SACRAMENTO – Late in December the California Supreme Court agreed to review decisions in two civil court tort damage cases brought by employees. The issue in Voights v. Brutoco Engineering & Construction Co., Inc., SO56914, is “whether a contractor’s employee can have a direct cause of action against the contractor’s hirer, which is related to …
SACRAMENTO – A highlight of the brief meeting of the Cal-OSHA Advisory Committee on January 9 was the annual report for 1996 of Metro Rail Safety Audits. John Wachter, Region VI manager, is the project manager. He said that, to address the resource needs of the Cal-OSHA Mining and Tunneling Unit (Region V), compliance staff …
SACRAMENTO – Continuing dissatisfaction over ergonomics and rubber gloving practices was manifest on January 16. All seven members of the Cal-OSH Standards Board were present for the public meeting and public hearing in Los Angeles. First, Chairman Jere Ingram swore in James Smith for a second term on the board. Next, two speakers — one …
SACRAMENTO – GREGORY R. WATCHMAN has been appointed acting assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, replacing Joe Dear, who resigned to return to Washington State as chief of staff to the new governor. Watchman, a lawyer, has served as deputy assistant OSHA secretary since January 1995. Before that he worked on the …
SACRAMENTO – Safeway Inc. has filed a civil suit against OSHA’s Denver office in U.S. District Court in an attempt to get out from under subpoenas seeking three years of detailed workplace safety records. It asserts that its refusal to participate in OSHA’s Colorado Centennial Program had unfairly made it a target for inspection. Although …
SACRAMENTO – The San Diego District Attorney has taken an interest in a fatal accident in Calipatria on September 13, 1995, involving Farmers Land Leveling dba Masters Construction. Three employees were in the unshored area of a sewer excavation 80 feet long, 4 feet wide and 15 feet deep. Two of them died and the …
SACRAMENTO – For Cal-OSHA, any proposed penalty over $50,000 is issued carefully and sparingly. Only nine “jumbos” were written in 1996 by the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), and they are all being appealed. As to the existence of the violation and the size of the penalty, the independent Cal-OSH Appeals Board is …
SACRAMENTO – On January 10, Governor Pete Wilson issued a seven-part executive order designed to curb the rulemaking process to help California continue to “build a competitive, dynamic economy.” “This is a major effort,” Chief Deputy Industrial Relations Director John Duncan told COR. “It is a sweeping reform that grew out of the regulatory review …