Month: April 2015

April 28, 2015

Texas Democrat Renews Push For Injury Logs Covering Multi-Employer Sites

A House Democrat from the Houston area has re-introduced legislation mandating that OSHA require logs of workplace injuries across the entirety of multi-employer work sites, regardless of whether a contractor or other type of temporary staffing company directly employs the workers as opposed to the…

April 28, 2015

Worker Advocates Urge Feds, States To Ramp Up Criminal Prosecutions In Severe Safety, Health Cases

A national umbrella group of worker advocacy organizations on Thursday (April 23) urged federal and state law enforcement officials — including the Justice Department working in concert with OSHA officials — to increase the number of criminal prosecutions brought in severe safety and health cases,…

April 28, 2015

Cell Tower Deaths Lead To New Reg Priority As OSHA Pushes Issue With Stakeholders

OSHA continues to hone its enforcement and regulatory emphasis on fatalities and severe injuries in communication tower building and maintenance, with Deputy Assistant Secretary Jordan Barab on Tuesday saying the agency has observed “an alarming increase” in fatalities in the fast-growing industry and assuring safety…

April 21, 2015

Citations Against Fracking Supplier Highlight OSHA Concern On Chemical Safety

OSHA’s recent citations against a New York supplier of plastic balls used in hydraulic fracturing, alleging process safety management (PSM) violations and other hazards, appears to underscore the agency’s heightened attention to safety in the large-scale use of chemicals, with one OSHA official lodging concern…

April 21, 2015

OSHA Continues Roll-Out Of Inspection Weighting, With Partial Focus On Health, Ergo

OSHA is pushing ahead with an effort to refocus scarce investigative resources toward priority areas through a data-driven system the agency calls “inspection weighting,” which uses historical data to allocate “enforcement units” for carrying out labor-intensive inspections — an approach some in industry consider a…

April 8, 2015

Health, Safety Regulatory Concerns Arise In Talks On Dispute Settlement Provisions Of Trade Deal

Public interest groups are raising alarm about the global safety, health and environmental enforcement implications of a developing trade agreement and whether a controversial section of the accord could put the public at risk by allowing investors to skirt regulatory mandates in countries participating in…

April 8, 2015

OSHA Warns Health Care Employers Of Workplace Violence Risks, Raising Industry Concern

OSHA Warns Health Care Employers Of Workplace Violence Risks, Raising Industry Concern OSHA has put the health care and social service sectors on notice that it intends to enforce against workplace violence risks through potential use of the OSH Act general duty clause, telling the…