February 26th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
HOUSTON—U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Scaffold Industry Association (SIA) signed a new regional alliance that aims to enhance workplace safety for construction workers in the states of Louisiana and Texas.
We welcome this opportunity to join with the SIA toward emphasizing employer awareness of hazardous working conditions in the construction industry,” said Dean McDaniel, OSHA’s regional administrator in Dallas, Texas.
“It is hopeful that this cooperative effort will help prevent injuries, illnesses and fatalities.”
OSHA’s Region 6 will now work with SIA to develop educational training programs relating to scaffold and fall hazards, as well as applicable American National Safety Institute (ANSI) consensus standards. The agreement will establish communication methods for providing information to employers and employees in the construction industry.
Present at the signing were SIA president Bill Breault, SIA south central region president Chris Moody, SIA south central chapter vice president Paula Manning, David Doucet, Mark Hernandez and Mark Briggs, all with OSHA, and Eric Schmidt with the SIA.
SIA president Bill Breault said he hoped this alliance would be a starting point for more regional alliances to come.
We are really excited about this opportunity for the members in our region to work hands on with OSHA,” Moody said.
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Recently, another company caught OSHA’s attention and was faced with $45,500 in fines for a number of violations.
Cranesville Block Company, a plant at Kingston, N.Y., had serious violations on chemical and electrical hazards and lack of equipment for workers. Specifically, OSHA found blocked exits, workers lacking safety glasses and gloves while working with acid, unlabeled containers of hazardous chemicals, unmarked electrical equipment, exposed live electrical parts and moisture in electrical equipment.
Edward Jerome, the OSHA area director in Albany, found the recurring nature of the hazards disturbing. He said,
Employees at this plant are exposed to the hazards of electrocution, burns, eye and hand injuries, and being unable to swiftly exit the workplace in the event of fire or other emergency. This employer must address these hazards effectively and continually now and in the future.”
Two repeat citations were issued against the company–$27,500 in fines, for the lack of personal protective equipment and the unlabeled containers of chemicals, as it had cited the company in 2009 for similar hazards at Cranesville Block’s Fishkill and Glens Falls, N.Y., locations and the issuance of six serious citations earned them $18,000 in fines. OSHA issues serious citations when death or serious physical harm is likely to result from hazards about which the employer knew or should have known.
One means of preventing recurring hazards is for employers to establish an effective comprehensive workplace safety and health program involving their workers in proactively evaluating, identifying and eliminating hazards,”
said Robert Kulick, OSHA’s regional administrator in New York. Cranesville Block has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and proposed penalties to comply, participate in an informal conference with OSHA’s area director or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
February 17th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
February 17, 2010–OSHA has cleared Walt Disney World after a 6-month investigation on the incident that led to the death of a worker. Anislav Varbanov, the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular performer died after he was seriously hurt while rehearsing for the show.
The cast member died on August 18 last year at Hollywood Studios—it was the third work-related employee death in less than two months.
Mark Priest, 47, died after complications from an injury he suffered during a performance at the Magic Kingdom.
Austin Wuennenberg, 21, a monorail pilot, died after another train backed into the one he was operating July 5, 2009. Disney was cited for four safety violations in the monorail crash, and fined more than $35,000.
The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular has run at Disney’s Hollywood Studios since 1989, the year the park opened.
February 9th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
NIOSH released “Soluciones Simples – Soluciones ergonómicas para trabajadores de la construcción”, a Spanish translation of “Simple Solutions – Ergonomics for Construction Workers”.
Construction is one of the most physically demanding occupations. Workers are exposed to different kinds of hazard on a daily basis. Falling from heights, electrocution and exposure to hazardous materials are just some of the dangers that they encounter in the workplace. One hazard that they can easily avoid, or at least reduce the risk of having, is work related muscoskeletal disorders.
This booklet offers practical ideas to help reduce the risk of repetitive stress injury in common construction tasks.
Soluciones Simples responds to employers’ and workers’ needs for practical guidance written for construction workers whose first and perhaps only language is Spanish, said NIOSH Director Dr. John Howard
For more information about the booklet, please visit these links.
February 1st, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Starting February 1 up to April 30 all companies that are subject to OSHA recordkeeping policies are required to post their OSHA 300a log.
What is an OSHA 300a log?
An OSHA 300a log is a summary of work-related injury and illnesses that occurred in 2009 and recorded in the OSHA 300 log.
Who should post this?
Companies that employ more than 10 workers are required to keep an illness and injuries record. If your company presently has 10 employees but had more than 10 at one point during the last calendar year you are required to keep an injury and illness record. Other businesses classified in a specific low hazard retail, service, finance, insurance or real estate industry listed in Appendix A to this Subpart B are exempted from keeping a log.
Where should we post this?
This should be posted in a common area where it is easily noticeable to most of the employees.
Your OSHA 300A log must be posted from Feb 1 – April 30
For more information about recording and reporting occupational injuries and illnesses click here.
February 1st, 2010 at 9:25 am
Julie Tisdale-Pardi from the NIOSH Science Blog contacted us to bring attention to a recent blog post titled “The Effectiveness of Workplace Training“, which outlines some of the work they’ve been putting in recently to help companies justify the cost of workplace safety training.
From the article :
This report shows that investment in training results in positive changes in worker knowledge and skills, attitudes, and behavior. These results are encouraging given that a primary purpose for workplace training is to impart new skills/behaviors that are transferred into the workplace. However, this research revealed that training as a lone intervention has not been demonstrated to have an impact on reducing injuries or symptoms. The fact that the study did not show an effect of training on health outcomes was, in part, an indication that training alone is not sufficient to result in reduced morbidity, mortality, or injury. For training to be effective in preventing occupational injuries and illness, it also requires management commitment and investment and worker involvement in a comprehensive hazard identification and risk management program.
– Carol Merry Stephenson, Ph.D.
The article can be found here, and is an excellent read. Thanks Julie!
January 26th, 2010 at 11:12 am
OSHA has proposed $683,000 fine to Mueller Industries subsidiaries for allegedly exposing its employees to safety and health hazards.
The company received a total of 128 citations. OSHA has given them 15 days to contest these violations.
The investigation started after a worker of Mueller Copper Tube was killed and two other employees were injured when a flammable substance leaked and ignited from an electric pump.
Out of the 128 violations, 90 were against Mueller Copper Tube, a subsidiary of Mueller Industries in Fulton, MS. They were issued willful, repeat and serious citations. Some of the violations are:
- Failure to guard machinery
- Exposure to electrical shock
- Unsafe electrical equipment and practices
- Failure to label hazardous chemicals.
The total fine to Mueller Copper Tube is $413,000.
Other citations were issued to Mueller fittings. Some of the violations are unsafe propane storage and handling, unsafe material storage and likelihood of exposure to blood-borne pathogens.
Mueller Packaging also received citations for unsafe crane operation, failure to lock out source of hazardous energy and electrical hazards.
Mueller Industries’ headquarters is located in Memphis, TN. The company owns and operates 20 facilities located in eight states and two foreign countries.
January 20th, 2010 at 11:20 am
The past week has seen several work hazards prove fatal to 3 workers in their respective worksites in Colorado and Florida.
In Broomfield, Colorado, an electrical worked was killed Friday. North Metro Fire Rescue officials said the boom lift he was working in gave way. The worker, along with a co-worker was putting up an electrical line shortly after 10 am, when the bucket gave way. The lines were not live and the cause for the bucket collapse is being looked into.
The worker sustained fatal injuries when he was thrown from the bucket and fell onto the truck. His co-worker sustained serious injuries and was rushed to St. Anthony’s hospital.
Meanwhile in Florida, a worker at an Ocala site died after he was crushed by a metal beam Friday morning. He had tried to escape by running, according to three witnesses but was unsuccessful. More details can be found here.
While in Flagler County, a beverage cart slid off a lift and pinned a mechanic underneath it while he was working on it. Another employee attempted to free the mechanic but failed and rescue personnel pronounced him dead at the scene past 9am, Monday. For more on this accident, click here.
OSHA investigators are looking into the cause of all three accidents.
January 13th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Our prayers, sympathies and support go out to the people of Haiti.
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January 11th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
You can now watch two new videos on respirators and facemasks on the US Department of Labor’s YouTube site. Respirator Safety which runs around nine minutes contains general instructions on how to properly put on and take off certain types of respirators. It advises that specific instructions must be consulted from the manufacturer’s manual. The video also differentiates a user seal check and a fit test. It says that a user fit test is done every time one wears a respirator while a fit test is done when one uses a respirator for the first time and at least annually thereafter. It warns users not to enter a hazardous area and instead consult the supervisor when a proper seal cannot be achieved.
On the other hand, The Difference between Respirators and Surgical Masks, the other video that runs around five and half minutes, makes it clear that a surgical mask is not a respirator. It says that a respirator reduces exposure to airborne infectious diseases contaminants while facemasks are not designed to prevent the inhalation of airborne contaminants. They may have differences but both need to be worn correctly and consistently while in use. Respirators must be NIOSH-certified while facemasks must be FDA-approved.
Both videos show that respirators must be used in the context of a comprehensive respiratory program.
In related news, the California Department of Public Health or CDPH has ordered a recall of 3M 8000, a type of N95 respirator, because of its “low success rate in fit-testing.” Millions of respirators have been released in October of last year to protect workers of health-care facilities from being exposed to the H1N1 influenza virus. However, DOSH and CDPH urge employers to use other respirators. DOSH is not actually preventing the use of these respirators but it “strongly recommends against using this model for prevention of aerosol-transmitted disease.” It asks employers who still decide to use these respirators to make sure that the respirators fit the workers.
CDPH says it will provide other brands and models of respirators to local health departments upon request. To protect the supply, DOSH reminds employers to conserve respirators. Employers are encouraged to limit exposure to disease “by appropriate patient identification and placement, source control measures, and using engineering and work practice controls to minimize respirator use.”
Respiratory protection items such as respirators and facemasks are very important personal protective equipment in the workplace especially in health care units. The proper use, disposal, cleaning and storage of such equipment must not be taken for granted. Remember to always check the PPE you are going to use if it is compatible with the specific work you are going to perform and always inspect them first and use them according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Safety first!
