Citations for serious injury and fatality reporting violations are commonplace these days, as evidenced by the steady stream of cases documented in our Decisions section. But here’s one with a twist: Not only was an employer cited for not reporting a hot-oil explosion at a San Francisco restaurant, but so was the local fire department, …
GLENDALE – An organization representing fertilizer manufacturers objected to a proposal by Cal/OSH Standards Board to clarify an exemption in Cal/OSHA’s process safety management (PSM) regulation, saying the change would cost affected facilities thousands of dollars and make California agriculture less competitive than other states. At a public hearing May 17, the board also took …
Four bills related to occupational safety and health have passed their committee hurdles and are under consideration by the full California Assembly and Senate. AB 1045 (Laura Richardson, D-Long Beach), which would require employers to establish written procedures to recognize and prevent heat illness in indoor workplaces, was approved by Assembly Appropriations 11-5 and sent …
OAKLAND – The disastrous collapse of a stretch of skyway on the MacArthur Maze in Oakland is noteworthy for the quick response of the state in reopening one section and the vow by contractor C.C. Myers to rebuild the most badly damaged section in record time. But the fast-track project also will be a test …
DAVIS – Flintco Constructive Solutions celebrated a safety milestone last week at a high-profile project at UC-Davis when it marked one year without so much as a recordable incident at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Food and Wine Science project. The three-building, 135,000-square-foot project had gone 375 days without an OSHA-recordable or lost-time incident, covering …
This week’s Decisions section contains 26 Cal/OSH Appeals Board cases from December 2006 that Cal-OSHA Reporter received out of sequence. They complete the 2006 Decisions volume and are numbered consecutively from ¶ 21,012 through ¶ 21,037, in sequence with the current case numbering. Please see the editor’s note in Decisions and the filing instructions on …
One worker was killed and another suffered minor injuries May 11 when an acetylene torch touched off a massive explosion at a packing facility near Coalinga. California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) is investigating the incident at Harris Fresh Packing, a vegetable packing facility in Five Points owned by Harris Ranch. The victim …
The parents of a worker killed in August 2004 in a rollover incident at Santa Barbara Mission have petitioned Cal/OSH Standards Board to require rider mowers to be equipped with both seat belts and rollover protective structures. Julio and Madeline Petrini wrote to the board after contacting the governor and members of the California Legislature. …