SAN FRANCISCO – The first Metro Rail whistleblower suit to go to trial ended in a win for Ben Pate, a former quality control inspector. Early in August, a superior court jury in Pasadena told the Parsons Dillingham consortium to pay him $1.38 million for misrepresenting his experience in underground construction to prevent a prospective …
SAN FRANCISCO – On September 22, SAFETECH, a training and consulting firm, is presenting a day-long seminar devoted to lessons learned from a plating shop fatality. Employers will be given information about safety in electroplating operations, hazardous waste handling, confined spaces and emergency response. The K&L Plating case involved all four of these elements. After …
SAN FRANCISCO – The Public Agency Safety Management Association’s annual conference will be held in Sacramento from September 27 to 30. Among the subjects to be covered are bloodborne pathogens and how public agencies can comply with the standard; what is happening to the proposed ergonomics standard; effective confined space safety strategies; how to cope …
SAN FRANCISCO – Charles Culver, the structural engineer who has headed the OSHA Office of Construction and Engineering since its establishment in 1990, has assumed a post at Clemson University in South Carolina Replacing him is Russell B. Swanson, a lawyer who came to the Department of Labor in 1983 from a stint as labor …
SAN FRANCISCO – The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) held an open meeting in Cincinnati on July 14 to review and discuss a NIOSH project titled “Control of Occupational Exposures During Construction.” The object of the project is to give the industry information about practical, effective engineering controls and work methods which …
SAN FRANCISCO – LIFTING VIDEOS: The Crane Institute of America offers six titles in video format. They are: “Hand Signal Communication,” “Pre-Operational Inspection,” “How to Interpret a Load Chart,” “Working Cranes Near a Power Line,” “Setup for Safety” and “Overhead Crane Safety.” Each is $495, with a discount of $100 on each video when three …
SAN FRANCISCO – Mike Shaver, a concerned reader in Houston, called to ask if we were aware that blood lead levels were measured in ug/dl—micrograms per deciliter of whole blood. Ug/m3 is how air lead levels are measured. We are sorry for the mistake. In the story on NEWS p. 00-5996 about the Los Angeles …
SAN FRANCISCO – As the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation concluded its first meeting, Chairman Tom Rankin announced some items for the September 9 agenda. He said he wants briefing on what workers’ compensation carriers are doing to provide loss control services for employers, a report on the activities of Cal-OSHA’s new …