The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has launched a National Emphasis Program (NEP) that for the next three years will step up inspections of health hazards to workers in the nursing and residential care industry.

A statement from OSHA quotes figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that workers in nursing and residential care facilities experience one of the highest rates of lost workdays due to injuries and illnesses of all major American industries. In 2010, the incidence rate for cases involving days away from work in the sector was 2.3 times higher than that of all private industry as a whole.

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Employers have been on notice for more than a year that government safety officials are highly critical of employees using cell phones while driving. The practice is coming under even more scrutiny now that the National Traffic Safety Board (NTSB) has recommended a total ban on the use of cell phones and other such devices by all drivers.

Following a meeting on December 13, during which the agency examined an August 2010 multi-vehicle highway accident in Missouri that killed two people and injured 38 others, the NTSB called for a nationwide ban on driver use of personal electronic devices while operating a motor vehicle. The Board’s investigation showed that the driver of a pickup truck had sent and received 11 text messages in the 11 minutes before the accident, which involved the pickup, a tractor-trailer rig, and two school buses.

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The Thanksgiving turkey isn’t even in the oven, but retailers (and shoppers) are already looking ahead to Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when stores traditionally promote once-a-year, enticing — some would say irresistible — prices to shoppers. But Black Friday can be more than a profitable day for retail employers. It also can be a safety hazard.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is reminding retail employers to take precautions to prevent worker injuries during major sales events this holiday season. In 2008, a worker was trampled to death while a crowd of shoppers rushed the doors of a Wal-Mart store in New York.

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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is seeking comments on interim final rules that revise the regulations on whistleblower complaints filed under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX).

The whistleblower protection provisions of SOX were amended by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 to clarify that subsidiaries of publicly traded companies are covered employers under the statute and to add nationally recognized statistical rating organizations as covered employers. The Dodd-Frank Act also extended the statute of limitations for filing a complaint from 90 to 180 days.

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The number of fatal workplace injuries in 2010 was slightly lower than the number in 2009, according to the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released on August 25.

A preliminary total of 4,547 fatal work injuries was recorded in 2010, a minor decrease from 4,551 fatal injuries recorded in 2009. The rate of fatal work injuries for U.S. workers in 2010 was 3.5 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers, the same as the final rate for 2009.

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The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is going high-tech with its efforts to prevent heat-related illnesses. The agency announced on August 11 that it has released a free application for mobile devices that is aimed at helping workers and supervisors monitor the heat index at their work sites.

Available in English and Spanish, the app combines heat index data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with the user’s location to determine when outdoor workers should take protective measures. Such measures include reminders about drinking enough fluids, scheduling rest breaks, planning for and knowing what to do in an emergency, adjusting work operations, gradually building up the workload for new workers, training on heat illness signs and symptoms, and monitoring each other for heat-related illness. Also, users can contact OSHA directly through the app.

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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has announced changes aimed at strengthening its protection of employees who report suspected unlawful activity on the part of their employers.

The plan to correct problems with the Whistleblower Protection Program comes after OSHA conducted a top-to-bottom review prompted by audits of the program by the Government Accountability Office in 2009 and 2010. A statement from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) said problems with the program were related to its transparency and accountability, training for investigators and managers, and internal communications and audit program.

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On Wednesday, January 5, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) hosted a live Q&A Web chat to answer questions about its Fall 2010 Regulatory Agenda. The assistant secretary of labor for OSHA, Dr. David Michaels, started the session by listing some of OSHA’s 2010 achievements. He noted that the agency:

• published final rules/interim final rules for cranes and derricks;
• issued two whistleblower regulations;
• finished the final rule remand on hexavalent chromium and its review of the methylene chloride standard; and
• published proposed rules for walking and working surfaces, its Standards Improvement Project — Phase III, and a Request for Information (RFI) on infectious diseases.

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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) agenda to increase enforcement, which includes items such as ergonomics, noise standards, and an injury and illness prevention program, seems destined to run into resistance from the new Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

It’s fairly clear that changes to the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) proposed last year are done for. In their place, OSHA seems likely to move towards implementing its agenda through regulation, enforcement policy, and reinterpretation of existing standards, among other techniques.

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By Jim Stanley, President, FDRsafety

Big fines make big news as was evident when OSHA recently proposed $16.6 million in penalties in a deadly explosion at a Kleen Energy Systems construction site in Connecticut. But day-in, day-out announcements of OSHA fines may be just as significant because they illustrate the depth of the agency’s enforcement push.

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