AP Solutions, Inc. - Occupational Safety and Health Page

05/06/2015

WASHINGTON – The Occupational Safety and Health Administration today issued a final rule* to increase protections for construction workers in confined spaces.

Manholes, crawl spaces, tanks and other confined spaces are not intended for continuous occupancy. They are also difficult to exit in an emergency. People working in confined spaces face life-threatening hazards including toxic substances, electrocutions, explosions and asphyxiation.

Last year, two workers were asphyxiated while repairing leaks in a manhole, the second when he went down to save the first – which is not uncommon in cases of asphyxiation in confined spaces.

“In the construction industry, entering confined spaces is often necessary, but fatalities like these don’t have to happen,” said Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez. “This new rule will significantly improve the safety of construction workers who enter confined spaces. In fact, we estimate that it will prevent about 780 serious injuries every year.”

The rule will provide construction workers with protections similar to those manufacturing and general industry workers have had for more than two decades, with some differences tailored to the construction industry. These include requirements to ensure that multiple employers share vital safety information and to continuously monitor hazards – a safety option made possible by technological advances after the manufacturing and general industry standards were created.

“This rule will save lives of construction workers,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels. “Unlike most general industry worksites, construction sites are continually evolving, with the number and characteristics of confined spaces changing as work progresses. This rule emphasizes training, continuous worksite evaluation and communication requirements to further protect workers’ safety and health.”

03/16/2015

In the past 5 years the top 3 OSHA violations were fall protection, scaffolding and hazard communication. AP Solutions, Inc. can help by providing training to supervisors and worker in these areas. AP Solutions has courses in the areas of Fall Protection Program for General Industry (7 hours), Fall Protection for Construction (8 hours), Hazard Communications Program (5 hours) and Scaffold Safety Program Management (4 hours) and Safe Scaffold Er****on and Inspection (5 hours). Completion of the course will lead to a certificate of completion and a laminated wallet card. Contact us at AP Solutions for additional information.

03/16/2015

Rox Coal Inc. fined $110,000 for violation of electrical safety standard

Pennsylvania mine operator Rox Coal Inc will have to pay $110,000 in fines for violating an electrical hazard safety standard. The mine’s chief electrician had deliberately disabled the safety switch a couple of days before sending two workers to change fuses. As a result, on October 3, 2007, one of the miners was shocked while changing the fuse on a high voltage switch house. The incident occurred at Geronimo Mine in Somerset County.

03/16/2015

Following a six month investigation, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has fined Redhook Ale Brewery more than $60,000 for multiple violations they say caused the death of Ben Harris on April 24.

According to Edmund Fitzgerald, the U.S. Department of Labor's regional director of public affairs in Boston, Craft Brew Alliance (CBA), now has 15 days to appeal the $63,500 in fines.

The employee was using a compressed air line to purge liquid from the interior of a plastic keg when the keg exploded, causing parts of it to fatally strike the worker.

The explosion resulted from excess air pressure introduced into the keg from the keg cleanout line.
The cleanout line lacked an air regulator that would have limited its air pressure to below 60 pounds per square inch or PSI, the maximum air pressure limit recommended by keg manufacturers.
Other employees who used the cleanout line were exposed to the same hazard while cleaning out steel kegs.

Harris was killed on the morning on April 24 while he was washing a plastic keg. Redhook officials subsequently said the keg that exploded and killed Harris was

03/16/2015

01/14/2015

Will be attending the Northern Ohio Chapter of American Society of Safety Engineers chapter meeting this evening and the guest speaker will be Steven Forystek, corporate safety director at Scrap Metal Services, Inc. on the subject of Safety Performance Metrics. A very serious subject when evaluating your company's safety system as we need to know how the system is performing and how can we evaluate that performance.

11/18/2014

starting in January 2015 we will be offering a free safety education presentation online approximately 20 minutes in length on various safety subjects to all that would be interested in viewing the presentation, stay posted as we will announce the subject matter about 30 days in advance.

10/20/2014

AP Solutions, Inc. offers Occupational Safety and Health Training services and compliance reviews to verify that your companies meet required standards.

10/08/2014

Top 10 most frequently cited OSHA standards violated in FY2013

The following were the top 10 most frequently cited standards by Federal OSHA in fiscal year 2013 (October 1, 2012 through September 30, 2013):

1. Fall protection, construction (29 CFR 1926.501)

2. Hazard communication standard, general industry (29 CFR 1910.1200)

3. Scaffolding, general requirements, construction (29 CFR 1926.451)

4. Respiratory protection, general industry (29 CFR 1910.134)

5. Electrical, wiring methods, components and equipment, general industry (29 CFR 1910.305)

6. Powered industrial trucks, general industry (29 CFR 1910.178)

7. Ladders, construction (29 CFR 1926.1053)

8. Control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout), general industry (29 CFR 1910.147)

9. Electrical systems design, general requirements, general industry (29 CFR 1910.303)

10. Machinery and Machine Guarding, general requirements (29 CFR 1910.212)

10/08/2014