Hurtado Construction faces $257,811 in proposed penalties.

• Houston-area contractor’s willful disregard for required safety procedures contributed to an 18-year-old worker fatality when a 15-foot trench wall collapsed on him near Fulshear in September 2023, a federal investigation has found.
• OSHA determined that Hurtado Construction Co. allowed the teenager to work in the excavation without a proper protective system in place to prevent its collapse. The worker suffered fatal injuries when the trench wall caved in, and tons of dirt pinned him against a reinforced concrete box.
• OSHA cited the company for failing to use an adequate protective system to safeguard employees from a potentially deadly collapse at another excavation worksite in Katy, continuing a history of workplace safety failures that includes eight OSHA citations for not providing required protective systems.
• Hurtado Construction Co. now faces $257,811 in proposed penalties.
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OSHA provides clarity on remote workers

• More than a third of employees spent at least some of their time working from home in 2022 — an increase from 24% in 2019,  according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• OSHA won’t conduct inspections of employees’ “home offices” – and doesn’t expect employers to either. That’s according to an OSHA instruction for agency staff published back in February 2000.
• OSHA won’t “hold employers liable for employees’ home offices.”
• However, the agency notes that a “home office” differs from a “home-based worksite,” where someone acts as an employer in areas of their residence.
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Confidence that Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate will be upheld 

• White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain is confident President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate would be upheld.
• A federal appeals court temporarily halted the federal mandate in a recent decision.
• Klain said if OSHA could legally require hard hats, it should be able to require COVID-19 vaccines.
• In the lawsuits, states argue that the federal government doesn’t have the constitutional authority to put a vaccine mandate in place and that OSHA lacks the authority to enforce it, Insider’s Kevin Shalvey reported.
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Baltimore firefighters discover downtown carbon monoxide leak

• Firefighters in Baltimore detected dangerous levels of carbon monoxide in the downtown part of the city.
• A Baltimore City Fire Department hazmat team responded to a fire alarm and detected carbon monoxide levels of 400 parts per million in a seven-story building with a restaurant on the first floor and offices, spokesperson Kevin Cartwright said.
• According to the U.S. Product Safety Commission, sustained carbon monoxide levels above 150 parts per million can be deadly. The current permissible exposure limit set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is 50 parts per million.
• Firefighters searched the area and found six maintenance hole covers nearby with elevated levels of carbon monoxide but did not immediately find evidence of an underground electrical fire.
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