LOS ANGELES – A new study has found that as many as one in five cases of asthma in adults may be due to exposure to chemicals in the workplace. The longer the exposure, the worse the situation gets, according to occupational health experts Katherine Venables of the National Heart and Lung Institute in London …
LOS ANGELES – Fed-OSHA has announced that workers and employers who want training for scaffold hazards can now get it from any OSHA Training Institute Education Center and various United Brotherhood of Carpenters training sites. The one-day training program was developed by the OSHA Training Institute, the OSHA construction directorate, the UBC Apprenticeship and Training …
LOS ANGELES – The 41st annual meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society will be held in Albuquerque, NM, from September 22 to 26. There is a full menu of events, beginning with 12 hands-on workshops on Monday. Beginning Tuesday, more than 90 technical sessions are offered on subjects ranging from aging to cognitive …
LOS ANGELES – COR readers are nothing if not responsive. That makes our goof on NEWS page 00-6718 even worse. We gave an incorrect telephone number for the Center for Office Technology in Alexandria, VA—turns out it belongs to an answering service out of someone’s home. The correct number for COT is 703-684-7760. This is …
SAN FRANCISCO – How will Cal-OSHA go about enforcing the new ergonomics standard, Title 8 5110? Very carefully, Chief John Howard told the Cal-OSHA Advisory Committee at its July 10 meeting in Los Angeles. Dr. Howard called attention to the fourth draft of the Policy & Procedure Cal-OSHA is developing. (See NEWS p. 00-6709.) It …
SAN FRANCISCO – On July10 Cal-OSHA cited Tosco Refining and Marketing Co. for 22 alleged violations of Title 8 safety regulations. That concludes the (civil) investigation of the January 21, 1997, fatal explosion at the Martinez, CA, plant. (But the Bureau of Investigations is still involved.) Deputy Chief Mark Carleson said Cal-OSHA did not believe …
SAN FRANCISCO – OSHA penalties are small potatoes compared to jury awards of civil damages for work injuries, as some of the ten finalists for 1997 trial lawyer of the year can attest. NEGLIGENT INSPECTION: Paul R. Cox of Dover, NH, sued Fed-OSHA under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) for a negligent inspection. His …
SAN FRANCISCO – On June 26, Theodore Russell Smith and John Otto Dennis, Sr., were sentenced after having pled guilty to committing willful violations of OSHA regulations which caused the death of one of their employees on December 26, 1995. They were each sentenced to three months in prison and ordered to pay $7,361 for …