After clearing its final regulatory hurdle – the Office of Administrative Law – Cal/OSHA’s new lighting requirements for agricultural operations conducted after sunset will see their sunrise in less than a month – July 1st. The Standards Board adopted the regulation in February and recently received OAL clearance. It will be effective in plenty of …
This week’s Decisions section features two cases we thought were worth highlighting in the News section. In Giumarra Vineyards, the Cal/OSHA Appeals Board denied a petition for reconsideration by the employer and upheld a repeat serious violation of the heat illness prevention standard. The case involved an employee that experienced potential heat illness symptoms. Instead …
This week’s Cal/OSHA workplace fatality report includes three deaths on a power line inspection project, a fall at a Los Angeles stadium under construction and eight more deaths due to complications from COVID-19, the virus from China. Near Vacaville, three men were killed when the helicopter they were working from collided with a 115-kilovolt high-tension …
Cal/OSHA’s recently published “placeholder” permanent regulation to protect employees from wildfire smoke is much like the emergency regulation that expires September 22nd. There are numerous minor changes, but none are considered by the cognoscente as substantial. A public hearing gave stakeholders an opportunity to advocate for revisions, since the standard will be in place for …
Fed-OSHA has opened the 2020 window to apply for Susan Harwood Training Grants. The grants are available to employer associations, nonprofit organizations, unions, labor-management associations, Indian tribes and higher education. Applications must be submitted online by July 20. The agency is making $11.5 million available, and California organizations traditionally qualify for about 10% of the …
Many discussions and questions are online these days regarding safety. Here’s one that caught our eye: A poster poised this question: According to Cal/OSHA are employers required to provide safety shoes? Yes, No? The answers illustrate the often-snarky, sometimes entertaining nature of internet discussions. One participant posted the relevant regulation, General Industry Safety Orders §3385. …
Among the latest completed workplace fatality investigations are cases involving electrical linemen in a deadly fall, employees who died from heat illness in disparate circumstances, a lift truck driver who was electrocuted, and a refuse truck driver who was crushed by a hydraulic arm on his vehicle. In each case, employers are facing significant Cal/OSHA …
Cal/OSHA’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health is investigating two dozen recent workplace fatalities, including 15 deaths from complications of the coronavirus. Most of them involve healthcare employees. The cases include: A staff nurse at Kaiser Permanente in Fresno; A cytology prep technician for Quest Diagnostic in West Hills; A nurse at Windsor Gardens Convalescent …