SAN DIEGO – Cal-OSHA participated in the surprise week-long TIPP (Targeted Industries Partnership Program) sweep of the garment industry in Orange and Los Angeles counties that led to the arrest of Doo Houn Won (NEWS p. 00-5945). In all, 65 businesses were cited by the Labor Commissioner’s office. Cal-OSHA found 288 violations and issued citations …
SAN DIEGO – Every Cal-OSHA inspection is supposed to evaluate whether the employer’s written Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) is effective. The IIPP rules are found in General Industry 3203 and referred to in other parts of the Title 8 safety orders. Last year, the legislature enacted reforms to lessen the written IIPP documentation …
SAN DIEGO – Industrial Relations Director Lloyd Aubry has named Richard Robyn to be acting executive officer of the new Commission on Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation. Robyn, a workers’ comp judge in the Division of Workers’ Compensation, has been drafting the Division of Occupational Safety and Health regulations that assess dollar amounts from …
SAN DIEGO – Findings of a University of California survey of 12 office buildings in search of information about “sick building syndrome” (SBS) were summarized in Indoor Air Review. Some buildings were mechanically ventilated via HVAC systems and some had natural ventilation. Smoking was prohibited or restricted in all of them. In six of the …
CENTURY CITY, CA – Jess F. Kraus, who started his career as a safety engineer for Aerojet, went on to gain a PhD in public health with emphasis on safety from the University of Minnesota and now heads the Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center at UCLA. His speech at the Cal-OSHA conference on workplace …
LOS ANGELES – At its brief May 19 meeting and hearing, the Cal-OSH Standards Board took a step away from obsolescence by voting to repeal the load drum rotation indicators (LDRI) requirement from Article 93, 4929 of the General Industry Safety Orders. Subsection (f) got a public hearing on March 24. At that time a …
LOS ANGELES – The issue is whether Lockheed workers can prove that inadequate warnings on material safety data sheets (MSDS) made them sick. On May 10 jurors rendered a split verdict in the first phase of a long-running toxic exposure trial, ruling that the workers could proceed with injury claims against 10 of 20 chemical …
LOS ANGELES – Federal District Judge Tim Leonard on May 19 denied Fed-OSHA’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have kept tire assembly machines from being operated until the employer, Dayton Tire Co., had lockout/tagout procedures in place. “Employees and union representatives—the people most knowledgeable about the machines and operations here—have not indicated a …