A multi-agency investigation into an early 2012 outbreak of Valley Fever at a San Luis Obispo County solar power project has resulted in citations to six employers, with three of them being cited for willful violations of the serious injury/fatality reporting standard. A total of 28 workers developed the disease, caused by fungal spores in …
The Hazard Evaluation System and Information Service (HESIS) has published a fact sheet on the causes, control and prevention of a disease with the tongue-twisting name of Coccidioidomycosis, but is commonly known as Valley Fever. California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health recently cited six employers on a Central Coast solar project after a number of …
All workplace fatalities are tragic, and a July 16, 2011, incident reported in these pages was no different. Here’s what we wrote in our July 22, 2011, edition: “A worker for Roger Moore Co. was killed in a Colusa field when an irrigation pump electrical box exploded. The man was trying to turn on the …
California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health is investigating four recent workplace fatalities, including a late-September electrocution in Anaheim. The deceased worker was employed by First Electrical Service. He was working from an elevated work platform inside an electrical room on Sept. 24 when he cut into a 480-volt live wire. No other information on …
A bill that is rooted in a tragic incident earlier this year has made it to the governor’s desk, and if signed would prohibit employers from having policies that forbid their employees from providing emergency medical services. AB 633 was introduced by Assemblyman Rudy Salas, Jr. (D-Bakersfield) in reaction to a February incident in that town …
Four young California safety professionals are among 40 honored by the National Safety Council as “Rising Stars of Safety.” NSC announced the honorees at its 2013 Congress & Expo in Chicago. The Rising Stars program recognizes emerging leaders for their commitment to safety, influence on safety culture, promotion of continuous improvement and creation of safety …
A stipulated agreement between the Division of Occupational Safety and Health and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has reclassified a willful-serious violation in a March 2010 electrocution incident and reduced a $70,000 proposed penalty to $22,500. But the settlement preserves the other eight citations issued by the Division and their penalties. Of a proposed $176,165, …
In our Sept. 27 story about Iron Workers International’s petition to update Construction Safety Orders §1712, we inadvertently left out an important number. In the section on post-tensioning requirements, the petition language states that a safe work platform of at least three feet shall be provided for stressing tendons, cutting tendon tails and grouting.