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 [...]

Last Dec. 16, 2009, newly appointed Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels spoke at NIOSH’s Making Green Jobs Safe: Integrating Occupational Safety and Health into Green and Sustainability. The conference was held in Washington, D.C. Dr.
Michaels stressed out that green jobs cannot be good jobs unless they’re safe jobs. [...]

April 29 – Jorge Leandro-Ramirez was fatally injured while operating a cherry picker. Leandro-Ramirez was working at the construction site in the Effingham County Industrial Park. Due to this accident Vos Electric, a subcontractor at the EFACEC plant, was issued with a serious citation facing a $4900 fine.
However after an informal settlement with OSHA inspectors, [...]

December 7, 2009 – Acting Secretary for OSHA Jordan Barab discussed the agency’s regulatory agenda through an hour long live chat. The live chat was open to the public and members of the media.
Some of the topics that were addressed were about the airborne infectious diseases, combustible dust, musculoskeletal disorder and Diacetyl.
Here are some excerpts [...]

David Michaels has been confirmed to be the new Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health last Dec. 3.
Michaels was a Research professor and Interim Chair in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. He was nominated by President Barack Obama last [...]

Another thousand-dollar-fine was issued by OSHA for citing violations on electrical safety and hazardous energy control standards. This time to O’Connell Electric Co., particularly on the May 18 Worker Arc Flash Injury. The incident happened at the North Campus of the State University of New York (SUNY) when O’Connell employees were performing maintenance on 34,500-volt [...]

Last week, the National Safety Council (NSC), in its annual Congress and Expo, unveiled this year’s initial top 10 most cited OSHA violations where Scaffolding still leads with 9,093 violations, up by 2,066 from last year.  Fall protection goes a notch higher from its previous position with 1,974 more violations; while hazard communication comes to [...]

In a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2007, studies shows that falls is still one of the leading causes of injuries and fatalities in the construction industry.  Statistics show that there were 1,204 recorded fatalities in the construction industry alone and 447 of those incidents are from falls.  Due to the alarming [...]

A-1 Excavating Inc. landed in the headlines of business sections in broadsheets and newspapers. The reason: a list of noticeable violations of federal safety standards. What made the story more interesting was the company’s denial of the citations OSHA made against them, until it finally settled on September 30, 2009 – $474,000 from the original [...]

OSHA’s new national emphasis program takes on the initiative to deal with workplaces where hazardous chemicals are released. This has been a concern because the release of highly hazardous chemicals into the atmosphere can lead to toxic fires and explosions—hazards that can very well endanger the lives of many.
Policies and procedures for inspecting workplaces that [...]