Tagged in: Standards Board
Cal/OSHA’s Identity Question
It has been an article of faith around these parts that “Cal/OSHA” refers to all of the components of the state program, but a recent note from the communications team at the Department of Industrial Relations throws this assumption into question. In a recent Cal-OSHA Reporter article about the adoption of the Confined Spaces in …
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Third Time’s a Charm
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Board Approves Limited Bird Flu Committee
The Cal/OSHA Standards Board declined a request from an advocacy organization for emergency protections for agricultural workers from avian influenza. However, the Board did approve an advisory committee to study possible reforms to its standard for zoonotic transmissible diseases, General Industry Safety Orders §5199.1. The emergency request came from Valley Voices, an activist organization involved …
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More Fall Protection Issues
California’s residential construction industry is not going to get the revisions it has long sought in the wake of the six-foot fall protection rule imposed upon California by Fed-OSHA. But it will have a chance, though limited, to argue for changes that could make compliance with the controversial regulation easier. The Cal/OSHA Standards Board officially …
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How Will Cal/OSHA Change Post-Audit?
At the close of last week’s marathon Joint Legislative Hearing in the wake of a critical State Auditor’s report on Cal/OSHA’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, chairman John Harabedian concluded, “Cal/OSHA not only has a staffing problem, it has a leadership problem.” It doesn’t appear that comment presages a change at the top of …
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Silica Standard is Not Working
The California Department of Public Health has confirmed 118 silicosis cases in 2025 from the engineered stone industry, just three fewer than the total for all of 2024. “We’re on track to significantly exceed the 2024 numbers,” says Michael Wilson, Ph.D, MPH, CIH, senior safety engineer for the Research and Standards-Health unit of Cal/OSHA’s Division …
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Autonomous Ag Tech in Action
A Cal/OSHA advisory committee met for two days recently to continue its deliberations about how or even whether to regulate the increasingly sophisticated autonomous technology used in agriculture. Proponents say the machines work better than a human mind in hazard recognition and eliminate many hazards created by having employees on tractors. Skeptics, mostly representing labor, …
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