Susan Kemp, a labor law attorney for the California Chamber of Commerce, describes how the new laws will work.

She says the boost to Cal/OSHA’s enforcement powers applies mainly to businesses that own and operate heavy equipment. “Any type of machinery that involves anything that can pinch you, push you, cut you, smush body parts, anything with the height that you can fall, tunneling, people in ditches where there’s a cave-in, those kinds of things,” Kemp said.

Cal/OSHA will enforce a new safety standard this year to prevent farm workers from getting sick from the heat. Farm and orchard managers now have to provide each worker with a quart of water an hour – and five minutes of rest in the shade if the employee asks for it.

Susan Kemp says the new law also requires employers to train managers on how enforce the new regulation. Kemp explains, “The employer has to monitor the weather and make arrangements in advance, and supervisors and managers have to be trained to do that as well.”

[via]

The new laws in detail include:

New Off- Duty Meal Break Exemptions

AB 569 provides greater legal clarity to Labor Code section 512(a) which requires employers to provide their employees, who work more than six hours in a day, one 30-minute off-duty meal break after five hours of work. The new law adds section 512.7 to the Labor Code and will exempt from the off-duty meal break requirement workers in specific industries who are covered by a collective bargaining agreement that contains meal period provisions. The employee groups include: construction workers, commercial drivers, security officers and employees of electrical and gas corporations or local publicly-owned electric utilities. These are industries or positions where it was deemed an off-duty meal break can be impractical. The revision was made to better meet the requirements of the particular positions. The bill was introduced by Assembly Member Bill Emmerson (R-Hemet).

Workers’ Compensation Extended Eligibility for Public Service Workers

AB 2253 expands workers’ compensation eligibility for firefighters and law enforcement officers who have developed certain types of cancer that are reasonably linked to their jobs. Existing law establishes that this presumption be extended for a period of three months for each full year of service the employee worked, not to exceed 60 months beyond their last day of service. The pending legislation will expand that time frame to up to 120 months and will amend Labor Code section 3212.1. The bill was introduced by Assembly Member Joe Coto (D-San Jose).

Organ / Bone Marrow Donors’ Leave and Benefits for Employees of Private Employers

SB 1304 requires private employers to permit employees to take paid leaves of absence for organ and bone marrow donation, similar to provisions existing for California state employees. Under the new law, private employers are prohibited from interfering with employees taking organ or bone marrow donation leave and after the conclusion of the leave of absence must allow them to return to the same job or an equivalent job. The bill, introduced by Senator Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord), further prohibits retaliation of the employee for taking the leave and provides employees to seek restitution if these rights are violated.

New Procedures Established and Definition Clarified for Cal/OSHA Serious Citations

California employers are legally bound to provide employees a safe workplace. California law has authorized DIR’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, better known as Cal/OSHA, to enforce applicable safety and health regulations and issue citations when investigations reveal that an employer has committed violations of those standards, including serious violations that cause an employee to suffer or potentially suffer, among other things, “serious injury or illness” or “serious physical harm.” AB 2774, introduced by Assembly member Sandre R. Swanson (D-Alameda), amends labor code section 6432 to define serious physical harm and establishes a rebuttable presumption as to when an employer commits a serious violation of these provisions. The bill further establishes new procedures and standards for an investigation when issuing serious citations.

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Learn more at the California DIR.

Not so according to several studies in the U.S., New Zealand and Canada. Sitting between six and ten hours a day or for two hours unbroken can lead to some very serious health problems posing a similar health risk to that of a smoker.

Increased health problems include:

• Deep vein thrombosis (DVT)
• Obesity
• Diabetes
• Heart attacks and heart disease
• Cancer
• Depression
• Musculoskeletal pain and disorders

And the following are a few quotes from various articles:

People who sit without moving for 10 hours a day – and for at least two hours without getting up – are three times more at risk of an embolism or deep vein thrombosis than those who do not, a study by the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand suggests. [via]

Women who reported more than six hours per day of sitting (outside of work) were 37 percent more likely to die during the time period studied than those who sat fewer than three hours a day. Men who sat more than six hours a day (also outside of work) were 18 percent more likely to die than those who sat fewer than three hours per day. The association remained virtually unchanged after adjusting for physical activity level. Associations were stronger for cardiovascular disease mortality than for cancer mortality. [via]

Doctors say the evolution of technology has impacted the way we use our bodies. Humans have moved from the active life of being hunter-gatherers to becoming agriculturalists. The Industrial Revolution moved us to factories and the technological revolution landed us behind desks and into the culture of sitting too much.

“Sitting has become the most common human behavior, literally, it outstrips the amount of time we spend sleeping,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton said that sitting has become a new form of smoking. Smoking was once so common that people were reluctant to see the health hazard it posed. [via]

Quite sobering stuff!

The north of England was the spine of the Industrial Revolution that fueled the Empire -the predominant industry being cotton.

Fred was a no nonsense type of guy who’d strap a load of ladder together with rope to clamber up a 300+ ft chimney prior to setting fire to the bottom where he’d placed wooden struts, which, once burned out would cause the chimney to topple – hopefully in the direction of Fred’s choosing.

He never used dynamite. He was also something of a national hero.

Anyway, if you enjoy this kind of thing and hark back to more innocent times when you could climb up chimneys unaided without safety harnesses and be stood next to a chimney as it topples, then the following video might interest you:

And if you liked that then you may be interested to hear his thoughts on health and safety – especially how he felt better climbing chimneys with a couple of pints inside him!

Now those were the days…

As this report states:

North Carolina’s Labor Department said Thursday the state’s rate of injuries or illnesses at private companies dropped to a historic low in 2009. The 3.1 percent rate compares with 3.4 percent in 2008.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said there were just over three cases of illness or injury per 100 full-time workers in both Carolinas. Injury rates in both states were near the country’s lowest along with Texas, Louisiana, Virginia and New York.

But, the workplace safety in South and North Carolina has been heavily criticized by the US Labor Department for suggesting paltry fines to companies flouting the laws and not taking safety issues seriously enough.

Another state OSHA that has also come under fire recently, California, has hit back at the US Labor Dept’s audit suggesting that its criticisms asking for better complaint resolution and improved safety training are irrelevant due to the audit relying heavily on out of date information and lacking understanding of the state’s process.

As reported by ABC:

Cal/OSHA chief Len Welsh said in an interview Thursday that the federal audit didn’t provide documentation for many of its claims, making it difficult to pinpoint failures and make effective changes.

Cal/OSHA could change the way it responds to complaints as a result of the audit’s criticism that the state takes an average of 24.5 days to initiate an investigation after a complaint is received, a process that should only take three days.

To speed up the process, Welsh said the department may stop sending on-site inspectors to workplaces for low-priority complaints — those alleging non-serious hazards — to reduce inspection workload. Cal/OSHA can make the change unilaterally, Welsh said, but it wants to vet it with stakeholders before changing protocol.

“As time goes on and resources dry up we’re going to have to find ourselves prioritizing what we do more and more,” Welsh said.

Well, according to the following Mad Men era-ish video it’s positively strewn with all manner of near death possibilities.

Watch, listen and learn:

First up there’s the “Use the Right PPE for the Job!” which is obviously trying to highlight the need to wear the correct personal protective equipment.

From the Gallway site: “Protective clothing comes in many forms – maybe you only need a protective sleeve or apron, or maybe you need full body coverage for electrical arc exposure. Once the need for protective clothing is established, an evaluation of the hazards is necessary so that a proper selection can be made. Whether you need protection for chemical exposure, high-visibility garments to be seen on roadways, or simply rainwear to keep dry.”

As reported in the St. Albert Gazette:

“It is so Albertans have a good idea of their employer or prospective employer’s record on health and safety,” said Chris Chodan with Alberta Employment and Immigration.

Gil McGowan with the Alberta Federation of Labour said the government said the website would be a one-stop shop for people interested in their employer’s record, but that is not what has been delivered.

“What we got instead was a site that hides employment safety records behind a wall of confusing and downright useless information.”

The site allows people to search by industry, company name and city and provides information on companies using data from the Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB).

McGowan said the problem with loss time claim rates is that employers report them and when they rise, so do their WCB premium rates.

He said while they don’t have firm statistics, his group has heard many reports of employers putting employees on modified duties or otherwise not reporting loss hours to keep their claims down.

“You shouldn’t be using statistics that can be so easily compromised.“

McGowan said they would like to see provincially issued stop-work orders and stop-use orders listed on the site and would also like to see inspection reports that the province does at worksites as part of the database.

Chodan said stop-work orders and inspection reports could be added over time, but for right now they went with the loss time claim numbers because they are universal.

‘They are known as a universally recognized statistic,” he said. “It is a standard that has to be reported.”

McGowan has also cited many examples of workplace accidents or charges that aren’t listed on the site. He said the information in some cases just isn’t there for some companies or is harder to find in other cases.

“It simply doesn’t have the information on the website that workers need.”

Chodan said in some cases there are multiple companies at a site where a fatality or accident occurred. He said in other cases one company can be charged for an accident that affected an employee of another firm.

“The company that gets charged might not be the actual employer.”

Is this something you’d be interested in seeing over here in the States or is it too much Government intervention and regulation?

First Place: Aircraft marshaller’s safety jacket

Designers: Matthew Bartels, Sara Deshone and Armine Ghalachyan
Instructor: Dr. Maureen MacGillivray
School: Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Mich., U.S.A.
The aircraft marshaller’s safety jacket, a two-layer cold weather system, incorporates LilyPad Arduino technology, electronics designed for e-clothing and e-textiles. The jacket follows the safety requirements and standards for this type of garment to safeguard the wearer in unfavorable visibility conditions and to provide protection from adverse weather. It is innovative and original in integrating LED lights into the sleeves of the garment, eliminating the need for handheld lighted wands used by aircraft marshallers. The lights on the safety jacket can be switched on and off.

Second Place: Mountain bike armor for females

Designer: David De Courcy
Instructor: Adam DeEyto
School: Institute of Technology Carlow, County Carlow, Ireland
The mountain bike armor is an innovative answer for female mountain bike riders, fulfilling the needs of comfort, support and protection. Working with two major suppliers of flexible, breathable materials, the garment provides breast support, abdominal protection, cervical and clavicle guards without restricting body movement.

Third Place: The Flyer—high-rise escape garment

Designers: Kurt Anderson, Jessica Bjorgum, Brooke Burch
Instructor: Dr. Gindy Neidermyer
School: University of Wisconsin, Stout, U.S.A.
This rescue system, based on the idea that people can fly with proper aids, is designed to allow people to jump from high-rise buildings and land safely. An easy-to-don jacket with attached wings (similar to the membranes that allow a flying squirrel to coast between trees) offers added safety with a deployable parachute.

(via)

Besides safety training and chemical exposure monitoring, there have been concerns regarding the lack of protective equipment used by cleanup workers.

One of the main problems, according to the report, is the programs themselves (known as the National and Regional Contingency Plans) don’t contain any method of ensuring workplace safety regulations are adhered to.

“These documents, beginning at the national level, consistently pass responsibility for ensuring worker safety down the line to the next entity that has a duty to participate in planning process,” the report states. “But as they pass the buck, they never establish mechanisms for ensuring accountability at the next level for worker safety and health.”

Concerns surrounding cleanup workers’ lack of oil spill protective clothing first arose back in July when pictures showing workers in Galveston, Texas without OSHA required coveralls, rubber boots and gloves.

You can view the original pictures of the workers without proper protection at the ‘Support Health and Safety Protections for Gulf Oil Spill Cleanup Workers’ facebook group.

Did you know that thousands of eye injuries are recorded in the USA everyday? Over 90% of which could have been prevented had the injured party been wearing safety glasses?

Safety glasses are a see-through safety shield for your eyes. They’re different to regular glasses in that they cover only the front of your eyes, whereas safety glasses cover your eyes from the sides as well so that nothing can enter your eyes and damage them. Safety glasses have passed specific ANSI standards.

Not only the frames of these special glasses are much sturdier than the ordinary glasses, the lenses are also stronger with shatter resistance features. It implies that the lenses of safety glasses must pass a drop ball test, in which a ball is dropped on the lens to test whether it is hard enough to withstand all kinds of accidental assaults. The lenses are most commonly made of virgin resin polycarbonate which is stronger than regular lenses. The light weight and impact-resistant lenses of the safety glasses come in both prescription and non-prescription forms including bifocal safety glasses.

Safety glasses have both sturdy and heat resistant frames and are designed to prevent the lenses from being pushed into the eyes during an accident.

They also protect your eyes from harmful UV rays and are often used as sun glasses. Most safety glasses have a scratch-resistant coating as well.

A new standard, ANSI Z87.1-2003, was passed recently to give instructions regarding the requirements of different types of safety glasses for different workplaces. There are mainly two types of lenses: high impact and basic impact. It is the responsibility of the employers who require protective eye wear for their employees to consult OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) regulations to know which type of safety glass is required at their job sites.

Smith & Wesson Olympic 30-06 Dual Bifocal Safety Glasses

Dual bifocal safety glasses can be superior to traditional bifocal safety spectacles in terms of correcting the wearer’s eyesight; but only provide vision correction within the near range. This is because their lenses are made with a single, positive power in the bottom section. The upper part is non-prescription. In this case, users of bifocal safety glasses can only get visual aids when they try to view nearby objects or materials. Plenty of people can benefit greatly from this eye wear, especially those who work with power tools.

However, traditional bifocal safety glasses are not sufficient if wearers need to see objects in the distance. In fact, the combination of both nearsightedness and presbyopia correction is the typical function provided by regular bifocal reading glasses. Dual bifocal safety glasses function, in a similar way as regular bifocal reading glasses. The upper section of their lenses helps the user to see distant objects and the lower section is for presbyopia correction, which is extremely helpful for certain groups of people.