In a letter to Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) Chief Len Welsh, a San Diego safety consultant responds to Cal-OSHA Reporter’s Dec. 18, 2009, interview with Welsh in which he promises changes to Cal/OSHA’s inspection system. Ricardo Beas of San Diego says the article “addresses an issue that has been troubling me since …
Cal/OSHA has been unable to conclusively determine whether a scary July 2009 incident, in which a construction worker driving an aerial device was hit by a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train, happened because the operator drove into the train’s path or because the device couldn’t stop in time. But the Division of Occupational Safety …
Los Angeles’ AIDS Healthcare Foundation has petitioned the Cal/OSH Standards Board to do what the group has not been able do through the legislative process — force adult-film production companies to protect their workers from sexually transmitted diseases. The petition seeks to add language to California’s bloodborne pathogens standard, General Industry Safety Orders §5193, specifically …
Three California workers lost their lives shortly before Christmas after being struck or run over by vehicles in incidents up and down the state. Two other workers suffered fatalities in other incidents. California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) is investigating the deaths. The fatal encounters began Dec. 18 when a 76-year-old worker for …
Last-minute comments by industry representatives about a proposed permissible exposure limit (PEL) for 1-bromopropane caused considerable discussion at the Dec. 17, 2009, meeting of the Cal/OSH Standards Board, but remarks by the board’s resident epidemiologist cleared the way for approval of a slate of new or revised PELs, with one dissenting vote. The board also adopted …
The Division of Occupational Safety and Health thinks its inspectors waste too much time with minor cases at the expense of higher-priority offenders and plans to change that culture in 2010, Chief Len Welsh tells Cal-OSHA Reporter. Among the other plans the Division has for the New Year is a major revision of the lead …
This issue of Cal-OSHA Reporter is the last for 2009. We will resume publication with the Jan. 8, 2010 edition. In the meantime, have a happy and safe holiday season as 2009 draws to a close. And thanks for your loyal readership.
Ronald Hutton, a member of the five-person Feasibility Advisory Committee on Cal/OSHA permissible exposure limits, tells Cal-OSHA Reporter that its coverage of the Dec. 8 committee meeting and its recommendations was in some cases inaccurate or incomplete (Dec. 11, p. 9627). Most of Hutton’s comments were about the discussion of PEL recommendations for ethyl benzene. Following …