That the opioid crisis is wreaking havoc on individuals’ lives, tearing families apart and straining municipal emergency response resources is well documented. What is getting less attention is the effects opioid use and misuse may have in the workplace – and the role of work-related injuries in making a person susceptible to opioid addiction.

A fatigue crack was the probable cause of a 2017 pipeline rupture in South Dakota that spilled thousands of gallons of crude oil, according to a pipeline accident brief released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

The statistics are shocking. On average, one child dies from heatstroke in a vehicle nearly every 10 days in the United States. Since 1998, there have been 760 pediatric vehicular heatstroke deaths – including 18 already this year.

OSHA recently issued several new publications providing solutions to hazards in specific occupations and industries:

"MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to."

After a six-month investigation, OSHA has issued citations to the employer of an Ohio man killed in a trench collapse last December – and they weren’t the first for the company. In the most recent fatality, JK Excavating & Utilities, Inc. employee Zach Hess died when a trench he was working in collapsed.

I took a week off compiling this list. No change in the deadly work that American workers do, except that workers have fewer rights than they did two weeks ago — especially public employees. In other news, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed an appropriations bill requiring OSHA to start listing names of workers killed on their homepage again, but we will continue with the Weekly Toll here at Confined Space.

OSHA is postponing enforcement of certain requirements of the final rule on occupational exposure to beryllium in general industry. Requirements originally scheduled for enforcement on June 25 will not be enforced until Aug. 9.

The European Trade Union Confederation and Institute (ETUC and ETUI) held a three-day symposium in Brussels recently at which trade unionists, policy makers and academics brainstormed about initiatives that will be needed to cope with four global mega trends that are radically changing the world of work.

As a safety professional, your job is anything but static. Changes initiated by you or by upper management and implemented by you are inevitable. That process can go smoothly – or not. A new study sheds some light on how employee engagement in the change process impacts how well change is implemented.