California’s Office of Administrative Law has given its blessing to another Cal/OSHA standard – a groundbreaking rule to help prevent violence against healthcare workers. Employers will have several months to gear up for the standard, contained in General Industry Safety Orders §3342. OAL has set April 1, 2017, as its effective date. The Standards Board …
The long saga of the Ceiling – Catwalk Conundrum is nearly over. The state Office of Administrative Law has given final approval to revisions to General Industry Safety Orders §3273 to prevent employees who work in ceiling spaces from having to install catwalks. The revision becomes effective on April 1, 2017. Current regulations are designed …
Two Southern California workers suffered workplace fatalities in recent days, incidents that Cal/OSHA is investigating. The agency also received reports of five apparent natural-causes fatalities, but is investigating only one of them. The two work-related incidents were both on the same day in early December. In Cypress, an employee of Sully-Miller Contracting was killed while …
This issue of Cal-OSHA Reporter is the last for 2016. We will return with our January 13, 2017 edition. In the meantime, we wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy Chanukah and New Year. All the best for the coming year from Providence Publications and be safe. Remember, safety is no accident.
A proposal for what is believed to be a first-in-the-nation standard covering reinforcing steel concrete construction and post-tensioning operations is before the Cal/OSHA Standards Board. But the Construction Employers Association (CEA) says the proposal is “overly burdensome” for general contractors. It is a classic example of the tug-of-war that often occurs between general contractors and …
The first Cal/OSH Standards Board public hearing of 2017 involves guarding requirements for certain woodworking saws that the board says may not be adequate. The hearing on revisions to General Industry Safety Orders §4306 will be in San Diego. Board staff says it initiated the rule revision after it reviewed the guarding requirements for underhung …
There are some interesting statistics in the latest California injury and illness data comparing private companies’ incident rates for lost workdays to those of government. In all cases, the government has much higher rates. For instance, the incident rate for lost workdays for private industry was 101.8 per 10,000 full-time workers in 2015. For state …
Six more California workers suffered workplace fatalities in recent days, including three crushing deaths, two tree-trimming incidents and a drowning. Here’s what we know so far about these incidents: The crushing incidents were both in Southern California. In the Los Angeles area in late November, two workers were killed on successive days. First, an employee …