CORONA — Ask Rudy Lopez, risk manager for County Line Framing in Calimesa, how things are going these days for the business, and he’s got a quick answer: “I tell my workers not to cut their fingernails, because they need them to hang on.” Times are tough in the construction framing industry, but the good …
The former acting administrator of Fed-OSHA, now a deputy to Assistant Secretary of Labor Dr. David Michaels, testified to a congressional subcommittee that the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster and other fatal incidents in recent years in the energy industry is “sounding an alarm about a major problem.” Jordan Barab, testifying before the Senate subcommittee on …
An unrestrained fiber-optic cable that a contractor crew was installing on a utility pole jumped and made contact with an overhead power line, electrocuting a foreman working inside a lift bucket last November. After an investigation into the fatality, California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) cited the employer, Golden State Utility Co., for …
Labor representatives, employer groups and the Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment are still working to find that “happy legislative medium” that defines serious physical harm. It’s proving elusive at the moment as the stakeholders try to agree on a definition that’s not too overly broad but tighter than what’s currently used. The feds have …
“Blow-out preventers” dominate the news these days, with the failure of such a device leading to the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. California suffered a workplace fatality involving a blow-out preventer May 27, California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) reports. The division’s Process Safety Management Unit is investigating the incident at …
Air transportation workers face the highest rate of injuries requiring days away from work, restricted duty or job transfer (DART) in California, landing the industry the dubious distinction of having the highest DART rate in the Golden State. It also lands the industry among the 24 sectors on Cal/OSHA’s Highest Hazard Industry list for 2010-2011, …
As a former Cal/OSHA enforcement official who now has to grapple on a regular basis with this issue in the “real world,” I certainly understand Mr. Beas’ frustration with the current Cal/OSHA reporting requirement for serious injuries/illnesses and deaths (“Should DOSH Cite for Reporting Violations on Natural Causes Deaths,” COR June 4, p. 9766). Unfortunately, …
In a May 28 letter to Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, Fed-OSHA Region 9 Administrator Ken Nishiyama Atha said the proposed definition of “serious physical harm” that would be added to the state Labor Code in AB 2774 would help clarify what constitutes a serious violation but doesn’t quite go far enough. The bill would define …