Tips & Updates about OSHA & Hazwoper Training Courses | Safety Tips

OSHA has recently issued guidance on Fall Protection for residential construction industry workers. This guidance will help employers in this industry prevent injuries and deaths that are caused by falls amongst residential construction workers. Reports have shown that falls are the biggest causes of worker deaths in the residential construction industry. OSHA has issued this compliance guidance for residential construction workers in December of last year. OSHA requires residential construction employers to provide their workers with adequate fall protection systems that comply with OSHA’s fall protection standards. This new document will show the ideal working methods that employers should use in order to comply with the safety standards. This document is mainly directed for those working on new construction and describes the various safety methods that employers should ideally implement during each stage of construction. Some of the methods for preventing falls at the workplace incl...

A Rochester company has recently been caught by OSHA for certain violation and may be looking at a very hefty fine. Bona Via Inc. was recently cited by OSHA for failing to follow the safety standards and correct the safety hazards prevalent at its main plant on White Street. The company is currently facing a total fine of $195,200. This sizable fine basically reflects the fact the company’s employer was given many chances to correct the various health and safety hazards that were having a negative effect on the workers – but failed to do anything about it. The company was fist cited by OSHA in 2009 for a number of hazards, and the company had agreed at that time to correct the hazards. However, after a follow up inspection was conducted in 2010, OSHA found that many of the hazards remained uncorrected. Some of the hazards include: failing to install and maintain all the electrical equipment, failing to replace pressure relief devices in the oil separator for the ammonia refrigeration c...

On Tuesday afternoon, a construction worker working on a new home site near Trammel road was buried when a trench collapsed. Sheriff’s Captain, Tim House of Forsyth County, identified the worker as Aaron Banks from Covington. Banks was only 20 years old. Emergency workers were unable to free Banks from the trench, which took place at about 2:30 p.m. at the Waterstone Falls subdivision, in the south of Cumming. The investigation as to the cause of the trench collapse was turned over to OSHA. However, a spokesperson for OSHA has revealed that the investigation could possibly take 6 months. OSHA investigations will be conducted to determine whether any of its safety standards have been violated. It is still unknown what company Banks was working for and what kind of work he was doing on the site.

With the start of the New Year, there are new safety laws that have been enforced at work places. A complete revision of California's labor law will make it easier for Cal/OSHA to look into and investigate the serious violations of work place safety. The labor law attorney for California Chamber of Commerce is Susan Kemp. A list of new laws is compiled by the Chamber each year. Employers need to know all the new changes made in this list. According to Kemp, the boost to the state's worker safety agency enforcement power applies mainly to those companies that own and operate heavy equipment. “Any type of machinery that involves anything that can pinch you, push you, cut you, smash body parts, anything with the height that you can fall, tunneling, people in ditches where there's a cave-in, those kinds of things”, Kemp said. A new safety standard will be enforced this year to prevent farm workers from getting sick from the heat. All farm and orchard managers will have to provi...

Safety should never be overlooked when it comes to working in oil fields. OSHA has now made it compulsory for all Oil & Gas companies to follow a certain set of rules and safety standards while sending workers out to the oil fields. Although rare, flash fires are the most dangerous and most feared hazards that workers can encounter on the oil fields. Taking all of this into consideration, OSHA has made it compulsory for workers in oil fields to wear flame resistant clothing, in case a flash fire occurs. However, while most people think that flame resistant clothing can make the working conditions for oil field workers safer and better, many other still believe that it can make it worse. Oil and Gas companies have made it compulsory for everybody working in oil fields to wear FRC’s or Flame Resistant Clothing in an effort to combat flash fires. However, these clothing pieces are hot and extremely uncomfortable. OSHA still maintains that although flash fires are extremely rar...

OSHA doesn’t get tired of citing companies who violate any rules set by them. It’s their job, well not giving citations, but to see whether organizations are complying with the safety standards. Recently, Mikesell Excavating Inc., an excavating contractor situated in New Paris was cited by OSHA with two serious and one willful violation. They failed to protect their employees from cave-ins during trenching tasks at a work site situated at Ohio. The total proposed penalties, which they got is $49,200. Cave-in accidents are one of the leading causes of occupational fatalities during excavation. OSHA Area Director Dick Gilgrist in Cincinnati, Ohio said that if employers fail to protect their employees from cave-ins during any trench operation, it is simply unacceptable. Again proper training is required along with work site inspection to reduce the risks. The willful citation was given for the lack of protection given to the workers from trench cave-ins during an inspection done in Octobe...