Occupational Safety and Health Administration News

Supreme Court Conservatives Question OSHA Business Vaccine Rule

Fully vaccinated and mostly masked, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical Friday of the Biden administration’s authority to impose a vaccine-or-testing requirement on the nation’s large employers. The court seemed more open to a separate vaccine mandate for most …

Illinois Worker Dies After Being Trapped in Machinery

A 61-year-old worker died after becoming trapped in machinery at a suburban Chicago steel polishing factory, authorities said Friday. Raymondo Escobar’s cause of death was due to “asphyxia due to machinery mishap,” Kane County Coroner Rob Russell said. Geneva Fire …

Maine Roofing Contractor Found Not Guilty in Death of Worker

A jury has found that a roofing contractor in Maine is not guilty of workplace manslaughter for the 2018 death of a worker. The Portland Press Herald reports that the jury reached its verdict at the Cumberland County Courthouse. Shawn …

Labor Group Calls for Probe of Amazon’s Reporting of Covid Cases at Facilities

Amazon.com Inc. provided “misleading or grossly incomplete” data about the number of Covid-19 infections potentially spread in its U.S. facilities, according to a labor group calling on the federal government to investigate the company. Of the almost 20,000 employees the …

Connecticut Aircraft Parts Manufacturer Cited for Workplace Safety Violations

A Connecticut aircraft parts manufacturer did not take required steps to identify potential exposures and protect employees from hexavalent chromium and cadmium – both known carcinogens – at its Bloomfield facility, a U.S. Department of Labor workplace safety inspection found. …

Senate Confirms Parker as OSHA Chief

The U.S. Senate has approved Douglas Parker, former California workplace safety chief, as assistant secretary of labor at the Labor Department and the new head of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The Senate vote was 50-41 to confirm …

New York Foundry to Pay $276K for Safety, Health Hazards Following Inspection

A Syracuse, New York, iron foundry cited by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for dozens of health and safety violations has agreed to correct 60 cited hazards, implement enhanced corrective measures and pay $276,189 …

Biden Multi-Agency Plan Seeks to Address Extreme Heat Stress

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is moving to protect workers and communities from extreme heat after a dangerously hot summer that spurred an onslaught of drought-worsened wildfires and caused hundreds of deaths from the Pacific Northwest to hurricane-ravaged Louisiana. …

Overheated, Underprotected: Climate Change Is Killing U.S. Farm Laborers

Florencio Gueta Vargas showed up for his usual shift at a hops farm in Toppenish, Washington, on Thursday, July 29. The father of six would never make it home. It was a sweltering day with temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit …

Crane Collapse in Philadelphia Kills a Man, Injures Another

A massive construction drill toppled over and crushed a man to death Tuesday night in Philadelphia, police said. Firefighters and police responded just after 9:10 p.m. to the 3100 block of Convention Avenue near Franklin Field and the Penn Museum …