Blog Archives

Highly Controversial UFW Heat Illness Settlement To Be Challenged

The government would have you believe that a protracted legal battle over heat illness enforcement between the Division of Occupational Safety and Health and United Farm Workers union has ended with no significant changes to almost anything. A settlement, including the payment of money to UFW, was reached in late April, but the announcement was … Read More »

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DOSH Probing Two Fatalities and Two Serious Incidents Statewide

The Division of Occupational Safety and Health is investigating the a workplace fatality involving a farmhand in an all-terrain vehicle incident in the Central Valley, and an apparent heart attack in the Bay Area. DOSH routinely investigates apparent natural causes fatalities in order to rule out heat illness. The agency also is looking into two … Read More »

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Correction on Shar-Craft Item

In our June 12 story, “Penalties Plunge in Latest Major Cal/OSHA-Employer Settlements” (p. 11194), we incorrectly characterized a 2013 incident as a fatality. The 37-year-old worker for Shar-Craft, Inc., was burned when a portable halogen light ignited the flammable coating he was spraying inside a tank. The worker was badly burned, but he did not … Read More »

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Regs: Standards Board Working on Confined Space in Construction

The Cal/OSHA Standards Board is beginning work on its own standard to make Title 8’s regs on confined spaces in construction at least as effective as the federal regulation. This follows the publication in May of Fed-OSHA’s final regs on the topic, and is in keeping with the requirement that it be at least as … Read More »

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Most Cited & Most Appealed California Safety Standards, 2014

Injury and Illness Prevention Program violations – alleged, that is – continue to be the most cited Title 8 safety orders, according to statistics recently released by the Division of Occupational Safety and Health. There are an estimated 3,000 Title 8 standards that Cal/OSHA can cite under. Final citation statistics for 2014 were not available … Read More »

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CDPH Warns on MERS Threat

The California Department of Public Health is cautioning travelers and healthcare professionals to be vigilant in preventing Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. There are no cases in California, but its emergence in South Korea has prompted the warning. No cases have appeared in Israel although, from its headquarters in Jerusalem, the nation’s Capital, the Health Ministry … Read More »

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Penalties Plunge in Latest Major Cal/OSHA-Employer Settlements

The culmination of one of the first significant citations under the aerosol transmissible diseases (ATD) standard, a deal on a willful-serious citation in a fatal 2014 flash fire, and a deal in a 2013 case at the San Francisco 49ers new stadium are among the latest batch of settlements in serious cases. The Division of … Read More »

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Governor Jerry Brown Ignores Standards Board Vacancies

The Cal/OSH Standards Board currently has only one member out of 6 positions with an active term – public member Patty Quinlan. She was appointed in 2013 and her term expires in June 2016. The other five members on the board are serving despite the expiration of their terms, as is allowed for non-paid board … Read More »

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