Energy company reportedly waited two hours before calling responders to trapped employees

ON April 20, a lift holding two contractors about 125 feet high at an Asheville, North Carolina-area generating station stopped functioning, but the energy company reportedly waited two hours to call the fire department to get them down. A spokesman for the company says there was a delay in calling 911 because employees onsite tried to resolve the problem first. Asheville Citizen Times

 

IOSH warned of conditions at prison months before fatal attacks on staff

Iowa OSHA reportedly advised the Iowa Dept. of Corrections of inadequate communications equipment and not enough staff to respond to emergency situations within a state penitentiary about eight months before the murder of a corrections officer and a prison nurse at the prison. The correctional agency plans to contest two IOSH citations issued in following the incident. WOWT

 

East Oregonian opines on OR-OSHA’s ‘temporary’ permanent rulemaking

“Oregon Occupational Safety and Health is working to make permanent — “temporarily” — the emergency COVID workplace rules that it first put in place Nov. 16. 2020. This rulemaking seems necessary because of requirements in state law, to continue pandemic safeguards that were set to expire next month. However, we are wary — as many are — of “temporary” permanent rules that are implemented without an expiration date.” East Oregonian

 

Updated guidance issued on recording adverse reactions by employees to vaccine

Fed-OSHA has released guidance regarding the employer’s obligation to record adverse reactions by employees when they received the COVID-19 vaccine. The guidance addresses requirements if a mandatory vaccination policy has been implemented for the workplace. Employers that only recommend the vaccine to their employer, but do not require it, are not required to record adverse reactions. Printing Impressions

 

Fed-OSHA says Chicago-area warehouse failed to contain outbreak

A Naperville, Illinois warehouse and distribution company allegedly did not follow its own internal controls for exposure to COVID-19 or take immediate steps to identify, inform, isolate and quarantine all potentially exposed employees last fall, according to Fed-OSHA, which has fined the employer $12,000. Twenty-three employees tested positive by November 9, including one who died from complications of the virus. ABC7 (Chicago)

 

Illinois agency joins Fed-OSHA in promoting construction fall-prevention campaign

The Illinois Department of Labor has announced it is collaborating with Fed-OSHA to raise awareness of falls in the construction industry, which account for about a third of all construction fatalities in recent years, during National Safety Stand Down to Prevent Falls in Construction week, May 3-7. MyRadioLink