OAKLAND — Fed-OSHA has scheduled a series of public hearings on its proposed ergonomics standard from April 24 to May 3 in Portland, Ore. The series will be held in Courtroom 16 of the Mark Hatfield Federal Court House, 1000 Southwest 3rd Ave., beginning at 8 a.m. daily. In addition to the West Coast hearings, …
OAKLAND — OSHA has cited Friede Goldman Halter, Inc., a maritime contractor, and proposed penalties totaling $126,000 for health and safety violations found at the firm’s Pascagoula, Miss., worksite in the wake of a scaffold accident in which three workers were killed. The workers fell 123 feet to their deaths when a suspended scaffolding system …
SAN FRANCISCO — As the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) held hearings on its final regulations implementing AB 1127, the California Chamber of Commerce announced that it is considering mounting a challenge to the emergency regulations that took effect Jan. 1. Julianne Broyles, the Chamber’s director of insurance and employee relations, announced the …
SAN FRANCISCO — A study of almost 200,000 workers for Motorola Corp. from a 20-year period concluded that there is not “a significant association” between occupational radiofrequency (RF) exposure and brain cancer, lymphoma or leukemia. The study was commissioned by the company and conducted by Exponent, Inc., of Menlo Park, which investigated the potential major …
SAN FRANCISCO — The Cal/OSH Standards Board adopted two sets of revisions to Title 8 safety orders and one variance at its Feb. 17 meeting. The first set of revisions will make the personal fall protection requirements for window cleaning and building maintenance in the General Industry Safety Orders (GISO) consistent with the Construction Safety …
SAN FRANCISCO — Due to a sharp decrease in the number of variance applications in the past several years, the Standards Board staff has proposed making changes to streamline and consolidate the hearing process, Executive Officer John MacLeod announced at the Feb. 17 meeting in Oakland. The number of applications has dropped from more than …
SAN FRANCISCO — The third meeting of an advisory committee exploring a new standard to protect workers from the effects of heat stress will not take place in mid-April, as originally envisioned. Committee chairman Bob Barish informed committee members that more time is necessary “to develop a draft proposal to present to the committee” at …
SAN FRANCISCO — The Department of Industrial Relations has developed a recruiting poster, intended for circulation at job fairs. The poster states, “Cal/OSHA enforces laws requiring safe needles in California’s health care facilities so workers like these are not exposed to life-threatening diseases. “Health care workers aren’t the only ones who benefit from Cal/OSHA. As …