The Cal/OSH Standards Board was scheduled to vote on July 18 on emergency protections for outdoor workers exposed to wildfire smoke. In addition, it has announced its intention to begin work on a permanent standard, starting with an advisory meeting on August 27th in Oakland. There is little doubt that the emergency rule will be …
Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed Lilia Garcia-Brower, 45, as chief of the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, a key post at the Department of Industrial Relations, otherwise known as the Labor Commissioner. Garcia-Brower has been executive director of the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund (MCTF) since 2000. Her new position pays $176,004 and does require state …
Sending two employees into a crawl space to operate a gas-powered saw without a proper confined space plan nearly spelled disaster for them. Both survived carbon monoxide poisoning from the operation. Now their employer and the “host” employer for the job face a total of almost $80,000 in assessed penalties after Cal/OSHA’s investigation into the …
The Division of Occupational Safety and Health Pressure Vessel Unit is re-upping its emergency regulation increasing fees for its inspection program. The fee schedule increases charges for some activities and decreases it for others. For instance, it is increasing the fee for shop, field and resale inspections from $135 to $150 per hour, but reducing …
Based on what it says was a successful pilot project, the Cal/OSH Appeals Board is proposing regulatory revisions relieving employers of the burden of providing copies of the citations they are appealing. The board says the failure to do so in the past has resulted in some employers automatically losing their appeals on a technicality. …
The Division of Occupational Safety and Health is moving to readopt its rule on electronic recordkeeping while it is figuring out a permanent regulation. That regulation will be no different than the emergency regulation, hence, no different than the Fed-OSHA version. Whaaaat? At a May advisory meeting, labor representatives urged DOSH to fix what they …
California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health is investigating more than a dozen workplace fatalities around the state since late June. Included are: several falls, two fatal trench collapses, several crushing deaths, and others that are still unidentified. The falls include: An employee of Republic Services in Anaheim who was seriously injured in early May …
The Cal/OSH Standards Board will continue talks on chipper safety this fall, including the use of so-called “presence-sensing systems” to prevent workers from being pulled into wood and brush chippers. The advisory committee work began this February and is based on a petition by tree specialist Jeff Buchanan. Buchanan is a special interest in that …