Safety Law Newsletter – July 2017

July’s edition of the Safety Law Newsletter discusses OSHA’s VPP Program “recalibration,” the latest MSHA quarterly training call, recent news involving the court of appeals giving MSHA access to personnel records, an update to overtime changes, a recent court ruling in California that may signal a shift in liability, the new nanomaterials act that goes…

5 Hot Work Misconceptions

Despite repeated fires started by hot work and an NFPA standard on safe hot work practices—NFPA 51B, Fire Prevention During Welding, Cutting, and Other Hot Work, which was first issued in 1962—hot work–related blasts and blazes continue to occur. According to the NFPA report “Structure Fires Started by Hot Work,” issued last September, fire departments…

My Equipment Is Grandfathered- Wrong!

A lack of understanding OSHA’s machine guarding regulations continues to make machine safeguarding one of OSHA’s Top 10 violations. We often hear “our equipment is old and has been grandfathered so it doesn’t need guarding”. While this may seem logical, it is simply not true. Up until the late 1970’s, OSHA did have a few…

Safety Law Newsletter – June 2017

June’s Safety Law Newsletter discusses the withdrawal of the U.S. Department of Labor’s 2015 and 2016 informal guidance on joint employment and independent contractors, ways to eliminate coal mining fatalities and coal impoundment in construction, a review of commission cases that raise questions over the multi-employer citation policy, rock climbing gyms and seeking OSHA compliance…