Cal/OSHA Violations Causing Death of an Employee Resulted in a Felony Conviction of a Roofing Company Owner.

Three construction workers were injured as the forms for the concrete floor they were pouring collapsed.  Read more at http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090428/NEWS01/904280360/1008/NEWS01/Floor+collapses+at+arena+site

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Know the Steps to Safety When Using Escalators

Each year the ride between floors is made easier when an estimated 90 billion riders use an escalator. Although most of those rides are without incident, the CPSC estimates there were approximately 11,000 escalator related injuries in 2007. The majority of these injuries are from falls, but 10 percent occur when hands, feet or shoes are trapped in escalators.

The most common entrapment is to the foot. Soft-sided shoes are the most likely to get stuck and pose the possibility of injury to the rider. CPSC is aware of 77 entrapment incidents since January 2006, with about half resulting in injury. All but two of the incidents involved popular soft-sided flexible clogs and slides.

Here are some steps you can take to prevent escalator injuries:

·         Make sure shoes are tied before getting on an escalator.

·         Stand in the center of the step and be sure to step off of the escalator at the end of your ride.

·         Always hold children’s hands on escalators and do not permit children to sit or play on the steps.

·         Do not bring children onto escalators in strollers, walkers, or carts.

·         Always face forward and hold the handrail.

·         Avoid the sides of steps where entrapment can occur.

·         Learn where the emergency shutoff buttons are in case you need to stop the escalator.

Do all skylights require fall protection measures?

“Moreover, a definition given in Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1977 edition) for “hatch” is “an opening in the…floor or roof of a building”; the same entry gives “hatchway” as a synonym. “Using these definitions, therefore, OSHA concludes that a skylight should be regarded as a hatchway, i.e., an opening in the roof of a building through which persons may fall. 29 CFR 1910.23(a)(4), therefore, requires that skylights in the roof of buildings through which persons may fall while walking or working shall be guarded by a standard skylight screen or a fixed standard railing on all exposed sides.

“When a skylight screen is selected for safeguarding the opening, and in the event the skylight is constructed of plastic material subject to fracture (as glass would be), then the skylight must at a minimum be provided with a skylight screen capable of withstanding a load of at least 200 pounds applied perpendicularly at any one area on the screen. On the other hand, a plastic skylight which can provide the necessary structural integrity to support the 200-pound load would not be required to be further safeguarded, since it would meet the intended function of a screen as well.

“As expressed in 29 CFR 1910.23(e)(8), the primary function of the screen is to support at least a 200-pound load such as a person may place upon it. This provision further relates that the screen shall provide a minimum deflection so as not to break the glass; but that portion of the requirement may be inapplicable when no glass is present. (The concern for breaking the glass results from the possible fragment exposure to persons beneath the skylight.)”

This letter can be viewed in its entirety at http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=INTERPRETATIONS&p_id=19180

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