Cirque du Soleil fined by OSHA after safety in

• Fed-OSHA has fined Cirque du Soleil after a performer who was part of the barge act in “O” was injured after diving off of a floating barge platform.
• The show was stopped so the emergency intervention team could take the artist backstage to receive medical care.
• Cirque du Soleil notified Nevada OSHA after the accident and OSHA was launched by investigators, who found two serious violations.
• Each of those violations costs $15,625, which is OSHA’s maximum fine for an on-site work violation. The two fines combined are $31,250.
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OSHA fines Georgia chemical company

• OSHA found Chemical Products Corp., a Cartersville, Georgia chemical manufacturer, could have prevented a 52-year-old leach tank operator from suffering fatal chemical and thermal burns over most of his body by following required safety regulations.
• Investigators determined the Chemical Products Corp. employee — on the job just two months — opened an air intake valve to inspect a noise coming from a barium sulfide wash cone with a steam line that was left open the day before.
• A rush of cold air in the steam line created a bubble that pushed up heated sludge onto the worker, causing fatal burns. A second worker suffered second-degree burns across their upper body.
• OSHA has proposed $55,403 in penalties, an amount set by federal statute.
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New Hampshire roofing contractor liable for $162,000in OSHA penalties

• A federal administrative law judge ruled New Hampshire general contractor Barry Billcliff, doing business as Merrimack Valley Roofing and under other alleged business names, willfully exposed his employees to fall safety hazards and held him personally liable for more than $160,000 in penalties and attorneys’ fees.
• The action follows an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration and citations for six violations by Billcliff at a Devens worksite.
• The contractor chose to contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
• The employer contended that he was not an employer under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, should not be held individually liable for the violations, was not a controlling employer under OSHA’s multi-employer policy and lacked sufficient connection to the work site to be considered an employer.
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Michigan center gets grant for occupational safety training

• The University of Michigan’s Center for Occupational Health and Safety Engineering in the School of Public Health received a five-year, $9 million grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to train future occupational health professionals.
• COHSE, establishment in 1982, has been committed to enhancing the health and safety of workers in the United States and globally.
• COHSE consists of 27 faculty members and researchers from the School of Public Health, College of Engineering, School of Nursing, and the U-M Transportation Research Institute across the center’s four academic training programs.
• The programs include Industrial Hygiene, Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology, Occupational Health Nursing, and Occupational Safety Engineering and Ergonomics.
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