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Occupational Safety Blog

By Jim Stanley, former No. 2 official at OSHA and President of FDRsafety


Archive for October, 2009

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Scaffolding, fall protection, hazard communications lead the list of top 10 OSHA violations

October 29th, 2009

OSHA has released its preliminary list of the top 10 safety violations it has assessed in 2009 and at the head of the list are scaffolding problems (9,093 violations so far), fall protection (8,771 violations) and hazard communications (6,378 violations).

OSHA presented the list of the Top 10 Safety Violations for 2009 at the National Safety Council’s annual Congress & Expo. The final list will also be released through the NSC in December.

The number of top 10 violations is up almost 30 percent over the same period in 2008. The increase coincides with OSHA’s highly publicized ramp up in enforcement.

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Posted in Enforcement | 1 Comment »

OSHA decides not to go with TLVs as its standard for exposure to chemicals

October 27th, 2009

OSHA is getting ready to abandon its proposal to use Threshold Limit Values (TLVs) as its standard for exposure limits to chemicals.

OSHA recently decided to maintain its mandatory permissible exposure limits (PELs), rather than switch to the TLVs, designed by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists.

Critics of the TLVs have contended that they were scientifically invalid and developed in a way that did not allow sufficient outside input.

For a fuller briefing on the issue, read this article by the Patton Boggs law firm.

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Posted in Accident Prevention, Research | No Comments »

OSHA targets iron and steel foundries, concrete pipe manufacturers, others for recordkeeping crackdown

October 23rd, 2009

OSHA has announced the list of industries that will be targeted under its one-year program that will intensively ramp up recordkeeping enforcement.

The program concentrates on industries with traditionally high accident rates. Within those industries, companies that have reported low accident rates are most likely to be audited. OSHA says that to qualify for inspection under the program, a workplace must be in a selected industry, have 40 or more employees, and show a Days Away, Restricted or Transferred (DART) rate of 4.2 or below based on 2007 OSHA 300 data.

Targeted industries include steel and iron foundries, concrete pipe manufacturers, soft drink manufacturers and automotive seat and interior trim manufacturers. A complete list of those industries, and more detail about the program is contained in a report from Sherman and Howard.

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Posted in Enforcement, Recordkeeping | 3 Comments »

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