Audit, Compliance and Risk Blog

Employment Law: Protecting Temporary Workers

Posted by Jon Elliott on Tue, Aug 05, 2014

Is your employer hiring "temp" workers this summer—to serve tourists, meet cascading production deadlines, tend crops, or maybe just to fill in while permanent workers take vacations? Most employers recognize that occupational safety and health laws throughout North America assign them an Employer's General Duty to protect their own employees from workplace hazards. Some don’t remember that this duty also applies to shared employees, and even to other employers’ employees while they’re at your workplace. This month, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is re-emphasizing ongoing efforts to ensure protections for temporary workers ("temps"), extending the Temporary Worker Initiative it started in 2013.

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Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, Employer Best Practices, Health & Safety, OSHA, Employee Rights, Training

OSHA: Safeguarding Equipment and Protecting Employees from Amputations

Posted by STP Editorial Team on Mon, Jul 28, 2014

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has revised a guide that identifies eight mechanical motions and eight hazardous actions that present possible amputation hazards. The guide also sets forth steps employers can take to reduce these hazards. The material is appropriate for anyone responsible for the operation, servicing, and care of machines or equipment: employers, employees, safety professionals, and industrial hygienists. Topics covered in this document include hazard analysis, awareness devices, and hazardous energy (lockout/tagout), and safeguarding machinery. An excerpt follows:

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Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, Health & Safety, OSHA, California Legislation, Training

Investigation of Construction Incidents to Reduce Injuries and Fatalities

Posted by STP Editorial Team on Thu, Jul 10, 2014

The Directorate of Construction, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has a website that provides original investigations of collapses and other incidents. Many of the incidents resulted in one or more worker fatalities, and most of them resulted in multi-million dollar property loss, lawsuits, or settlements. Each investigation was performed at the request of an OSHA field office or State Plan OSHA as part of an enforcement inspection.

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Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, Employer Best Practices, Health & Safety, OSHA, Training, Environmental risks, Environmental

OSHA: Avoiding Heat Illness

Posted by Jon Elliott on Tue, Jun 03, 2014

It's nearly time to start worrying that outdoor work in the summer sun will lead to heat illness. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) provides some guidance to employers and their workers, while the Sun Belt California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) administers detailed regulatory requirements promulgated under state law. If you have outdoor workers in California you must comply with the following requirements, while if you're anywhere else you should at least consider them.

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Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, Employer Best Practices, OSHA, Employee Rights, California Legislation, Environmental risks, Environmental, EHS, EPA

Obama Requests $204.6 Million Budget for BSEE

Posted by STP Editorial Team on Wed, Apr 30, 2014

News from The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) Press Release Issued April 3, 2014

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Tags: Corporate Governance, Business & Legal, SEC, OSHA, Environmental risks, Environmental, EHS, Oil & Gas, climate change

OSHA: A Killer Reminder of the General Duty Clause

Posted by Jon Elliott on Mon, Apr 28, 2014

On April 11, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a petition by SeaWorld, which was seeking to overturn a citation and penalty issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) after a killer whale mauled and drowned one of the park’s trainers during a show (Seaworld of Florida, LLC v. Perez). OSHA had cited SeaWorld for violating the OSH Act’s Employer’s General Duty Clause, by failing to provide a workplace free of “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm.” This decision reminds us that this often-neglected element of OSH compliance serves important worker safety goals.

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Tags: Business & Legal, Employer Best Practices, Health & Safety, OSHA, Employee Rights, Environmental risks, EHS

EPA Proposes To Revise The Agricultural Worker Protection Standard

Posted by Jon Elliott on Wed, Mar 05, 2014

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administers a Worker Protection Standard (WPS) designed to protect workers exposed to agricultural pesticides. WPS is patterned after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA's) Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) for workers in most industrial and commercial settings. EPA adopted the WPS in 1992, and just proposed its first revisions on February 20, 2014. Some of these changes incorporate revisions to HCS adopted by OSHA in 2012 (see my earlier blog), while others catch up on two decades of industrial hygiene and worker safety practices. Comments will be due 90 days after the proposal is published, with final approval to follow sometime later.

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Tags: Business & Legal, Employer Best Practices, Health & Safety, OSHA, Employee Rights, Environmental risks, Environmental, EPA, Hazcom

OSHA: Making Hospitals Less Hazardous for Workers

Posted by Viola Funk on Mon, Feb 17, 2014

When you think of dangerous industries to work in, which ones come to mind? Construction, mining, longshoring, maybe even letter carrying, are obvious, but did healthcare make the list?

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Tags: Employer Best Practices, Health & Safety, OSHA, Employee Rights, Training, EHS, Workplace violence

Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) Roundup 2013

Posted by Jon Elliott on Mon, Feb 03, 2014

The year 2013 has been another relatively quiet one for most environmental health and safety (EH&S) compliance personnel. Continuing differences in Congress have stymied would-be initiatives on both sides of the partisan aisles, so there were no meaningful legislative changes.

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Tags: Health & Safety, OSHA, Environmental risks, Environmental, EHS, EPA, Hazcom, Transportation

OSHA Has Zero Tolerance For Employee Blacklisting

Posted by STP Editorial Team on Mon, Jan 27, 2014

An investigation by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found that New Prime Inc. retaliated against a truck driver by blacklisting him in the commercial transport industry after he sought medical attention for a work-related back injury. When he was given doctor’s permission to return to work he opted to seek employment with other motor carriers only to discover his attempts to do so had been sabotaged by his previous employer, New Prime Inc. OSHA has ordered the motor carrier company to pay the former employee $100,994.24 in back wages and damages and take other corrective action.

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Tags: Business & Legal, Employer Best Practices, Health & Safety, OSHA, Employee Rights, Hazcom