California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) is investigating the March 29 workplace death of a window cleaner whose long reach proved deadly. The worker for All American Window Cleaning in Huntington Beach was using an aluminum pole extended to almost 40 feet to clean windows on a three-story building, when the pole made …
Following a complaint to Cal/OSHA from AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), longtime adult-film producer Larry Flynt Productions had been cited for three alleged serious violations of Cal/OSHA’s bloodborne pathogens and Injury and Illness Prevention Program standards. LFP Video Group, doing business as Hustler Video, faces proposed penalties of $14,175. AHF has filed complaints with the Division …
U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis has reestablished the Fed-OSHA Maritime Advisory Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (MACOSH), and the 15-member committee includes two Californians. Both are labor representatives: Tim J. Podue, of International Longshore and Warehouse Union in Long Beach, and Robert Godinez, of International Brotherhood of Boilermakers-Iron Ship Builders, in National City. …
Labor groups are sponsoring comprehensive legislation that will require Cal/OSHA Appeals Board to assure that employers abate a hazardous condition while a citation is being appealed, and that family members and legal representatives of a deceased worker have the right to participate in the appeal process. These are just two of the 14 requirements of …
Cal/OSH Standards Board denied two safety-related variances at its March meeting, and granted another. The two that were turned down concerned personnel conveyances at Los Angeles worksites and forklift alarm requirements at a Central Coast warehouse store. The approved variance allows a railway company to place propane tanks within the minimum clearance near railroad tracks. …
Ellen Widess will be the new chief at the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) starting April 15, taking over for Len Welsh, who has run the agency since 2003. Widess, 63, oversaw the division’s pesticide program from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. Governor Brown also appointed Ed Lowry to the public member seat …
Len Welsh, DOSH chief until the middle of this month, has nothing if not institutional knowledge of the agency he has led since 2003 but has been a vital part of since 1990. He has been instrumental in a number of groundbreaking Cal/OSHA regulations, but his legacy most likely will be the effort to craft …
For a man who is busy this week cleaning out his office, John Duncan has had other priorities. Talking to Cal-OSHA Reporter as he drove to Fresno for the 2011 kickoff of Department of Industrial Relations’ training partnership with the agricultural community for heat illness prevention awareness, he commented, “We haven’t been sitting around twiddling …