Cal/OSHA’s metrics – onsite inspections and total alleged violations – were down for the first three quarters of 2013 from the comparable period in 2012. The lone exception was serious violations, which increased from 2,005 to 2,156. The Division of Occupational Safety and Health Program Office released the statistics. The 5,841 onsite inspections were down …
OAKLAND – Under reforms already underway by the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, the Process Safety Management Unit will increase the number of hours it devotes to refinery inspections 17-fold. Meanwhile, the 20-year-old PSM standard is undergoing a substantial rewrite. The regulatory package is expected to be formally unveiled this fall. It could be …
A die-casting machine used to make high-end Tesla Motors electric cars had a defective safety interlock bar and a crew failed to follow proper procedure. The failures lead to an accident in which three workers were splattered with molten aluminum, requiring hospitalization. The Division of Occupational Safety and Health has cited Tesla for several alleged …
Qualifying for Cal/OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program can be a long and demanding process. It is time-consuming and can be expensive. But, say officials of two companies who recently received VPP certification, it is worth the effort. The payoff comes both in happier employees and higher productivity despite the investment in time and effort. For Wood …
Cal/OSHA is investigating five worker fatalities in recent days, including two killed in equipment/machinery incidents and three who died from suspected environmental or natural causes. Here’s what happened: DOSH learned of two incidents that occurred the last day of April. In the Sacramento area, an employee of Keep-it Storage was found next to a partially …
SACRAMENTO – In agricultural terms, the germination and propagation of a Cal/OSHA standard to protect workers during night operations has just begun. The new standard has yet to sprout roots and there’s still a lot of sowing to be done before it grows into a marketable crop. But to some ag employers, it seems to …
For a worksite that has so many potentially lethal hazards, the Cosumnes Power Plant (CPP) near Sacramento makes sure its workers also focus on the not-so-obvious threats. The facility is one of the newest Cal/OSHA Voluntary Protection Program Star sites, [see story this issue, page 10867]. CPP employs a behavior-based safety system to track and …
Workplace fatality investigations just completed by the Division of Occupational Safety and Health underscore the importance of ensuring that machine guarding is in place, that equipment operators have a system that lets them know of the presence of workers on foot, and how critical fall protection systems are. They also demonstrate Cal/OSHA’s willingness to issue …