OSHA can look to states for guidance in standards development and educational outreach.
Two serious safety violations related to the fatality include failing to train employees on work safety practices and allowing unqualified employees to work on energized equipment.
Seventeen serious violations include the company's failure to ensure exits were unblocked, provide eye protection approved by the American National Standards Institute, and provide written energy source lockout/tagout procedures.
Employers who provide temporary work that allows an injured worker to "Stay at Work" while recovering from an injury will be eligible to be reimbursed for half of the worker's wages.
"This tragedy could have been prevented," said Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Dr. David Michaels. "It is imperative that employers take steps to eliminate hazards and provide a safe working environment."
This is a sharp drop from the 105 on-duty deaths in 2008 and 82 in 2009 and it is the lowest annual total since the NFPA began conducting this annual study in 1977.
OSHA's investigation found that at the time of the incident, employees were filling an 18-foot-high by 65-foot-long concrete block wall with cement when the wall collapsed, killing one employee and hospitalizing three others.
Proposed penalties total $159,700. OSHA began its inspection in December 2010 as part of its national emphasis program to prevent workplace amputations.
OSHA initiated an inspection on Feb. 1 as part of its National Emphasis Program on Amputations. As a result, the company was cited for 18 serious violations.
Saehaesung Alabama has been cited for two willful violations for failing to develop, document, and utilize lockout/tagout procedures for energy sources, and to provide workers with the knowledge and skills necessary for safe usage and removal of energy control devices.
Two years in the making, the action agenda lists 48 recommendations in seven broad areas. The theme is to redirect U.S. chemicals policy to prevent exposures and to use inherently safer chemicals.
The willful violations address the company’s failure, from 2007 to 2010, to record standard threshold shifts on the OSHA 300 Log when employees’ hearing tests revealed that they experienced a work-related STS and the employees’ total hearing level was 25 decibels or more above audiometric zero.
The owner and manager of a California condominium complex were sentenced for conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act’s asbestos work practice standards during the renovation of a 204-unit apartment building in Winnetka, Calif., in 2006 – work that caused asbestos to be released into the complex and the surrounding community.
The authors found that 53 percent of the 2,945 pesticide poisoning cases associated with drift in 11 states during 1996-2008 involved non-occupational exposures, however.
The plan is based on public feedback collected earlier. The deadline for comments is 11:59 p.m. EDT on July 1.
Homeowners are advised to be vigilant in eliminating places where water can collect and stand in their yards and gardens.
Spill containment products made of recycled content conserve resources and reduce waste going to landfills -- a good step in the direction of zero waste.
The ASTM F2815 standard explains how to use a computer program called a permeation calculator to analyze data following a permeation test.
"It is projected that we can expect more serious storms and tornadoes during the summer," said ASSE President Darryl C. Hill. "Thus, it is imperative we plan accordingly.”
OSHA found that employees installing a new sewer line were exposed to engulfment hazards while working in an 8-foot-deep trench without any protective system in place.