If you have recuperated from an illness or injury at home recently—or enjoyed the workplace quietude while your coughing, sniffling, and sneezing coworker stayed home—you probably know firsthand the benefits of paid sick leave.
Unfortunately, many workers still do not have access to this job benefit, even though it may help employers reduce absenteeism-related costs, according to a recent NIOSH study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
A gunman opened fire at the Maryland company where he worked yesterday, killing three co-workers and critically wounding two others before driving to Delaware, where he shot another man. Radee Labee Prince, who had worked for four months at Advanced Granite Solutions, a kitchen countertop company in Edgewood, Maryland, arrived at the start of his 8:30 a.m. shift and opened fire with a handgun.
OSHA has cited the owner of a South Jersey construction company for exposing workers to serious scaffold hazards at a job site in Philadelphia. Inspectors found employees performing work using a scaffold that was dangerously close to power lines.
Dan Zak of the Washington Post has written a long feature article on the impact and aftermath of the West fertilizer explosion that killed 15 people, injured 252 and damaged or destroyed 500 buildings in the small town of West Texas on April 17, 2013.
The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) has won a 2017 Learnie Award for its AIHce:REPLAY series. The Learnie Awards recognize associations who have pioneered a new way of learning. AIHce:REPLAY, is a virtual way attendees can relive important sessions and topics presented at prior AIHce EXP events, including full video, audio, and slides.
The pilot’s “pattern of poor decision-making” – which was likely exacerbated by the medications he was taking for multiple health problems – led to the July 30, 2016 hot air balloon accident in Texas that killed 15 passengers and the pilot.
Scientists have known for decades that drinking water contaminated by fertilizer nitrates can pose a threat to infants by undermining the ability of their blood to carry oxygen. The condition, known as ‘blue baby syndrome,” led federal regulators to impose an environmental standard of no more than 10 parts per million, or ppm, for nitrates in public water supplies.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has released an eight minute safety video entitled “Fire in Baton Rouge” detailing the agency’s Key Lessons stemming from the 2016 fire at the ExxonMobil Refinery that seriously injured four workers. The video includes a new four minute animation explaining the events leading up to the incident.
Starting with a 30-minute mantrip ride to deep under the ground, U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta got a close-up look at a West Virginia coal mine recently – an experience Acosta said gave him an appreciation for the men and women who work in the nation’s 13,000 mines.
The poultry industry and Republican lawmakers are urging the Trump administration to make a change that could have profound implications for both worker safety and food safety.