OSHA is developing two additional health National Emphasis Programs (NEPs) that will take affect this year: Nursing and Residential Care Facilities and Isocyanates. NEPs, along with Local Emphasis Programs (LEPs), target high-hazard industries whose workers face increased risks of severe illnesses or severe injuries.
Measure has tougher penalties for workplace hazards
April 24, 2013
The reintroduction of a bill that would strengthen the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) is being hailed as a necessary step for protecting U.S. workers by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH).
OSHA has cited Keystone Pain Institute with eight serious health violations involving bloodborne pathogen hazards at the company's Altoona facility. The February inspection by OSHA's Pittsburgh Area Office was prompted by a complaint and resulted in $46,800 in proposed penalties.
NY’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral will host a “hardhat procession”
April 19, 2013
At a construction site in New Jersey, a train depot in Illinois, St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and other locations in the U.S., Canada and hundreds of other countries, ceremonies will be held in late April and early May to commemorate Worker’s Memorial Day 2013 (in Canada it’s known as Workers’ Day of Mourning).
Approximately eight million U.S. health care workers are year are potentially exposed to hazardous drugs used to treat patients. “It seems counter-intuitive that the health care industry, whose mission is the care of the sick, is itself a "high-hazard" industry for the workers it employs,” notes a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) webpage on the subject.
“Not the first time”for Mike Mike Neri Sewer & Water Contractor Inc.
April 17, 2013
OSHA has cited an Illinois contractor for seven safety violations, including three willful, for failing to protect workers from cave-ins and moving soil and chunks of asphalt during trenching operations. The inspection was initiated under OSHA's national emphasis program for trenching and excavation after an OSHA inspector witnessed apparent cave-in hazards while traveling past a construction site in Des Plaines on Oct. 3, 2012.
Treatment for broken bones, etc. was denied or delayed to get bonuses
April 16, 2013
A former safety manager of the Shaw Group has been sentenced to 78 months in prison for deliberately falsifying records of workplace injuries. Shaw, formerly Stone and Webster Construction, held a contract for construction services at several TVA facilities, and used the false injury reports to claim bonuses of more than $2.5 million under the contract.
Several rides at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim remain closed in the wake of seven safety citations issued against the resort by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA).
Occupational accidents claimed 19 miners’ lives last year
April 15, 2013
Fatality and injury rates in 2012 were the lowest in the the history of U.S. mining, according to statistics released recently by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). “MSHA at a Glance,” with updated information on inspections, violations, mines and miners, as well as injury and fatality rates, is available on the agency’s website, www.msha.gov, under “Fact Sheets.”
Dangerous conditions uncovered after miner gets shocked
April 12, 2013
Rox Coal Inc., which operates the Geronimo Mine in Somerset County, Pa., has been found in violation of a mandatory electrical hazard safety standard by an administrative law judge with the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission. The ALJ deemed the violation “quintessentially flagrant” and ordered the company to pay a $110,000 civil penalty.