Reigning in drugs in the workplace

• Is enough being done to keep employees away from drugs?
• Even when companies know the danger, they don’t always act.
• OSHA has updated its Severe Violator Enforcement Program to help change the culture of businesses.
• These changes include expanding program criteria to include all hazards as well as placing employers in the program if they have two willful or repeated violations. Follow-up inspections must be conducted after a year.
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OSHA investiagting death at Toyota plant

• The Gibson County Sheriff’s Office in Kentucky and OSHA are investigating a fatal incident at Toyota Boshoku, a Toyota Group of companies member.
• Medics from the Gibson County Ambulance Service and firefighters from the Princeton Fire Territory arrived at the scene around 9:15 a.m. to aid a worker inside.
• The Gibson County Coroner identified the deceased as 49-year-old Thierno Balde of Evansville, Indiana.
• Toyota Boshoku canceled a shift for all departments after the accident.
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Lousiana hotel must pay back wages

• A court document revealed that Hotel de Panache in Shreveport, Louisiana denied an employee at its Home 2 Suites location their federally protected leave and fired the employee after they exercised their legal rights.
• The company is subject to the Family and Medical Leave Act because it operates multiple hotels that employ more than 50 employees within 75 miles of the employee’s worksite.
• The employer also received training on FMLA protections and trained their employees to prevent future violations.
• OSHA helped recover $7,105 in back wages to a worker
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A closer look at maritime safety

• Federal officials are pushing the U.S. maritime industry to submit to the government information on incidents that had nearly resulted in vessel collisions as a way to improve safety.
• Marine casualties and many other incidents are reportable via separate regulations under either OSHA or the U.S. Coast Guard jurisdiction.
• The Safe Maritime Transportation System is being developed through an interagency agreement between the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the U.S. Maritime Administration.
• SafeMTS will be used to identify early warnings of safety problems and potential safety issues by uncovering hidden, at-risk conditions not previously exposed from analysis of reportable accidents and incidents.
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