Taking place on 2009's Workers Memorial Day, the hearing by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety has a strong lineup of witnesses -- including Tammy Miser, shown here -- who will describe the true cost of workplace fatalities.
The U.S. Postal Service' Nottingham post office is the latest postal service worksite in New England to achieve star status in OSHA's Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP).
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued a document on best practices to avoid discrimination against workers with caregiving responsibilities, and held a public meeting to discuss the importance of policies that protect caregivers in an economic downturn on April 22.
OSHA is proposing one willful and four serious safety violations against B&H Contracting Inc. following an inspection at the company's jobsite in Dothan., Ala.
The Protecting America's Workers Act (HR 2067) would expand OSHA's jurisdiction to cover more employees and would allow felony prosecutions against employers who commit willful violations that result in death or serious bodily injury.
CSB Chairman John Bresland warned this week that extensive secrecy claims like the one made in this case, which involves an August 2008 explosion at Institute, W.Va., could compromise CSB's effectiveness as a safety agency.
"Keeping sediment from polluting rivers and streams isn't just a good idea, it's the law," said Jim Werntz, EPA's Idaho state office director.
Two of the four former employees received 70 and 41 months for their roles in impeding OSHA and EPA investigations, maintaining a dangerous workplace, and environmental crimes. The other two will be sentenced today and tomorrow in Trenton, N.J.
OSHA has cited Brady Enterprises Inc. of Weymouth, Mass., for alleged, willful, repeat, and serious violations of safety and health standards at its 45 Finnell Drive plant. The food products packager faces $66,500 in proposed fines, following a Nov. 14 accident in which an employee was caught in a labeling machine while cleaning it.
OSHA recently announced that it has notified more than 13,500 employers nationwide that their injury and illness rates are considerably higher than the national average.
Sooner than expected, with about half of the listed prosecution witnesses not called to testify, the prosecutors in the federal court jury trial in Missoula, Mont., will rest its case early this week, according to reporters covering it. The company and five former managers are charged with conspiring to conceal evidence of the dangers of asbestos contamination in the Libby community from the dust produced by a vermiculite mine.
According to the study, the release of mercury vapors, which can be inhaled or absorbed through the skin, presents an environmental and occupational hazard for workers involved with handling and transport of the products.
A federal judge has ordered a Southern California cleaning service and its owners to pay $227,791 in post-judgment interest plus $2,400 in daily fines for failing to follow a 2007 order to pay nearly $3.5 million in back wages plus more than $1 million in liquidated damages to 385 workers.
Texas Oil and Gathering Inc., its owner John Kessel, and its operations manager Edgar Pettijohn pleaded guilty on April 16, 2009, in U.S. District Court in Houston to criminal violations related to the disposal of refinery wastes at an underground injection well in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Justice Department announced.
OSHA is proposing 22 safety and health violations with fines of $73,275 against Fieldale Farms Poultry LLC. A January inspection of the company's processing plant in Gainesville, Ga., has resulted in the agency proposing two repeat violations with $27,500 in proposed penalties, 18 serious violations with $45,775 in proposed penalties, and two other-than-serious violations with no monetary penalties.
Quest Diagnostics Incorporated and its subsidiary, Nichols Institute Diagnostics (NID), have entered into a global settlement with the United States to resolve criminal and civil claims concerning various types of diagnostic test kits that NID manufactured, marketed, and sold to laboratories throughout the country until 2006, the Justice Department announced on April 15, 2009.
Announcing the appointment of both a chief performance officer and a chief technology officer, President Obama said Saturday in his weekly address that Monday, "at my first, full Cabinet meeting, I will ask all of my department and agency heads for specific proposals for cutting their budgets."
ION Labs Inc. of Clearwater, Fla. is voluntarily recalling all of the Influend Cough and Cold products sold on or after May 30, 2008, due to the products not being tested in conformance with the specifications of the lab, therefore, the products may have a possibility to be super potent.
Three items alleging the employer failed to provide guardrails on painters' scaffolds are now back for an administrative law judge's consideration. They've been litigated for years.
Until April 15, 2011, no state may enforce a law or regulation that conflicts with the exemption, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The California Highway Patrol had commented that the proposal does conflict with its regulations.