The title of the press release says, “OSHA encourages major retailers to provide crowd management measures.” A better word instead of “encourages” would have been “warns.”

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Tags: Black Friday, crowd control, OSHA warning, retailers, Wal-Mart trampling death

An investigation by iWatchNews.org shows a number of employee deaths at “model workplaces” within OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) haven’t been recorded in the agency’s database that monitors the program. And the facilities remain in VPP today.

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Tags: David Michaels, deaths recorded, i2p2, iWatch News, National Safety Council, OSHA funding, user fees, VPP

Some business leaders claim the reason the U.S. economy has been floundering is because of the number of new regulations imposed by the Obama administration. Bloomberg News has conducted an analysis of new regulations enacted by the last several presidents. The results may surprise some people.

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Tags: beryllium, Bloomberg News, combustible dust, diacetyl, federal rules, injury and illness prevention programs, Obama regulations

While some lawmakers in Washington are harping on OSHA for creating too many regulations, a recent report says during the last ten years, there have been fewer new regulations produced by the agency than in any other period in its history.

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Tags: diacetyl, OSHA Inaction, Public Citizen, silica, small business, too many new regulations

As someone in charge of workplace safety, you know it’s possible to create a new hazard by eliminating an old one — an unintended consequence. It appears that’s the case in Nevada where a new ban on using hand-held cell phones while driving went into effect this month.

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Tags: cell phone law, hand-held cell phones, hands-free cell phones, Nevada, unintended consequences

Just one U.S. senator is blocking a bill that would strengthen safety rules for oil and gas pipelines. The senator isn’t opposed to any particular part of the bill; he simply doesn’t like any additional federal regulation at all.

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Tags: less federal regulation, National Transportation Safety Board, new safety regulations, Pacific Gas & Electric, pipeline safety bill, San Bruno pipeline explosion, Sen. Rand Paul, Tea Party

The final, and most comprehensive, report on the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico points to seven company practices that contributed to the incident. They’re the types of mistakes that could be made by any company, not just an oil giant.

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Tags: BP oil disaster, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, cost saving, Deepwater Horizon, risk management, time saving, Transocean

If you watched TV news on Sept. 13, you probably saw video of a group of citizens rescuing a motorcyclist who was trapped under a car while both vehicles burned. TV news anchors gushed about the heroism of the rescuers. Does this send the wrong message to would-be untrained rescuers?

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Tags: Brandon Wright, burning car, Matt Lauer, motorcycle rescue, Today show, trapped under a car

Twenty years ago, 25 workers died in a chicken plant fire in North Carolina. The tragedy caused a large upgrade of the state’s occupational safety agency. How is North Carolina OSHA doing now?

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Tags: blocked doors, fire, Imperial Food Products, North Carolina, OSHA inspectors

Ten years after the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01, controversy surrounds a fund established to help first responders at the World Trade Center (WTC) with their medical bills. Some are getting help, and some aren’t.

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Tags: 9/11, cancer, first responders, First Responders Bill, Ground Zero, post traumatic stress disorder, terrorist attack, World Trade Center, Zadroga Fund

Attention, those who believe that OSHA has gone overboard with its workplace safety regulations: You’ve got one less fact to support your argument. When all is said and done, the final count of worker fatalities in 2010 will be higher than in 2009.

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Tags: Bureau of Labor Statistics, California, construction, Florida, homicides, New Hampshire, OSHA regulations, Pennsylvania, Texas, transportation, violence, worker deaths

A new report suggests that at best, companies are only getting half the job done when it comes to measuring their employees’ safety.

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Tags: lagging indicators, leading indicators, manufacturing, risk control, safety committees, safety metrics, Safety training

Man vs. machine: Which is better at safety? The people at Google think it’s machine, as the company continues to develop its self-driving car. But wait, the self-driving Google car was just in a five-car fender-bender!

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Tags: car crash, Google car, Jalopnik, self-driving car

An injured worker turns out to be an illegal immigrant. His injuries prohibit him from doing the type of physical labor he previously did. He could do sedentary work, but he doesn’t have the skills. Does he get permanent total disability (PTD) benefits under workers’ comp?

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Tags: Florida, illegal immigrant, permanent total disability, sedentary work, Workers' comp

On April 28, 2011, OSHA turned 40 years old. Is the agency suffering an early mid-life crisis?

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Tags: Chamber of Commerce, i2p2, inspectors, job killer, maximum fines, mid-life crisis, OSHA 40-years-old, permissible exposure limits, retaliation, unions

On March 25, 1911, 146 workers died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire in New York City. It’s been called an event that fundamentally changed U.S. workplace conditions. But have workplace safety attitudes really changed in 100 years?

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Tags: BP, fire safety, immigrants, safety attitudes, safety too costly, Triangle Shirtwaist fire, Upper Big Branch mine, workplace conditions

A lot of debate will occur between this week’s announcement of President Obama’s proposed budget, including funding for OSHA, and the start of the new federal fiscal year on Oct. 1. Forget about that debate for now. Instead, take a look at what OSHA plans to do with its funding, especially if you own a small business.

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Tags: enforcement, inspections, OSHA budget, severe violators, small business

In a recent speech, OSHA administrator David Michaels acknowledged that his agency is under attack as part of the debate on the role of government.

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Tags: criminal charges, David Michaels, kill jobs, killing workers, OSHA 40th anniversary

One day after President Obama signed an Executive Order requiring a government-wide review of federal regulations to uncover ones that hurt job creation, OSHA has pulled a revised interpretation of its noise standard.

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Tags: employee hearing, executive order, feasible engineering and administrative controls, noise standard, President Obama

Two years after a Wal-Mart employee was killed by stampeding Black Friday shoppers, it appears retailers have protected their employees to a point where there were no reported serious injuries this year. But as one video shows, the stampedes didn’t go away.

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Tags: Black Friday stampede, OSHA best practices, Target, Wal-Mart

In a world that’s often focused on blame — and shifting it from place to place — it’s refreshing to see the head of an organization come forward and say, “I’m responsible for our employee’s death.”

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Tags: Declan Sullivan, Notre Dame, responsibility, scissor lift

(Analysis from the National Safety Council Congress and Expo in San Diego) One thing is clear after attending three days of sessions at this year’s National Safety Council (NSC) Congress and Expo: Injury rates are no longer considered the best measure of a company’s safety program by many safety pros.

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Tags: David Michaels, injury and illness prevention program, injury rates, National Safety Council, Scott Geller

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: In light of the disaster earlier this year, BP says safety and risk management are the company’s “most urgent priority.”

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Tags: BP disaster, BP new safety division, BP Texas City plant, Robert Dudley