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 …
The Cal/OSH Standards Board wouldn’t go as far as to declare an emergency situation requiring immediate rulemaking on the construction personnel hoist (CPH) issue. But it has agreed to a “highly expedited” rulemaking process to resolve the issue of when CPHs must be installed on high-rise projects that are 60 feet or more high. That …
The Standards Board has adopted a regulatory proposal aimed at complying with state law on single-user toilet facilities. But does it now put Cal/OSHA in the business of policing and citing employers for yet another infraction? As one observer put it, “What has this got to do with safety?” The proposal is based on 2016 …
Stakeholders weighed in at a Standards Board public hearing on a proposal to replace the Title 8 operator training, qualification and certification standards for cranes and derricks in construction with Fed-OSHA language. There was some objection to adopting the federal language as is, and others sought clarification in the proposal before the board votes on …
Representatives of the residential framing and roofing industries are pushing back against what they say are “significant errors” in the economic impact assessment concerning Cal/OSHA’s proposed six-foot fall protection trigger height. The controversy is over the cost estimates the state paid an outside consultant to provide. The Standard Regulatory Impact Assessment was conducted on behalf …
California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health is investigating a Bakersfield workplace fatality that could be from heat illness. According to the Division, an employee of Dependable Pool Service had completed a workday of cleaning pools “when he suffered a possible heat stroke in the company parking lot.” He was taken to a local hospital, …