May 15, 2012 by Fred Hosier
For a while now, OSHA has been telling businesses that they need to take a closer look at their safety incentive programs. Now, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says OSHA has to take a closer look at its guidance about safety incentive programs.
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Tags: Government Accountability Office, injury reporting, safety incentives, Voluntary Protection Program
May 11, 2012 by Fred Hosier
Last month we told you about how a newspaper photo got an organization into trouble with OSHA. Now, fear of something similar happening cost some workers a week on the job. A newspaper snapped their photo while they were dangling their legs over the edge of an I-beam, eating lunch and watching a ball game.
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Tags: beam, lunch break, newspaper photo
May 8, 2012 by Fred Hosier
A New England supermarket chain will pay $400,000 in fines, hire a full-time safety officer and make other improvements in a settlement with OSHA.
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Tags: cut hazards, fell onto concrete floor, Market Basket, OSHA settlement
May 7, 2012 by Fred Hosier
It just goes to show that an occupational fatality can happen anywhere: OSHA is investigating the death of a tree worker at a nudist club in New Jersey.
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Tags: hard hat, nudist club, struck on the head
May 3, 2012 by Fred Hosier
An engine cooling manufacturing company has been placed in OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP) following a fatality last year and previous serious injuries to workers. The company now also owes OSHA $210,000.
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Tags: energy control, machine guarding, Severe Violator Enforcement Program, worker crushed to death
April 24, 2012 by Fred Hosier
How did an employee’s complaint about a rodent problem at work turn into a whistleblower lawsuit?
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Tags: Department of Labor lawsuit, rodents, whistleblower
April 23, 2012 by Fred Hosier
A report to Congress from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) calls the process for creating a new OSHA regulation “protracted” and “lengthy.”
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Tags: General Duty Clause, Government Accountability Office, OSHA regulations, OSHA rulemaking, permissible exposure limits
April 20, 2012 by Fred Hosier
OSHA is investigating the death of a worker for a company that supplied swans and dogs to keep geese away from business and residential properties. Reports suggest one of the animals may have played a part in the worker’s drowning.
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Tags: geese, life jacket, swan, worker drowning
April 16, 2012 by Fred Hosier
A new court ruling significantly changes how far back OSHA can look for violations of its standard on recording employee injuries.
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Tags: OSHA injury logs, OSHA recordkeeping, Volks Constructors
April 11, 2012 by Fred Hosier
OSHA has cited a pasta manufacturing plant with three willful and three serious violations in connection with a dust explosion that sent two maintenance employees to the hospital with serious burns to their upper bodies.
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Tags: combustible dust, Gilster-Mary Lee, sugar dust
April 9, 2012 by Fred Hosier
Companies have the right to require OSHA to get a warrant before allowing a safety and health inspection. But once OSHA has a warrant, continuing to prevent an inspection can be costly.
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Tags: All-Feed, OSHA inspection, warrant, YouTube
April 9, 2012 by Fred Hosier
It’s usually video of the aftermath that shows the destructive power of tornadoes. However, the recent outbreak of twisters near Dallas provided a picture of the havoc during the storms: video of tractor trailers being picked up and dropped like toys. Click through for a link to the video and advice for safe tornado response.
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Tags: National Weather Service, tornado season, tractor trailers tossed
April 3, 2012 by Fred Hosier
A year-and-a-half ago, OSHA instituted new policies aimed at increasing average amounts for certain types of safety and health fines. After reviewing the results, the agency is making one change that actually will cut some businesses a break.
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Tags: OSHA fines, reduction for small employers, small businesses
April 2, 2012 by Fred Hosier
A federal court case regarding a $900 fine against a company for omitting an injury from its OSHA 300 log has resulted in sharp criticism of OSHA’s recordkeeping standard. See if you agree with the court:
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Tags: Caterpillar Logistics Services, contributed to work-related injury, musculoskeletal disorders, OSHA injury log
March 30, 2012 by Fred Hosier
Here’s proof that when an employee is killed on the job, state and federal officials will probably keep a close watch on the company where it happened, not only for safety violations, but also for its other business practices.
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Tags: business owner arrested, killed in dough mixing machine, Tortilleria Chinantla
March 29, 2012 by Fred Hosier
A federal jury has awarded a railroad worker more than $1 million in a lawsuit that accused his employer of retaliating against him because he was injured on the job.
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Tags: Federal Railroad Safety Act, Metro-North, retaliation
March 28, 2012 by Fred Hosier
OSHA is investigating the death of a construction worker in New Hampshire who fell 15 feet from a scissor lift.
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Tags: crane, Hanover Inn, scissor lift
March 27, 2012 by Fred Hosier
OSHA started this investigation after inspectors witnessed workers exposed to fall hazards at two commercial work sites in Wisconsin.
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Tags: fall hazards, fall protection, repeat violations
March 26, 2012 by Fred Hosier
OSHA is telling its investigators: During inspections, watch for workplace policies and practices that could discourage workers from reporting injuries, which could be a violation of whistleblower and recordkeeping rules. Among the policies they’re told to look for: certain types of safety incentive programs.
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Tags: OSHA inspections, Recordkeeping, safety incentive programs, whistleblower
March 21, 2012 by Fred Hosier
To find out what’s in OSHA’s revised Hazard Communication Standard (HCS), you can read this 280-word story or the 858 pages that appeared in the Federal Register. We’ll also give you a link to the FR notice just in case.
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Tags: Globally Harmonized System, hazard communication, hazcom, material safety data sheets
March 20, 2012 by Fred Hosier
OSHA is trying to determine how a worker in a Brush, CO, warehouse was crushed to death by a 15-foot high pile of pinto beans.
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Tags: conveyor, crushed by pinto beans, Kelly Bean Co.
March 15, 2012 by Fred Hosier
The South Dakota Wheat Growers Association has settled a case with OSHA involving the suffocation death of a worker in a sunflower seed silo.
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Tags: confined space, engulfed, grain handling, suffocated in sunflower seeds
March 14, 2012 by Fred Hosier
OSHA has filed 16 safety violations against a company in Warrior, AL, in connection with the death of a worker on Sept. 12, 2011.
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Tags: caught in machine, crushed to death, Severe Violator Enforcement Program
March 12, 2012 by Fred Hosier
When Congress eliminated OSHA’s ergonomics rule in 2001, it was also generally understood that the agency could not issue a new rule that was “substantially the same” as the old one. But what if a new ergonomics rule wasn’t substantially the same?
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Tags: Congressional Review Act, cost-benefit analysis, new ergonomics standard, University of Pennsylvania Law School
March 12, 2012 by Fred Hosier
Struck-by injuries aren’t unusual in construction. But the manner in which a piece of equipment was set in motion makes this case more unusual.
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Tags: bizarre accident, construction fatality, struck-by
March 9, 2012 by Fred Hosier
A federal court says because a company made some effort to comply with an OSHA standard, safety violations weren’t willful. That will reduce the OSHA fines, which were originally almost $7.5 million, by at least 90%.
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Tags: Dayton Tire, lockout/tagout, OSHRC, willful violation
March 7, 2012 by Fred Hosier
This company got snared in OSHA’s Site-Specific Targeting (SST) program which focuses on employers with injury rates that are higher than their industry’s national average.
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Tags: high injury rate, lockout/tagout, Site-Specific Targeting program
March 1, 2012 by Fred Hosier
OSHA has ordered a trucking company to immediately rehire a truck driver. The agency says the driver was fired after reporting safety concerns.
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Tags: DOT, truck's brakes, whistleblower, work hours
February 23, 2012 by Fred Hosier
Two companies involved in packaging Hershey’s chocolates face $288,000 in OSHA fines in connection with violations regarding foreign exchange students. On top of the OSHA violations, an organization representing guest workers calls the situation one that “kills decent U.S. jobs.”
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Tags: failing to record injuries, foreign exchange students, Hershey, OSHA 300 log
February 21, 2012 by Fred Hosier
Publix Supermarkets faces $182,000 in OSHA fines in connection with the amputation of an employee’s hand.
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Tags: amputation, Publix, Severe Violator Enforcement Program
February 20, 2012 by Fred Hosier
Will OSHA conduct more inspections in federal Fiscal Year 2013 (FY 2013)? Will there be new regulations? And how does the agency plan to fund compliance assistance to companies? President Obama’s budget proposal shows what’s ahead.
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Tags: OSHA budget, OSHA enforcement, OSHA standards
February 14, 2012 by Fred Hosier
Questions about requirements to get into OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) date back all the way to a Government Accountability Office report in 2004. Now, yet another arm of the federal government is giving the VPP a close look.
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Tags: BLS injury report, iWatchNews.org, VPP
February 8, 2012 by Fred Hosier
OSHA has fined an Oklahoma grain company in connection with an incident last August that caused two 17-year-olds to suffer leg amputations.
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Tags: caught in conveyor, grain company, leg amputations, machine guard
February 3, 2012 by Fred Hosier
A grand jury in New Hampshire has handed up indictments of the former owner of a gunpowder manufacturing plant in the deaths of two workers.
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Tags: failure to train workers, gun powder plant explosion, manslaughter charges, negligent homicide
January 31, 2012 by Fred Hosier
OSHA says it won’t issue any citations for the incident that killed two teenage corn detasselers in Illinois last year.
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Tags: detasseler deaths, electrocuted, Monsanto Co.
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