Author: Admin
Report Examines State-By-State Workplace Safety, Health Risks
A new report by Underwriters Laboratories offers an assessment of workplace safety and health on a state-by-state basis, aiding businesses in identifying issues that can be managed through health and safety frameworks and prevent workplace injury, illness and death. “There is growing recognition among businesses…
Attorneys: New OSHA Whistleblower Guidance Favors Employees
The bar has dropped for OSHA investigators to determine whether a workplace retaliation complaint has merit, according to an assessment by occupational safety and health attorneys, leaving employers more vulnerable to whistleblower investigations. Under recently revised whistleblower investigation guidance, OSHA investigators no longer have to…
Safety Engineer Group Urges OSHA To Require Workplace Safety, Health Program Adoption
The American Society of Safety Engineers is “disappointed” OSHA has not completed a rulemaking that requires employers to adopt safety and health management programs, but sees updated guidelines on such programs as a positive step forward. According to comments submitted on OSHA’s new voluntary guidelines…
OSHA Recordkeeping Requirements
OSHA on Jan. 1, 2015 implemented new reporting and recordkeeping requirements mandating that all work-related fatalities be reported to OSHA or state OSH agencies within eight hours, and all work-related hospitalizations, amputations and eye losses within 24 hours. A log of all injuries and deaths within…
OSHA Strikes Deal With Trucking Association On Hazard Reduction
OSHA on Monday announced that it has renewed an alliance with the Industrial Trucking Association to minimize worker injuries and fatalities from industrial truck tip-overs and “struck-by” hazards. According to OSHA, the alliance will allow for development of resources and training on hazards that lead…
OSHA Notice On Approval Of New Jersey Occupational Safety, Health Plan
OSHA on Jan. 22, 2016, issued a notice highlighting completion of development of New Jersey’s state plan for occupational safety and health. OSHA announces in the notice that the state has met all the requirements necessary to implement an effective state plan to regulate industries in…
OSHA Seeks Comment On Information Collection, Evaluation Of State Plans
OSHA on Tuesday announced that it is seeking public comment on new efforts to reduce paperwork and reporting burdens on states that maintain their own occupational safety and health plans. According to a Federal Register notice, OSHA is soliciting comments on extension of information collection…
Businesses face April 30 deadline on recordkeeping requirement
OSHA has announced that employers must post between Feb. 1 and April 30Form 300A, which summarizes to employees the total job-related injuries and illnesses that were logged in 2015. According to OSHA, more employers are now covered by the requirements, following changes to the agency’s…
Oregon Occupational Safety Agency Tackles Exposure Limits
Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration will follow two different approaches as it updates permissible exposure limits in 2016, the state’s administrator says in a new agency newsletter. Oregon OSHA administrator Michael Wood says in the newsletter that the agency will begin identifying ways to…
OSHA Gets Congressional Nod To Raise Maximum Penalties Based On Inflation
House and Senate lawmakers passed a little-noticed measure that will effectively let OSHA hike maximum penalties by roughly 81 percent, in order to catch up with inflation since 1990, as part of their final budget compromise last week. The legislative change means OSHA has the…
Workplace Violence Case Tests OSHA Use Of Guidance In General-Duty Citations
An enforcement case before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) will explore to an unusual extent the limits of OSHA using guidance documents as a legal basis for issuing penalties in circumstances like workplace violence where no specific standard applies, potentially affecting use…
House Republicans Challenge OSHA ‘Joint Employer’ Test, See Union Hand In Shaping Policy
Congressional Republicans are pressing Labor Secretary Thomas Perez to release documents tied to the Solicitor’s Office drafting of contentious new guidelines for OSHA to decide if businesses should be treated as joint employers — effectively helping expand OSHA’s enforcement reach into franchises and similar business…
