On November 2, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced the recall of about 38 million Kidde fire extinguishers due to reports that they may not function properly in an emergency because of clogs or requiring excessive force to discharge.
NIOSH aims to develop new knowledge, evaluate potential benefits and risks of robots in the workplace, conduct workplace interventions to prevent robot-related worker injuries, and develop guidance for safe interactions between humans and robots.
Disaster cleanup work is extremely hazardous. According to a nationwide network of workplace health and safety groups, more recovery workers could die from the cleaning up after hurricanes Harvey and Irma than were killed by the storms.
After a catastrophic flood and during the cleanup, disaster recovery workers need to protect themselves from life-threatening infectious organisms and toxins that the contaminated floodwaters have left behind on everything.
Safety hazards are unsafe working conditions that that can cause injury, illness and death. Safety hazards most commonly include tasks related to working at heights, chemicals, housekeeping, electrical, forklifts, lockout/tagout and confined spaces.
The New York City Council, on Sept. 27, adopted a new municipal construction safety law – requiring all construction workers on building projects of five stories or higher – to have mandated construction safety training.
Wildfires and severe smoke can create dangerous conditions for not only firefighters, but also for the public. Because of the increased risk of exposure to wildfire smoke, Cal/OSHA has issued special guidance on the special precautions to protect people and workers from the hazards from wildfire smoke.
In September, OSHA announced the preliminary Top 10 most frequently cited workplace safety violations for fiscal year 2017. Fall Protection remained #1.
Aside from the obvious benefit of keeping employees safe, healthy, and productive – along with meeting the OSHA workplace safety standards – health and safety training makes financial sense for employers.
Miami-Dade County in Florida has established important OSHA safety training requirements for county construction contracts. OSHA Training is required for all construction employees on any Miami-Dade County public or private contract valued in excess of $1,000,000.