There are eight new California workplace fatalities. Four of them are from struck-bys. In Corcoran, an irrigation laborer employed by Paragon Personnel was driving on a rural road and was struck by an irrigation pipe trailer, suffering fatal head injuries. In Wilmington, an employee of Ecology Control Industries was loading a sealed roll-off bin filed …
Agricultural equipment is undergoing a revolution, from self-driving tractors, weeders and sprayers that glide through vineyards and orchards, drones that maps fields and ranches and precisely spray needed chemicals, and implements that user lasers to identify and remove weeds. All these new-age farm aids were on display at the recent FIRA USA trade show in …
Autonomous tractors. Precision sprayers that resemble a Cyber Truck – or is it the other way around? Weeders that independently clear a vineyard of unwanted vegetation and laser-guided “zappers” that target weeds and leave production plants alone. Retrofits that can be added to existing farm equipment to aid seeding. Machines that water and cultivate crops. …
Perhaps no bill Governor Gavin Newsom signed this year is as controversial as ABX2-1, the legislation created in an extraordinary legislative session. Politicians say it is aimed at preventing gas price spikes. All of this is happening against the backdrop of a substantial tax increase on gasoline. The California Air Resources Board expected to raise …
Cal/OSHA’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health has cited several employers and declined to cite others in several fatality cases from late 2023 and early 2024. These incidents were first covered in Cal-OSHA Reporter’s fatality reports. American Marine Corp., of San Pedro, faces penalties of up to $101,715, in the March 2024 death of Bohdan …
The Cal/OSHA Standards Board has extended the deadline for receiving comments on its second 15-day notice of proposed modifications to the silica proposal. The new deadline is November 13th. The proposal makes permanent revisions to General Industry Safety Orders §5204 to address silica exposures in the engineered stone industry that have killed dozens of California …
Reversing its decades-old opposition to the use of driverless equipment in agriculture to some extent – Cal/OSHA’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health says it now “supports the use of certain autonomous vehicles that are unlikely to cause injury or harm.” However, the so-called reversal is meaningless, according to agriculture industry officials, who told Cal-OSHA …
Several employers have qualified for Cal/OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program (VPP), SHARP (Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program), and the Golden Gate Partnership Program. The new VPP site is the E&J Gallo Winery Spirits Plant in Modesto. The winery giant has a 100 EMR and coverage through ACE American Insurance. Employers with EMRs ranging from a …