States urge OSHA for higher standards
- OSHA is under pressure to pass workplace standards that better protect employees from extreme heat.
- A coalition of six state governors — New York, California, and Pennsylvania, among others — petitioned OSHA for the standards.
- OSHA has taken action and launched an awareness campaign, advising employers to watch for signs of heat-related illness.
- The agency also implemented a policymaking tool to ask stakeholders questions about work arrangements, historic underreporting of heat illness, and the disproportionate effects on low-wage workers and people of color.
Two Ohio companies were fined for putting workers in harm’s way.
- A combination of water with tons of superheated material spilling onto a foundry floor caused a steam explosion that severely injured a supervisor at Globe Metallurgical in Waterford, Ohio.
- The agency issued a citation to Globe Metallurgical, one of the nation’s largest ferroalloy manufacturers, for its failure to provide a safe working environment and proposed penalties of $188,533.
- Three furnace attendants working at TimkenSteel’s Faircrest plant in Canton, Ohio, suffered severe injuries after an explosion of an electric arc furnace after the water became encapsulated in molten metal.
- OSHA cited TimkenSteel for one willful violation of the agency’s general duty clause and proposed penalties of $145,027.
Blocked doors lead to trauma at supermarket
- A Safeway supermarket was fined by Oregon’s OSHA for failing to keep emergency exits clear and properly train staff.
- These infractions came to light after a gunman killed two people and then took his own life at the store.
- OSHA is investigating whether operations at Safeway hindered escape from the store.
- One employee told investigators that blocked exit that blocked exits and walkways have been a “problem for well over 10 years.”
Carbon monoxide: a workplace danger
- OSHA is drawing attention to the continued proliferation of accidents involving carbon monoxide.
- About 400 Americans die each year from carbon monoxide poisoning, which can overcome an employee in a matter of minutes and NIOSH reports carbon monoxide poses a significant risk due to it being “a colorless, odorless, and toxic gas”.
- OSHA has issued a news release on CO noting that employers who are “using fuel-burning equipment and tools in buildings or semi-enclosed spaces without adequate ventilation” face risk of CO exposure or death.
- The current standard set by the OSHA limits exposure to 50 parts of carbon monoxide per million parts of air averaging over eight hours.