Today, the entire workplace safety community in California is looking to the East, as though a puff of white smoke not associated with a wildfire will signal that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has released its draft Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). The gazing comes against the backdrop of California readying to renew …
Earlier this week, the United States Senate confirmed Doug Parker as the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health – the Fed-OSHA administrator. He leaves his post as Cal/OSHA chief just a couple of years after taking over the position. Governor Gavin Newsom’s search for a new Cal/OSHA Chief may or may not …
Cal/OSHA’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health has released its draft of its highly controversial COVID emergency temporary standard. The Standards Board is expected to vote on it during December. While Deputy Chief for Health Eric Berg says the draft has “very limited” changes addressing the latest science on the Delta variant, and the latest …
There are six new California workplace fatalities under investigation, four of them reported as COVID-related. The two non-COVID fatalities are officially undetermined but could ultimately be found to be confined-space deaths. In Garden Grove, an employee of Kittyhawk Products was found unresponsive in a permit-required confined space, was taken to a hospital and subsequently was …
Cal/OSHA is enforcing the aerosol transmissible diseases standard in healthcare settings with COVID exposure. But the agency is on the path to explicitly include SARS-CoV-2 among the diseases employers must protect against under General Industry Safety Orders §5199. A draft proposal, released by the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, was discussed at a recent …
The nomination of Cal/OSHA Chief Doug Parker to take over as Assistant Secretary of Labor, aka, Fed-OSHA chief could come to a vote this week. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer ended debate on Parker’s nomination, paving the way for a vote. Parker was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee in …
There are nine new workplace fatalities under investigation, five of them reported as COVID-related. The non-COVID fatalities include: A crushing death in Rancho Cordova. An employee of M&S Recycle was crushed while working underneath a vehicle when it slipped off a lift. A fall in Bakersfield, where an employee of Slater Plumbing and Mechanical fell …
Fed-OSHA has threatened to revoke “final approval” of three state plans over their refusal to adopt emergency temporary standards on COVID for healthcare. In response, Arizona says it is working on a standard, but not on an emergency basis. The other two states, South Carolina and Utah, decried the move. Earlier this year, Fed-OSHA adopted …