By a majority vote following a public hearing, the following revisions to a Title 8 safety order have been adopted by Cal/OSH Standards Board. They have been approved by the Office of Administrative Law and now are in the California Code of Regulations. FIRING OF EXPLOSIVE MATERIALS: Revisions to General Industry Safety Orders §5291 were …
SACRAMENTO — A Cal/OSHA advisory committee reached consensus on a rulemaking package that would require employers at oil and gas production sites to install automatic emergency shutoff devices on diesel engines near wells. The rules do not cover California refineries. The committee recommendation is a success for an oil industry executive in his quest to …
California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) is investigating a fatal trench collapse Feb. 8 near Sherman Oaks. The worker was digging in an eight-foot-deep trench with a hand tool to uncover a sewage line when the soil collapsed, burying him up to his neck. A foreman who had left the site to get …
The Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) wants to hear stakeholders’ complaints. Or at least their views on the complaint process, which Fed-OSHA said in its EFAME audit is not timely enough. DOSH is convening an advisory committee on the subject Feb. 18 in Sacramento. Chief Len Welsh says part of the problem in …
A Cooperative Extension success story celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, welcoming close to 1,000 attendees in late February to an annual conference that seems to keep growing every year. Growing is what agriculture does, and AgSafe, which took root as a UC Cooperative Extension program in the late 1980s, churns out crop after crop …
An unguarded tail pulley on a bark conveyor turned deadly when a worker got too close to it and his clothing was caught in the spinning shaft. A Cal/OSHA investigation has resulted in two citations for alleged serious violations against the employer, Lassen Forest Products of Red Bluff. Manuel Garcia Gaona, 50, was discovered entangled …
SACRAMENTO — Cal/OSH Appeals Board is preparing for a pilot program that would allow a party or a single witness to testify by live video from a different location if he or she is unable to attend the hearing in person. Several issues still need to be worked out to guarantee the integrity and fairness …
OAKLAND — Latino men make up 20% of the California workforce; Latina women 12%. But together they comprise 43% of workplace fatalities, an ongoing trend that workplace safety advocates continue to work on solving. The latest effort was the Latino Workforce Outreach and Education Conference Feb. 1 in Oakland. It was a prelude to a …