Blog Archives

Willful Violation Alleged in Deadly March Water Heater Explosion

California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) has cited a Southern California manufacturer for six alleged serious violations, including one willful allegation, after an investigation into a March 19 incident that killed two workers and injured another. The action was among several that DOSH took against employers in workplace fatalities earlier this year. Jose … Read More »

This content is only available to premium subscribers. Please login here log in

Read More »

Out of Work? Free Offer

Since 1973, Cal-OSHA Reporter has been a friend and partner to California’s occupational safety and health community. Through good times and bad, from natural disasters to Cal/OSHA “disengagement,” it has provided important information to the community. Now that California is feeling the full force of economic disaster, we want to support our friends in California chapters … Read More »

This content is only available to premium subscribers. Please login here log in

Read More »

Worker Impaled at Construction Site

California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) is investigating two recent workplace fatalities in the southern part of the state. On Oct. 20, an employee of Advance Concrete was killed in Santa Barbara during a concrete pouring operation. The worker was holding a hose to pump concrete into forms set for a six-foot retaining … Read More »

This content is only available to premium subscribers. Please login here log in

Read More »

Judge Says No to “Patient Zero” Info

An Alameda County Superior Court judge granted a preliminary injunction against the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) on Oct. 15 from obtaining medical records for an adult film performer who tested positive for the AIDS virus earlier this year. Judge Winfred Smith enjoined DOSH from “compelling or seeking to compel disclosure of confidential … Read More »

This content is only available to premium subscribers. Please login here log in

Read More »

Board Okays Auger Augmentation

OAKLAND — The Cal/OSH Standards Board unanimously approved revisions to the General Industry Safety Orders (GISO) on Oct. 15 to ensure that portable augers have so-called “kills switches,” which can prevent serious incidents. The proposal was heard at the board’s Aug. 20 public hearing. The revision is the result of an interpretation by a Cal/OSH … Read More »

This content is only available to premium subscribers. Please login here log in

Read More »

A Problem of Enforcement?

OAKLAND — After listening to more than three hours of commentary from labor activists, farm workers, employer representatives, municipal workers and virtually every member of the Cal/OSH Standards Board on Oct. 15, some of whom called for an advisory committee to hash out a proposal from the Division of Occupational Safety and Health to revise … Read More »

This content is only available to premium subscribers. Please login here log in

Read More »

Franken’s Safe-Handling Bill

Former California Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata failed in several attempts to get a safe patient-handling bill signed into law in California the past several years. Now comedian-turned-politician Al Franken has introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate that would do some of the same things at the national level. Franken, a Democrat who … Read More »

This content is only available to premium subscribers. Please login here log in

Read More »

How to Sway an ALJ

SAN FRANCISCO — Employers and the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) routinely appear before Cal/OSH Appeals Board administrative law judges (ALJs) in citation cases, but it is rare for the regulated public to hear firsthand from ALJs what influences their decisions. Cal/OSHA stakeholders got just such a chance for three days in mid-October … Read More »

This content is only available to premium subscribers. Please login here log in

Read More »