t always easy to provide in locations where they are required.