OSHA Compliance Posts

A state Fire Marshal published their Top 20 Violations.  Many of these are learning opportunities:   Building Exterior Address – Address numbers should be plainly visible from the street side of the property. Fire Lanes – Fire lanes are designated by the Fire Code Official. Signage for fire lanes must contain the verbiage in the…...

A chicken business processes poultry on two machines called eviscerators at its Mississippi facility. On May 31, 2021, an employee tasked with cleaning chicken parts and viscera from the eviscerators and areas around them suffered fatal injuries when he was caught in one of the machines. Following an inspection and investigation by Compliance Safety and…...

OSHA has issued a 2022 LOI discussing the use of Transmitting bulk shipment labels by technological or other means.  In the letter, OSHA addresses the use of QR Codes, which has become a very popular means of conveying information to employees.  Here are the two (2) questions OSHA addresses in its letter: Question 1: Does…...

This is why I question society’s ability to manage Oxygen deficient atmospheres in warehouses as a means of fire protection.  At 10:00 a.m. on February 7, 2023, an employee was found unresponsive in the Control Atmospheric (CA) room. The typical oxygen level when the room is active is between 1.2% to 1.6%. The room has…...

An inside look at what OSHA proposes in their Heat Injury and Illness Prevention Program (HIIPP).  This is from the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) panel. This document is meant to outline potential options for the various elements of a proposed rule. OSHA envisions a programmatic standard that could require employers to create…...

I know by the poll results and the emails/texts/calls I have received these past 2-3 weeks that this post will be met with a healthy dose of skepticism, but that has never stopped me from saying what I believe when it comes to the safety and health of those we have the privilege to protect. …...

The United States Court of Appeals for The Sixth Circuit says it does.  More than fifty years ago, Congress passed, and President Nixon signed into law, the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act, 29 U.S.C. § 651 et seq. Throughout the next half century, challenges to the constitutionality of the Act have been uniformly rejected…....

With an apparent increase in the number of homes and businesses suffering from “gas service” explosions, I will ask the question:  Should the USA adopt the UK’s regulatory approach to “gas service” construction and maintenance? I am used to working with flammable gas in chemical plants and we have layers of protection built-in to our…...

This is from a state OSHA plan that has released its State Emphasis Program (SEP) for Heat-Related Hazards.  In this SEP there are some great questions we can ask of our own Heat-Related Injury and Illness Prevention Plans to see if our plan is meeting basic OSHA compliance. Here are a couple of KEY points…...

Scenario: In your letter, you state that your client’s driver was driving a company vehicle, on the clock, and traveling on a public roadway. The driver was traveling between service calls near an intersection when a four-car collision occurred as the result of another car coming from the wrong direction in the same lane. After…...