"An unprotected trench can collapse in seconds, burying employees beneath tons of soil and debris before they can react or escape," said Robert Kowalski, OSHA's area director in Bridgeport, Conn.
The tire plant in Social Circle, Ga., had been cited for similar failures after an inspection in 2006, OSHA said yesterday.
Agency work sites that have recorded a high number of lost-time cases are due for a visit.
Not gone from the agency as reported recently, he told a West Virginia coal group this week that MINER Act implementation is going well.
Its chief proponent, Rep. George Miller, co-wrote a letter Jan. 10 prodding OSHA’s Ed Foulke to update the Process Safety Management standard.
"This case is a graphic example of what can and unfortunately does happen when basic, required, and commonsense employee safeguards are ignored," said Francis Pagliuca, OSHA's acting area director in Concord.
The partial collapse of a concrete floor injured 13 employees and instigated the investigation.
Port and longshore workers, truckers, and others at the Port of New Orleans are now able to enroll in the Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Worker Identification Credential program. The program's goal is to ensure that any individual who has unescorted access to secure areas of port facilities and vessels has received a thorough background check and is not a security threat.
Bradford P. Campbell, assistant secretary of labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration, recently announced that the agency achieved monetary results of $1.5 billion and 115 criminal indictments in Fiscal Year 2007.
The two cited companies allegedly were removing underground concrete pipe containing asbestos from a military housing site without using appropriate protective clothing or a protective enclosure to contain the airborne asbestos.
The agency assessed a flagrant violation against Perry County Coal Corp. in connection with a February 2007 electrical incident.
CPSC alleged that from September 2001 through about October 2004, HSN received at least 25 reports from consumers indicating that the pressure cookers contained a defect that could create a substantial product hazard or that the pressure cookers created an unreasonable risk of serious injury.
In FY2007, OSHA conducted 39,324 total inspections, a 4.3 percent increase above its goal of 37,700.
The Small Business Administration's ombudsman honored six agencies for regulatory and enforcement fairness.
By misclassifying the drivers, the company deprived its drivers of health care benefits, access to unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation benefits, and in some cases, overtime pay, while also depriving the Commonwealth of tax revenue by not deducting and withholding taxes from employee paychecks. says the attorney general.
California Labor Commissioner Angela Bradstreet and Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced yesterday it has taken legal action against a Delaware company for failing to pay approximately 300 California janitorial workers proper wages and engaging in unfair business practices. Damages being sought could exceed $5 million.
OSHA has inspected Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp.10 times since 2004--including this follow-up to an inspection after an employee fatality occurred in February 2006.
U.S. District Judge Rudolph T. Randa yesterday signed a consent decree ending a lawsuit by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Target Corp. for violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by not hiring African Americans in the retail giant’s District 110 (Milwaukee and Madison, Wisc.) based on their race, and by failing to keep documents as required by law.
MSHA Chief Richard Stickler said 20 more mines have been warned they are on his agency's radar screen, while six of the original eight have made sufficient improvement.
"The sizable fines proposed here reflect the scope and seriousness of these conditions and the need for them to be promptly and effectively addressed," said Diana Cortez, director of OSHA's area office in Tarrytown, N.Y.