Questions are arising about face masks using nano-materials that could produce adverse lung effects if the particles are inhaled. Health Canada recently issued an alert on a specific mask from Chinese manufacturer Shandong Shenquan New Materials. The masks are numbered SNN200642. Most face masks currently in use are made in China. Responding to the Canadian …
Cal/OSHA’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health will likely be looking for its second chief in as many years. Current Chief Doug Parker has been nominated as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health – the Fed-OSHA administrator. Fed-OSHA has been without a top executive since the end of the Obama administration. During …
Senator Lena Gonzalez and co-author, Assemblyman Lorena Gonzalez, through SB 606, seek to apply Fed-OSHA’s “egregious employer” provisions to Cal/OSHA violations. But the bill is much more than just that concept. It also would give Cal/OSHA the ability to enforce provisions of the state Labor Code directly and would empower the agency to cite employers …
Governor Gavin Newsom’s office has appointed Danielle A. Lucido, of Albany, as chief counsel for Cal/OSHA’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health. It is another appointment from Worksafe, the organized labor oriented firm from whence Chief Doug Parker also came. Lucido, 43, has been chief counsel for Engineers and Scientists of California Local 20 since …
Among the recent settlements between Cal/OSHA’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health and employers are five cases involving fatalities. Here are the results of those cases. National Renovation, Inc.: DOSH has withdrawn four serious violations and $83,700 in penalties that were issued to this employer following the September 10th, 2019, death of an employee. The …
A 225-page proposal by the Cal/OSHA Standards Board is essentially non-substantive and would have little to no cost. So, what’s the point, and why a years-long effort to make this rulemaking happen? After being approached by stakeholders earlier this decade, the Board undertook this project to create “one-stop shopping” for employers on rules for cranes …
The author of the bill mandating the long-stalled indoor heat standard is furious that a fiscal impact review is holding it up. She wants to exempt Cal/OSHA regulations from the “lengthy and convoluted” fiscal assessments. But there are a lot of questions and objections to such an idea. Senator Connie Leyva (D-San Bernardino), a former …
Cell phones’ proliferation with myriad features has led to a huge problem in society – distracted driving. Anyone who has been behind a vehicle inexplicably weaving, only to find that the driver has their attention focused on their phone and not the road, understands this phenomenon. Now employers have ways to keep their employees on …