For the first time, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has launched a National Emphasis Program to protect millions of workers from heat illness and injuries. Through the program, OSHA will conduct heat-related workplace inspections before workers suffer completely preventable injuries, illnesses or, even worse, fatalities.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is proposing amendments to its occupational injury and illness recordkeeping regulation, 29 CFR 1904.41. The current regulation requires certain employers to electronically submit injury and illness information – that they are required to keep – to OSHA. The agency uses these reports to identify and respond to emerging hazards and makes aspects of the information publicly available.

 A federal investigation into a fatal workplace injury on Aug. 19, 2021, at a Town of Oyster Bay municipal building has found a Setauket roofing contractor failed to provide necessary safeguards to protect employees against falls.

OSHA announced the availability of $3.2 million in funds from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 for Susan Harwood Workplace Safety and Health Training on Infectious Diseases, Including COVID-19 grants.

A series of federal workplace safety and health inspections at four Dollar General stores in Alabama and Georgia in the summer of 2021 found the nationwide discount retailer’s long history of exposing employees to dangerous working conditions continues. 

OSHA issued citations related to methylene chloride hazards, including allowing workers to be overexposed to the solvent, and failing to provide personal protective equipment, eye wash stations, and medical surveillance for workers exposed or potentially exposed to the solvent. 

The U.S. Department of Labor announced today a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking by the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration to improve worker safety and health by ensuring the agency’s general industry and construction industry rules reflect current industry practice and state-of-the-art technology. 

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited the employer involved in a February 2021 double fatality at a downtown Boston worksite and his successor company again for failing to provide employees with essential and required safeguards, this time at an East Boston residential construction site.