The San Diego chapter of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) and other organizations commemorated the eleventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by contributing to an effort that helps wounded veterans as they transition to civilian life. The ASSE chapter and chapters of Risk and Insurance Management Society and Society of Chartered …
The Cal/OSH Appeals Board has overturned more than 35 years of precedence on penalty relief for employers who have gone out of business, saying the 1975 case Lefty’s Pizza Parlor was wrongly decided and works against the California Occupational Safety and Health Act. The board vacated an administrative law judge’s decision in Delta Transportation, Inc., …
Cal/OSHA recently approved revisions to its standard to protect tree workers, especially those working in palm trees, but a recent fatal incident underscores the need for employers to pay attention to the new provisions. On Sept. 22, a worker for Super Cuts Tree Service in Los Angeles, who was in a palm tree to cut …
A union organizing campaign has filed a new complaint against an Inland Empire warehousing employer, charging that the grueling lifting conditions at the facility are causing repetitive motion injuries among workers there. The complaint by Warehouse Workers United (WWU) on behalf of two non-union workers comes after a summer of discontent by workers in Southern …
According to preliminary data released by the federal Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, 360 Californians died in the workplace in 2011. But the statistics are likely to change by next spring, when the final count is tallied. In 2010, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics initially said 302 Californians were killed on the job, but …
SACRAMENTO – While there was plenty of discussion about items on the Cal/OSH Standards Board’s business agenda on Sept. 20, there was none on the single item at the public hearing: extending protections from the dangers of rotating cranes to the “oilers” and others who work around them. Ever since a 1980s-era Decision After Reconsideration …
California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) announced that in addition to its investigations at the Chevron Richmond refinery in the wake of the Aug. 6 explosion that severely damaged the facility, it is looking at another Chevron facility and a contractor whose workers also narrowly escaped injury in the incident. DOSH Chief Ellen …
Cal-OSHA Reporter’s Sept. 14 story “Cal/OSHA Inspections Down in 2011 — and Violations Down Even More” (p. 10397) quoted the Department of Industrial Relations as explaining a huge drop in programmed inspections — 36% fewer than in 2010 — as attributable to a “strategic” approach to enforcing the heat illness prevention standard, including a reduction …