AUSTIN, TX – After escaping from a partial trench collapse hours earlier, two workers employed by an Austin contractor to install a residential wastewater line were not as fortunate later on Oct. 23, 2021.

Both were told to return to the unprotected 13-foot-deep trench to finish the job, and soon after, the trench collapsed again. This time, the collapse buried one worker causing fatal injuries and partially buried the second, who suffered serious injuries.

DENVER – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration developed a new Regional Emphasis Program to identify and reduce hazards in the cut stone and stone products industry. Enforcement will begin on May 17, 2022. In the past 10 years, the cut stone and stone products manufacturing industry has had the highest documented overexposures to respirable crystalline silica in the region. 

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced a proposal to reconsider and revoke the final approval of Arizona’s State OSHA plan, in response to nearly a decade-long pattern of failures to adopt and enforce standards and enforcement policies at least as effective as those used by the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Participant:   Raytheon Global Headquarters, Waltham, Massachusetts

WAUKEGAN, IL – A Waukegan contractor – with a history of violating federal safety standards and ignoring safety citations – was cited again by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration for exposing workers to deadly fall hazards at two separate job sites in October 2021. Joshua Herion – who does business as ECS Roofing Professionals Inc. – faces proposed penalties of $360,531.

CLEARWATER, FL – A federal investigation into how a 47-year-old carpenter was fatally injured on Oct. 6, 2021, at the Pinellas Gateway Express project in Clearwater found his employer violated safety standards by allowing workers to remain in a crane load’s danger zone.

SEATTLE – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Puget Sound Shipbuilders Association in Seattle have renewed an alliance to continue a collaborative relationship that provides shipyard workers and companies with information about hazards and resources to promote safe, healthful workplaces and workers’ rights.

SIOUX FALLS, SD – Each year, hundreds of workers are injured – some fatally – on construction sites. So, as the spring construction season gets into full swing, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration and more than 500 voluntary employee members of the Associated General Contractors of South Dakota are teaming up to protect workers from common construction industry hazards.

EL PASO, TX – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited a Texas metal fabricator for repeatedly exposing employees to fall, machine and other safety hazards. OSHA’s most recent inspection of Kyoei Steel LTD – operating as Vinton Steel LLC – found 19 violations. The agency proposed penalties of $364,078.

WASHINGTON – Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh today toured a treatment facility operated by the Spanish Fort Water System, an Alabama water utility company, to highlight efforts by the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration to protect workers from heat-related hazards in the workplace.

AUGUSTA, ME – A Maine roofing and siding contractor, solely owned, operated and controlled by Andrew Raymond Pollock, willfully exposed its employees to fall hazards at a Hampden residential construction site on multiple occasions during the same inspection by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

WASHINGTON – Por primera vez, la Administración de Salud y Seguridad Ocupacional del Departamento de Trabajo de los Estados Unidos (OSHA por sus siglas en inglés) ha lanzado un Programa Nacional de Énfasis para proteger a millones de trabajadores de enfermedades y lesiones causadas por el calor.

WESTON, WI – An employee working at Crystal Finishing Systems Inc.’s aluminum extrusion facility in Weston was hospitalized with serious injuries after being struck by a puller machine while trying to unjam a piece of aluminum.

WASHINGTON – For the first time, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has launched a National Emphasis Program to protect millions of workers from heat illness and injuries.

Participant:    Pfizer Inc.  Andover, Massachusetts

ATLANTA – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is partnering with several construction organizations to promote worker safety through a safety stand down taking place at Georgia construction sites and traffic work zones, April 11-15.

GRAIN VALLEY, MO – Nearly five years after an employee died in a trench collapse, a Missouri contractor exposed two workers to the life-threatening risk of being buried by thousands of pounds of soil as they worked in an unprotected trench weakened by water pooling in an excavation site.

SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Department of Labor has ordered a San Jose trucking company to pay more than $145,000 in back wages and damages after a federal whistleblower investigation found the company retaliated against two workers who refused to drive commercial motor vehicles when they felt too sick or fatigued to drive safely.

WASHINGTON ‒ Grain flowing inside a bin can trap and engulf a worker in seconds, and makes for a sobering fact: nearly six of every 10 workers trapped in a grain bin don’t survive.

SEATTLE – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has certified the Walsh Group, a commercial construction management company in Seattle, as a “Star” employer in the agency’s Voluntary Protection Programs.

Now in its 40th year, the VPP is the highest level of OSHA recognition for workplace safety and health excellence.