Investigators found that an employee of the Shawnee, Okla.-based convenience store chain was fired after complaining about safety hazards at a store. In addition to back pay and reinstatement, the Labor Department is seeking compensatory and punitive damages for the employee.
Orthostatic hypotension is a condition in which patients are unable to maintain blood pressure in the upright position and, therefore, become dizzy or faint when they stand up.
“Employers who respond to disabled individuals with knee-jerk exclusions based on myths, fears, and stereotypes, rather than considering individual abilities, put themselves at risk,” said senior trial attorney Eduardo Juarez of EEOC’s San Antonio Field Office.
The North Carolina Department of Labor presented it in recognition of that achievement at the company's Monroe, N.C., manufacturing facility.
At one of the sites, the farmer-owned company failed to test the atmosphere before entry and to have an employee entering wear a safety harness and lifeline. It also failed to post an employee to observe the entry. Both facilities failed to turn off and lock out power to the auger before workers entered the grain bins, investigators said.
An advisory committee to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will hear from international experts two weeks from now, then write recommendations to be delivered in December.
"The Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s extensive monitoring system helps locate waters in need of our attention. We now must take action to clean them up,” said EPA Region 7 Administrator Karl Brooks.
Besides adopting the lower laboratory testing cutoffs for cocaine and amphetamines, DOT's final rule will add MDMA (ecstasy) initial and confirmation testing to its program. But it did not adopt alternative specimens, such as hair testing.
Confidence in the government waned during this month's wildfires, but officials from several neighboring Central Asian countries were in Moscow on Monday to start a weeklong course about maintaining hydroelectric dams.
Many of the alleged violations concern the nationwide food distributor’s process safety management program, which was also the case in April, when a sister facility in Nampa, Idaho, roughly 180 miles away, was charged with penalties totaling $153,000.
Starting Aug. 16, carriers in all states can log on to FMCSA's data preview website "to see where they stand, and start taking corrective action prior to our scheduled implementation later this year," as Anne Ferro, the agency's administrator, said recently.
The agency's May 2010 request for information attracted comments for and against a rulemaking that would address workers' protection against exposure to H1N1, TB, and other diseases.
At least a quarter of patients who have suffered a stroke stop taking one or more of their prescribed stroke prevention medications within the first three months after being hospitalized--when the chance of having another stroke is highest--according to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and colleagues.
Its ANPRM asks for comments by Oct. 12 about how approximately 2,000 existing dams at metal and nonmetal mines are maintained, inspected, and insured. Current regulations do not include design requirements, unlike the regulations for coal mine dams, which were tightened after the 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster.
The 24 alleged serious violations that resulted from a site-specific targeting program investigation included a failure to have at least two suitable gas masks available and accessible; lack of developed confined space procedures; and grinding wheel, compressed air, and electrical shock hazards.
"If OSHA's standards regarding proper trench sloping, shoring, and shielding were followed, it is possible this tragedy could have been avoided," said Michael Rivera, OSHA's area director in Corpus Christi.
It was one of the five large unions to join the Change to Win Coalition in 2005, targeting high-growth occupations in the U.S. economy, including health care, transportation, and hospitality.