Five California workers lost their lives in recent days in workplace fatalities around the state. They include two falls (one with crushing injuries), a fatal shock, a plunge into a canal and a death from natural or environmental causes. The shock was in Santa Ana on June 24. An employee of 2&3 Electric was remodeling …
Following the publication of Fed-OSHA regulations increasing its penalties, a move mandated by Congress, Cal/OSHA says it will follow suit. Cal/OSHA says the increases will cover the most severe penalties only. California has long had the highest penalties in the nation, but now, the Fed-OSHA increases eclipse them. Cal/OSHA has six months to begin implementing …
The Cal/OSH Standards Board has published the California version of new federal rules for employers to protect workers from silica exposure. Under the Horcher rulemaking process for adopting Fed-OSHA rules, the proposal could be effective this fall, although they will be phased in to give employers some time to adapt. The board will hold a …
Almost four years after a catastrophic and nearly fatal explosion and fire at the Chevron Richmond refinery sparked a statewide effort toward greater safety, Cal/OSHA has formally proposed a major overhaul of its Process Safety Management regulation for refineries. The proposal is now in a comment period that ends September 15th with a public hearing. …
Cal/OSHA’s 2016-17 High Hazard Industry List has been super-sized over last fiscal year’s list: It has more than doubled in industry sectors, from 20 to 42, and in employees affected, from about 600,000 in 2015-16 to more than 1.2 million for the coming year. And will affect three times as many establishments – about 61,000, …
The San Francisco District Attorney’s office has charged the owner of a granite supply company with two counts of involuntary manslaughter in the February 2014 deaths of two employees. The men were crushed as the owner, Meng Peng, was unloading slabs of granite from a shipping container. Peng, 66, also charged with three violations of …
A California Court of Appeal is refusing to give workers’ comp administrative law judges the power to make medical decisions once again when disputes over treatments arise. The court overturned a Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board decision giving the WCAB authority to make these decisions when an independent medical review (IMR) decision is issued after the …
Cal/OSHA is working to determine the circumstances involving eight workplace fatalities since the end of June. Four of them appear to be work-related, while the other four natural causes. The Division of Occupational Safety and Health is investigating them all. Two involved falls. On July 5, an employee of Amware Pallet Services in Pico Rivera …