Osha

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited construction and industrial equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. for three safety violations and has proposed a $66,000 fine following a December 2010 accident that injured an employee. OSHA said in a news release Monday that the employee was injured while trying to clear a jammed piece of equipment in a Caterpillar plant in East Peoria. The agency said Caterpillar failed to cut power to the equipment and failed to provide related training.

The Labor Department says it has reached a $600,000 settlement with adhesives manufacturer Bostik, Inc., over workplace safety citations related to a March 2011 explosion at its plant north of Boston. Four workers had nonlife-threatening injuries. Investigators said a valve had accidentally been left open, causing acetone vapors to fill the building and ignite. The explosion rattled a surrounding neighborhood, and damaged two buildings at the plant complex in Middleton. In announcing the settlement Thursday, the Labor Department said Bostik has taken corrective measures and will continue to do so....

HOUSTON -- The US agency responsible for worker safety failed to inspect plants with enough care and frequency to prevent an accident like the March 23, 2005, explosion at BP's Texas City refinery that killed 15 people and injured 170, the worst US industrial accident since 1990, a government report said yesterday. Companies have plenty of safeguards for individual workers' safety, but have a potentially deadly lack of sound procedures to measure process safety, according to the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which released the report.

While businesses bemoan the cost of regulations, a new study suggests that government enforcement of workplace health and safety rules can save lives without sapping a company's bottom line. The findings come from a decade-long look at hundreds of California work sites subject to random safety inspections. Researchers found that inspected companies reduced their injury claims by 9.4 percent compared to those not inspected, with no negative impact on profits or sales. Better yet, the same companies saved an average of 26 percent on workers' compensation costs in the four years...

WASHINGTON - Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said yesterday she will move swiftly to correct problems highlighted in a new report on workplace safety that raises concerns about widespread underreporting of injuries and illnesses on the job. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is supposed to audit employer records in the most hazardous industries to keep tabs on accident and illness rates. But inspectors often don’t interview workers to verify what is in employer records, the Government Accountability Office report found.

SAVANNAH, Ga. - Federal officials said yesterday that Imperial Sugar Co. should face fines of more than $8.7 million for violations found at two plants, including a Georgia facility where an explosion killed 13 people. John Sheptor, chief executive of Imperial Sugar, said the company would contest the findings by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The fines would be the third-highest in the 40-year history of the OSHA. They include $5 million for the explosion near Savannah on Feb. 7 and $3.7 million for the plant in Gramercy, La. ...

NEW HAVEN - A piece of lab machinery that killed a Yale University student when it ensnared her hair was missing required safeguards, and the accident exposed problems with safety policies, safety investigators said in a letter to the school. The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration did not fine Yale, saying it lacked jurisdiction because there was no employer-employee relationship. But in a letter, OSHA told school officials it found numerous problems in the machine shop where Michele Dufault died April 12. Yale challenged the findings, saying the...

A Maine contractor has been cited for alleged violations of workplace safety standards in connection with the death of a worker at a construction site in Bangor. Danny Dodge, a 23-year-old employee of Bowdoin Excavation of North Yarmouth, was killed when a backhoe rolled down an embankment and landed on top of him. The Bangor Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/nYqOKG) that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is seeking fines totaling $13,600 against the company.

Officials of the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration are investigating the death of a 29-year-old man who fell while working on the Deer Isle-Sedgwick bridge in eastern Maine. The Hancock County Sheriff’s Department said Ercio Gasques suffered massive head injuries when he fell about 40 feet Sunday afternoon. He died en route to the hospital. Sheriff’s officials said Gasques was from New Jersey and was part of a painting crew working for a Pennsylvania contractor that has been working on the suspension bridge.

Federal workplace safety officials are proposing nearly $17,000 in penalties following the death of two men working in a sewage tank in Kennebunkport, Maine. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the employer for four safety violations, including failure to ventilate the area where the men were working and failing to test the air quality before and during the work. OSHA also said there was no system in place for an emergency rescue for the employees of Stevens Electric & Pump Service, a Monmouth company that was doing work at a motel, the Lodge at...

Federal safety officials say a construction worker has died after falling from the roof of condominium in Shelton. Robert Kowalski, area director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Bridgeport, said no details were immediately available about the accident Tuesday. The New Haven Register reports ( http://bit.ly/zz18qp) that police said the 46-year-old man was found unresponsive on the ground. He died at Bridgeport Hospital. The man's name was not immediately released.

A Fall River man died early yesterday morning in an industrial accident at the Tribe Mediterranean Foods plant in Taunton. Police responded to the hummus manufacturing plant on Prince Henry Drive around 1 a.m. Tribe employee Daniel Callazo, 28, was pronounced dead at the scene, said Gregg Miliote, spokesman for the Bristol district attorney. The death appears to be an accident, Miliote said, but is under investigation by Taunton police, State Police, and the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The New Hampshire Fire Marshal's office says it's concerned about the concrete foundation and footings for a fieldhouse under construction at Kimball Union Academy. The academy had suspended work on the 40,000-square-foot structure on Nov. 17 amid safety concerns. The Valley News reports (http://bit.ly/v8WSAz) the supervisor of the State Fire Marshal's Bureau of Building Safety and Construction was called in by an OSHA investigator. OSHA was responding to a complaint by a steel erector who had been fired by the general contractor, James DePaul of JDE Inc. The town of...

The employer of two men who died after inhaling sewer gases at a job site in Kennebunkport last month says he will likely challenge proposed federal fines of nearly $17,000. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed the fines after 58-year-old Winfield Studley of Windsor and 70-year-old Richard Kemp of Monmouth died from inhalation of hydrogen sulfide while working on a pump inside a sewer tank at a motel. OSHA cited Stevens Electric & Pump Service for failure to ventilate the work area and for failing to have a rescue procedure in place.

Federal workplace safety officials are proposing nearly $17,000 in penalties following the death of two men working in a sewage tank in Kennebunkport, Maine. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the employer for four safety violations, including failure to ventilate the area where the men were working and failing to test the air quality before and during the work. OSHA also said there was no system in place for an emergency rescue for the employees of Stevens Electric & Pump Service, a Monmouth company that was doing work at a motel, the Lodge at Turbats Creek.

A Maine contractor has been cited for alleged violations of workplace safety standards in connection with the death of a worker at a construction site in Bangor. Danny Dodge, a 23-year-old employee of Bowdoin Excavation of North Yarmouth, was killed when a backhoe rolled down an embankment and landed on top of him. The Bangor Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/nYqOKG) that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is seeking fines totaling $13,600 against the company.

HARTFORD — The nation’s top workplace safety agency imposed $16.6 million in fines yesterday against companies involved in a power plant blast that killed six workers and injured 50 others. The fines, the third-highest imposed for a single accident, stem from 371 alleged safety and workplace violations at the Kleen Energy Systems natural gas power plant in Middletown. The companies “blatantly disregarded well known and accepted industry procedures and their own safety guidelines,’’ the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said in announcing the fines.

While businesses bemoan the cost of regulations, a new study suggests that government enforcement of workplace health and safety rules can save lives without sapping a company's bottom line. The findings come from a decade-long look at hundreds of California work sites subject to random safety inspections. Researchers found that inspected companies reduced their injury claims by 9.4 percent compared to those not inspected, with no negative impact on profits or sales. Better yet, the same companies saved an average of 26 percent on workers'...

The Department of Labor has cited Demoulas Supermarkets Inc., which runs the Market Basket grocery chain, for 30 alleged "willful, repeat, and serious violations" of workplace safety standards at its stores in Rindge and Concord, N.H. The Tewksbury company, which has supermarkets in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, faces a total of $589,200 in proposed fines for "recurring fall and laceration hazards and also for improperly responding to a...

THE AUG. 12 editorial "In fining mental-health provider, OSHA sends a strong message" missed critical points in its support of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's misguided response to the tragic death of Stephanie Moulton in January. Moulton worked at a home, not a "facility," as the editorial stated. The terms are very different and carry tremendous weight for employees and residents. These are individuals' homes, from where they leave for school, work, occupational training, and other programs.