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Wholestone Farms Cooperative Inc., a Fremont, Nebraska, farm cooperative, faces $36,873 in Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fines for exposing workers in a palletizing area to ergonomic stressors likely to cause musculoskeletal disorders and injuries, the agency announced October 8. Investigators found that the company required workers to manually lift boxes weighing up to […]
Do you have effective ergonomics interventions in place at your facilities or worksites? How much are musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) costing you? Ergonomic hazards are among the costliest workplace hazards, according to Liberty Mutual’s latest Workplace Safety Index (WSI). “Overexertion involving outside sources” (lifting heavy loads) tops the insurer’s WSI. Overexertion injuries collectively cost employers $12.84 […]
An Amazon warehouse in Logan Township, New Jersey, required employees to perform tasks leading to bodily stress that had caused or was likely to cause musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced August 3. OSHA cited Amazon for ergonomic hazards, proposing penalties totaling $15,625, and issued a Hazard Alert Letter regarding […]
On March 22, the National Safety Council (NSC) announced it is awarding $285,000 in grants to research promising safety solutions to reduce the instances of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) through two newly launched grant programs: the Research to Solutions (R2S) grant and MSD Solutions Pilot Grant 1.0. The grant programs are part of the NSC’s […]
While there are promising, well-established interventions to prevent workplace musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), “there is no silver bullet to mitigate this workplace concern,” according to a new white paper from the National Safety Council’s (NSC) MSD Solutions Lab. Additional research is needed to identify measures that actually reduce MSD risks. The NSC called on employers to […]
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) may be costing you in employee days away from work. MSD hazards and ergonomic practices also still command the attention of safety and health inspectors, so you need to understand your facility’s MSD hazards and appropriate ergonomic interventions. Despite the 2001 revocation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) ergonomics standard, […]
In a letter of interpretation dated August 3, 2018, U.S. OSHA’s Directorate of Enforcement Programs provided several valuable insights into the extent chemical manufacturers, distributors, or importers may make use of trade secret protections when completing safety data sheets (SDSs), formerly material safety data sheets (MSDSs).
Are you ready for the new safety data sheets (SDS)? Writing for Safety.BLR.com®, Safety Editor Emily Clark has everything you need to know about the recently passed deadline and its implications. June 1, 2015, marked an important deadline in the 4-year phase-in period for OSHA’s revisions to its hazard communication standard. Effective that date, chemical […]
There may be a point at which a worker cannot do a job safely because of a disability. A worker with an intellectual disability will probably never be qualified to run heavy machinery. But how can you determine when a worker and a job combine to create a significant risk of substantial harm to the […]
Sometimes it’s difficult to get a problem cleared up around your workplace. Even when OSHA cites a condition, you may have difficulty tracking it down at all of your facilities or bringing all of your equipment up to standard. It’s important to try, though—if you don’t, you could be cited for either a “repeat” violation […]