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.
“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.
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.
Last year's event in San Antonio, Texas (pictured), drew 2,836 attendees representing all areas and professions affiliated with the safety and health industry. For this year's conference in Orlando, organizers are expecting to up that number to at least 3,000.
Coronary events are a major health issue in firefighters, causing nearly half of all deaths on duty. Exposure to ultrafine particles could contribute to coronary disease in firefighters—not only as a long-term health risk, but also as a cause of coronary events while responding to fires.
"It is the employer's responsibility to prevent fall hazards at construction sites by providing workers with appropriate safety equipment," said Mark Stelmack, director of OSHA's area office in Wilkes Barre, Pa., which issued the citations. Don't miss Wednesday's OH&S fall protection webinar.
The company received repeat citations for failing to make a reasonable estimate of employee exposure to hazardous chemicals such as hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide; it received willful citations for failing to implement confined space entry procedures.
EMERCOM, the agency that includes the Russian State Fire Service, reported 129,161 people and 19,343 pieces of apparatus were fighting the 589 fires active on Aug. 5 in the country.
In addition to the monetary relief, the company agreed to annual training of its human resources personnel and managers in equal employment opportunity, with an emphasis on the confidentiality provisions of the ADA.
“Tank truck rollovers are considerably more dangerous when they involve hazardous materials,” said PHMSA Administrator Cynthia Quarterman. “Improved cargo tank truck driver safety will also benefit the general public that shares the highways.”
Recently, a model of genuine worker participation has surprisingly emerged in China.
The agency’s latest action, with penalties of $420,000 against the mail facility in White River Junction, Vt., follows its citations against five individual postal facilities in June in various parts of the country -- all centering around insufficient electrical safety practices -- with fines adding up to more than $1.3 million for the month, plus DOL's filing on July 6 against USPS for enterprise-wide relief.
The next time someone at your facility experiences a destructive hand injury, advise all department managers of the status of the injury and the costs associated. Tie it to their bonus pay.
In many cases, our training is the first opportunity workers have had to use entry equipment and to understand the potential dangers they could encounter in a confined space.
“Using the same interpreter from triage to discharge creates continuity of care and also ensures that we are not missing anything important when talking to the patient,” said study co-author Dr. Robert Eisenstein. “It has the potential to help us get a more accurate patient assessment on arrival in the emergency department as well as better patient compliance with discharge instructions because the patient actually understands what we’re telling them to do!”
Here's how to improve the overall fall protection program and prepare returning workers to get back in the fall protection habit.
At the specialist level, trainees are expected to don and doff a hazmat suit. For some, this can bring out anxieties that range from fear of suit entrapment to decreased mobility or visibility.
According to the lawsuit, a class of female farmworkers was subjected to threatening behavior by male coworkers who made lewd and unwanted sexual advances and used a forklift to chase women or block them with their bodies or a broom while they walked down the hall of the processing plant.
In the same way the demand for respirators challenged manufacturers after H1N1 influenza was declared a pandemic, glove and apparel orders soared once the spill began.