Cal/OSH Standards Board has modified a proposal aired out at a December public hearing to ensure employers aren’t caught short when trying to comply with the new rule. Comments on the modification are due to the board by Feb. 19. The proposal to amend Mine Safety Orders §7016(c) is a response to a Cal/OSH Appeals …
Cal/OSHA’s Health Expert Advisory Committee (HEAC) adopted a recommendation late last month on a permissible exposure limit (PEL) for dichloroacetic acid and heard initial presentations on two others. The committee also held substantial discussion of a recent report by Cal/EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) that identified dozens of chemicals that could pose …
California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) is investigating a recent incident which resulted in the death of a worker at a market in Madera. DOSH’s Modesto district office learned of the fatality Jan. 31. An employee of Valero Food Store was inside a manhole at the site Jan. 22 when he was struck …
Cal/VPP program manager Iraj Pourmehraban (right) presents Michael Kelly of Monsanto Calgene Campus in Davis with an award for his work as a Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) Special Team Member (STM) in 2007. STMs help the VPP team as it evaluates companies for inclusion in the prestigious program, which recognizes top safety programs in the …
When Cal-OSHA Reporter founder Fred Strahm learned he had terminal cancer in the 1980s, he requested that the trio of women who helped publish the newsletter make him a promise: Keep the publication going, he asked. Strahm’s wife, Lois, editor Anne Bell and assistant Ellen Denmead promised him they would, and they did. Lois Strahm …
California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health has issued a policy memorandum alerting its personnel and the regulated public that employers need not go to extremes to comply with two safety orders on storing oxygen and fuel-gas cylinders. The memorandum cites “confusion” about how to comply with Construction Safety Orders §1740(g) and General Industry Safety …
January’s big storm points out the perils of living in the Golden State. Employers must be prepared for virtually anything. SACRAMENTO – Those who think California doesn’t have any real seasons have it all wrong. There’s fire season, drought season, flood season, landslide season, and of course, earthquake season. These “seasons” have no timetable, though. …
Current requirements for backup alarms in California workplaces represent a scattershot approach that “works directly against safety,” says a company that manufactures new-age alarms. Brigade Electronics, Inc., a United Kingdom company with offices in New York, petitions Cal/OSH Standards Board to revise six safety orders to remove a reference that back-up alarms be heard up …