A $7,000.00 OSHA fine against Wal-Mart was upheld on March 25, 2011 by Covette Rooney, the chief Administrative Law Judge of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Judge Rooney concluded that unruly crowds led to the trampling death of a Wal-Mart...
MSNBC recently published an article attributing the significant increase in worker productivity to the use of robots: (click here to read the article) Indeed robots are extremely effective at improving productivity and product quality. However, unsafe work practices,...
The New York City Fire Department is replacing new fire-retardant gloves after determining they do not properly protect firefighters from burns. Since November 2010, six firefighters have suffered second degree burns on the back of their hands after fighting house...
Several recent safety accidents will likely result in increased enforcement from federal safety agencies. Consider the following incidents that have occurred in 2010: Tesoro Refinery explosion: On April 2, 2010 a catastrophic failure of a heat exchanger resulted in 7...
February 4, 2010: On a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board tonight approved urgent safety recommendations on gas purging safety at a public meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina following extensive testimony and public comment. The draft recommendations, which were...
ConAgra Foods Inc. has agreed to pay $106,440 for workplace safety violations at a snack foods plant where four workers died after a natural gas explosion last summer, state regulators said on January 12, 2010. Most of the citations against ConAgra Foods involved...
On October 21, 2009 federal OSHA published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) as a preliminary step in the development of a combustible dust standard. According to OSHA, since 1980, more than 130 workers have been killed and more than 780 injured in...
Improper electrical wiring - failure to properly ground equipment - has been a chronic problem with US installations in Iraq. On September 1, a contractor for the US State Department was electrocuted while showering in Baghdad. Failure to properly ground equipment is...
A rupture in a high pressure ammonia line at a North Carolina chicken processing facility resulted in one employee fatality: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1577451.html Ammonia is frequently used as a refrigerant in the food industry. Facilities containing a...