Inspector General analyzes OSHA’s COVID response
- OSHA failed to sufficiently protect workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General, a government watchdog announced.
- The Office of Inspector General analyzed the OSHA’s actions during the pandemic’s first year which was marred by major outbreaks at workplaces and concluded the agency did not provide enough support.
- “We determined OSHA’s enforcement activities did not sufficiently protect workers from COVID-19 health hazards … There is a heightened risk that workers suffered unnecessary exposure to the virus,” the report said.
- The report identified problems with OSHA’s enforcement, including not citing employers who failed to record deaths, injuries, and illnesses, and failing to require employers to report all COVID-19 infections in their workforce.
US Army: Training facility gets OSHA’s highest safety certifications
- OSHA recertified Fort Leonard Wood’s Chemical Defense Training Facility in Missouri for meeting the office’s highest standards for workplace safety.
- The CDTF, which is the only facility that conducts live chemical warfare agent training for the Dept. of Defense, received its initial certification as an OSHA Voluntary Protection Program Star Work Site in 2019.
- OSHA representatives performed document reviews and on-site inspections, walk-throughs and employee interviews intended to verify the programs that earned the certification.
- All elements of the CDTF’s safety and health management programs met OSHA’s expectations for VPP participants.
OSHA reaches alliance with a construction project
- OSHA’s Billings, Montana, area office and Swank Enterprises signed a two-year alliance to enhance a safe work environment during the construction of a dining facility at the University of Montana in Missoula.
- The two organizations will collaborate to prevent workplace incidents and fatalities by providing training, following best practices,
- The alliance will emphasize the involvement of management and workers, and hazard prevention and control.
- The project calls for the construction of the campus’s primary dining facility. The alliance seeks to protect the safety and health of workers employed by subcontractors.
Investigation after man ‘disappears’
- The recycling plant in South Carolina where a man went missing while operating a shredding machine was cited by SC OSHA for additional safety violations.
- Industrial Recovery & Recycling, located in Greer, was fined almost $34,000 by SC OSHA for 12 safety violations observed during inspections between June and October this year.
- Burrell Gordon, 20, of Greer, is presumed dead after microscopic pieces of skin, fat and bones found stuck in a shredder’s conveyor belt were connected to his parents’ DNA.
- The citations seem to show insufficient safety protocols at the plant, particularly during the night shift, where Gordon disappeared on May 5.