By a majority vote following a public hearing, the following revisions to Title 8 safety orders have been adopted by the Cal/OSH Standards Board. They have been approved by the Office of Administrative Law and now are in the California Code of Regulations. DIESEL ENGINE RUNAWAY PROTECTION: Revisions to Petroleum Safety Orders §§ 6506, 6651 …
An equipment malfunction at a vegetable plant in Salinas Valley exposed workers to chlorine dioxide over nearly a three week period and prompted 99 of them to seek medical attention earlier this year. Now the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) has proposed almost $35,000 in penalties in the case after determining that NewStar …
SACRAMENTO — “Busted!” That’s the way Patricia Ennis, senior vice president of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) and senior risk consultant for insurance brokerage Willis of Colorado, described a situation she faced at the Denver Zoo, when a male gorilla managed, through his own ingenuity, to escape his enclosure. He took a tour …
California workplaces suffered two serious incidents of workplace violence in the past week. On Nov. 1, a worker at a high-rise in Los Angeles’ Koreatown was critically injured when he was shot, possibly by a coworker over an office dispute. Police are investigating the incident. And in Fresno on Nov. 6, an employee of Apple …
California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) is investigating the Nov. 2 death of an agricultural worker in Ventura County who became entangled in an auger. The worker, identified as 29-year-old Ernesto Rodriguez Gomez of Santa Paula, was working as part of a crew digging post holes when his shirt became caught in the …
Does a proposed reorganization within Fed-OSHA to better organize its process safety management (PSM) office mean Cal/OSHA will have to change its procedures accordingly? Apparently there has been some confusion within the employer community about the subject following a July 30 memorandum from Fed-OSHA’s Director of Administrative Programs. That official, Kimberly A. Locey, wrote to …
A gruesome Nevada County fatality early this year could have been avoided if the crew had observed basic safety rules for working with wood chippers, including checking debris bundles for objects that should not enter the chipper, and assigning a safety watch when branches are being fed into the chipper. These are the conclusions of …
Based on comments by stakeholders, the Cal/OSH Standards Board has made modifications to its proposal on crane swing radius hazards. The regulated public has until Nov. 9 to weigh in on the changes. The revisions to Construction Safety Orders §§ 1610.3 and 1616.3, and General Industry Safety Orders §§ 4885, 4999, 5001 and new §4993.1, …