Being fired for refusing to safety glasses was apparently what set in motion a deadly rampage at a suburban Chicago manufacturing facility in February. Before it was over, the company’s human resources manager who’d done the firing was dead, along with four other employees and the gunman. Six police offers were injured in the incident.

An employee at a Pennsylvania food processing plant was killed on the job Tuesday after falling into an industrial-size meat grinder machine. Jill Greninger, 35, was reportedly standing on stairs next to the grinder when she "tragically either fell or was drawn into the machine resulting in her death," according to a statement by Lycoming County Coroner Charles Kiessling.

Four people were killed and four injured on Saturday when a crane collapsed and fell from a downtown Seattle building, crushing several vehicles. Two of the fatalities were crane operators; the others were occupants of cars. The incident occurred at approximately 3:30 p.m., when the crane reportedly separated into two parts and fell.

In the United States, farm workers die from heat-related illness at an annual rate 20 times that of other workers. However, few studies have measured heat conditions at their actual work settings, and research is limited on how accurately regional weather reports reflect worksite temperatures.

Amazon’s announcement that it will soon provide one-day shipping for some customers is not receiving an enthusiastic response from worker safety advocates. Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said on Thursday that the company will change the current two-day standard free shipping plan to a one day plan for Prime members.

Cal/OSHA has issued more than $300,000 in serious citations to two employers after a temporary worker lost two fingers cleaning machinery at a food manufacturing facility in Los Angeles. The worker was cleaning a dough rolling machine when his left hand was partially pulled into the moving rollers and two of his fingers were amputated.

Just in time for Workers Memorial Day, April 28, the AFL-CIO has released its annual report, “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect.” Among the figures in this year’s comprehensive look at the state of safety and health protections for America’s workers: in 2017, 5,147 workers lost their lives on the job as a result of traumatic injuries, according to fatality data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A group of health organizations says Philip Morris International - one of the world’s largest cigarette manufacturers – is engaging in a “campaign of deception” by saying one thing and doing another. The company recently introduced a new cigarette brand in Indonesia just weeks before announcing “The Year of Unsmoke,” a follow-up to claims that it wants a smoke-free future.

More than 80 percent of popular brand e-cigarettes sold in the U.S. that were examined in a new study were contaminated with bacterial and fungal toxins. Researchers from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found glucan in 81 percent of the products– single use cartridges and refillable e-liquids. Endotoxin was found in 27 percent of them.

Are insurers required to reimburse for medical marijuana in workers compensation? That is one of the topics covered by Laura Kersey in an online article for the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI). Kersey writes that insurers are increasingly receiving requests to reimburse for medical marijuana use for workers compensation treatment, and explains how that issue is complicated by the federal-state schism in the status of cannabis.