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GOOGLE is not immunized from OSHA investigations. Workplace fatalities often get their interest.
Work-related fatalities for cases inspected by Federal or State OSHA. If the working environment is unsafe, the situation is covered by the general duty clause - even if it is not explicitly covered in the prescriptive regulations.

It was founded in 1894 by William Merrill source I followed your link, but it was hidden behind Javascript.

What statute is that?

I don't know the statute (Typically the third-party rating advertised is the IIIHS ratingand don't care to look it up.) Check OSHA's list.

Typically the third-party rating advertised is the IIIHS rating

The IIHS is quoted for verbiage (top safety pick!). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is responsible for the 1-5 star ratings.

Insurance companies do tend to push things forward as well... but that's only when insurance companies are tightly regulated. Auto insurers have to meet certain liability levels, etc. On the other hand, notice how medical insurance (at least pre-ACA, no idea since then) primarily innovated by figuring out how to not cover procedures.

We don't ban milk with listeria. We ban raw milk in some places. That's not the same thing. Good for you doing your own brakes. I do mine too. Do you have a vehicle with drum brakes? Do you drive on the highway where trucks or cars over a few years old are present? Do you breathe while driving? I'll let you in on a little secret. Asbestos is still in all sorts of brake linings (and most clutches too). It may not be present in your top of the line ceramic or organic kevlar pads, and many OEMs are removing it too, but it's still in most of the cheap aftermarket stuff that most people buy (particularly as replacement parts). https://www.freedoniagroup.com... https://www.osha.gov/dts/shib/... Asbestos used to be in automotive gaskets too. That's one use where it's pretty much gone now.

1) OSHA. If it's a safety violation, don't just ignore it (or jury-rig a solution)--call it in.

2) It took her "a few weeks" to "push for" workman's comp? That's a day-one call. If you don't get it, you call the state Dept. of Labor (whatever the name is in that particular state).

3) When she came back, the guard was still not in place? a) refuse to work until it's fixed. b) see point (1).

Would a union help this? Probably. But unions also come with downsides (I've been a member of 3 unions and interacted with a few hundred). The plaintiff could have dealt with this a long time ago if she'd just called the appropriate government agencies--they *love* to fine big corporations for safety violations. Unions fought for--and got--these laws. But they're meaningless if people don't use them to protect themselves.

Honestly? 10 minutes on Google should have given this woman all the correct answers she needed to solve the issues. The original safety issues fall on Amazon, but after that? Most of her problems are the result of her "waiting for someone to fix it", rather than using the tools available to her.

You can request the "Hazardous Material Data Sheet" from the manufacturer. I know because a shop I worked at had to have one for every single substance in the shop. The binder was about 6" thick of single page HMDS sheets. https://www.osha.gov/Publicati...

You apparently have no clue what Lock Out means.

It is the process whereby you render a device completely inoperative and additionally, prevent it from being unintentionally reactivated. In almost all industries, it is an inherent part of the operation of the device. It is as ubiquitous as are seat belts. If you buy a dangerous machine, it most likely comes with instructions for locking it out, along with (literally) locks, flags, tags, etc. Hell, we just got a large air compressor at our plant and yes, it has Lockout instructions and tags.

According to OSHA 78% of accidental deaths in the workplace occur because the equipment was not deactivated or was activated by another employee after it had previously been deactivated.

The idea that industrial robots don't come with instructions for Locking Out is preposterous.

the profits could go towards funding more ambitious private projects, such as hotels on the moon, and astroid mining.

LOL

It also helps to have employees who aren't total morons. The UAW isn't necessarily needed. Most intelligent people would have razed hell after their first co-worker was injured. It never hurts to have OSHA on speed-dial, and any employer that disagrees with that statement is welcome to pay-me-unemployment-long-time.

Do you know more about workplace safety than I do? Have you ever called OSHA about a safety issue?

First, there are only 2,200 inspectors for 8 million worksites and 130 million workers, so -- to put it one way -- each inspector would have to visit 10 workplaces a day to have one inspection a year. https://www.osha.gov/oshstats/...

You can call OSHA, but that doesn't mean they'll show up that day -- or that year. It's simple arithmetic. They don't have the staff to investigate every complaint. They can only investigate the worst complaints, and the ones they can do something about.

That's due in part to cutbacks in conservative, usually Republican, federal and state administrations. I once read some studies by California OSHA on workplace fatalities, and talked to a California OSHA inspector. The studies were very good, and they identified the major causes of electrocutions, which weren't obvious. They saved lives. Then the series was discontinued, and I asked the inspector why. He said, "Ronald Reagan."

There are some industries, and some companies, with good safety records, and some with bad safety records.

The ones with good safety records, like the aircraft industry, or the nuclear power industry, had cooperation between government agencies, private employers, and unions. If you take one leg off that tripod, then you can't do as good a job.

Particularly in the coal mining industry, there were some employers who were just assholes and didn't care about employee safety. They get OSHA fines, they treat the fines as the cost of doing business, and they do a better job of concealing their safety violations. In those outfits, you need all the help you can get, including government agencies and unions, and even so, you'll have needless fatalities.

There are some people who just have an ideological opposition to unions. I can never convince them otherwise.

The exhaust from diesel power can stink and it can condense on surfaces leaving a sticky film that attracts dirt. But it's not "toxic". No one has ever murdered anyone with diesel fumes, no one has killed himself in his closed garage by sitting in the diesel-powered car with the engine running.

While diesel exhaust is largely carbon dioxide, it also contains carbon monoxide which can kill you pretty quickly. It also has many components that can cause cancer, primarily lung cancer. If course it's toxic.

References:
https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/dies...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Quite interesting. Thank you. 2003 was the last fatality, according to this data.

Aluminum dust explosions aren't really that different from any other dust explosion. E.g. https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/accidentsearch.accident_detail?id=200626075 happened after the incidents at the Apple supplier plants.

Responsible management, union regulations, and OSHA largely make that impossible in the United States

I guess that depends on your definition of "largely" and "impossible." OSHA has a handy little database that reports a dozen aluminum dust explosions in the U.S. since 2000, with about half a dozen fatalities.

"Part of the reason why cars are safer today than 40 years ago is because the CDC did studies examining car safety and provided the results and recommendations to Congress."

That's a red herring. The CDC shouldn't be involved there either, they should be focused on preventing the zombie apocalypse. Vehicle safety should fall under the NHTSA. And workplace safety should fall under OSHA. But, for political reasons, the CDC duplicates the work of both.

There's an abundance of research showing that strong electric and magnetic fields can be hazardous.

No there isn't.

OSHA Links to Dangers of RF radiation
High powered consumer microwave ovens output about 1kW the charging device uses 20kW. There is serious risk of getting an RF burn from this thing.

Impressive??? Did you see the way it lifted and placed those boxes? That's exactly how you ruin your back! Don't believe me? Look at figure 5 https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etoo... You may not think OSHA guidelines are important, but I caused myself permanent damage doing exactly what that ever-so-foolish robot is doing.

you do realize that probably does not say what you think it does right?

Really other than ag we have new papers (bike routes), actors, self employed (mom and pop stores)

Those few exceptions does not cancel out the general rule.

Funny how you totally ignore agriculture, where most restriction on child labor (including those on dangerous work and work hours) do not apply. And no matter what the agriculture lobby say, many of the kids are not working on their family farms (not to mention that we wouldn't accept kids working at a "family mine"). https://www.osha.gov/dsg/topic...

So why, exactly, does the DoL have 5-tray DVD burners in the first place?

The DoL publishes a shitload of documents. They used to publish it all on paper. Now they publish it on the Internet, but at one time they could presumably save a lot of money if they published it on DVDs. If you want a report of every workplace fatality in the US in 2005, that's a lot of paper that you could fit on 1 DVD.
http://www.bls.gov/opub/
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/public...
https://www.osha.gov/

(But that's assuming the DoL did have 5-tray DVD burners. The article just says that the guy used 5-tray DVD burners. It doesn't say that he used the DoL's 5-tray DVD burners.)

First off I'd like to thank the other countries that sell hazardous materials. They've made it necessary for the United States Government to create stringent regulations on exports and imports included but not limited to printer cartridges. Next I'd like to thank OSHA for their stringent regulations on HAZMAT imports. Because that Cyan ink might kill me one day. https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaw... Third on the list, but certainly not last, I'd like to thank HP for being the segue corporation for implementing lockout/tagout functions on printing devices should implementation of cartridges from dissimilar regions ever occur. And lastly, Thank you Xerox and various other copier/printer vendors for following suit. Especially Xerox for stamping such a quaint price of slightly more than $500 for each resolution to the problem.

The regular safety measures weren't in place because they were installing the systems, so most likely they had people working on different things and someone started testing their piece without realizing it was already connected.

Yep. See second paragraph.

Are you kidding me? No, it is most certainly NOT the first severe accident with industrial robots. Seriously, thousands and thousands of factories using them, why in the hell would anybody think for a second that accidents had never before happened??? I guess the submitter is so sheltered that he has no clue at all about what it is like to do physical labor in a place that makes actual things!

In my 30s in mechanical engineering and this is my exact experience as well.

When it comes down to 'equal pay' personal life choices play into this. I chose to leave the workplace to raise our family. My wife had a better/more stable job. As a couple we sat down and decided that it would be best for our family if I stayed home and she worked.

Now that I've been out of the work place my skills are behind. I don't know what the latest TLAs or technologies are in my field. I have a gap in my resume that can only be filled with "Domestic Engineer". If I never go back to industry my lifetime earnings will be 1/3rd of what my classmates made. Why? Because they didn't leave the work force.

On the flip side of that there is a young female manager at our company that has been climbing fast. She didn't have kids but her and her family adopted older ones. She never took leave from the office. Even as a mid level manager she was the first one in PPE. Because of that she got promoted up. Both of those were our life decisions. If you want people to stop that from being an issue stop punishing them for their decisions. Something like parental leave in the US competitive with other first world countries.

All these initiatives keep trying to sell girls on STEM without figuring out how to sell STEM to girls. Programming, science, technology, engineering, math are all tools to do something else faster/easier/better.

I love baking (take that gender stereotypes, it's what a stay at home dad does) and there is a huge market for making stuff that makes baking easier. I hate measuring liquids since it just takes time. I want a bartender bot for water, oil, vinegar, flour, sugar, etc. I want to take a QR code picture of a recipe and have it measure out all of the above into a bowl. My next project is to make a PID controlled ramp/soak controller for baking so that I can have the perfect crust by doing a proper temp profile.

I can't wait until my daughter is old enough to learn programming because the first thing I'm going to ask her is "What do you hate to do?". I'm the laziest engineer I know because if I have to do something twice I'd rather write a script/program to do it. Getting girls to try and solve the problems of 5 year old boys isn't going to make them interested in something. Just sit down and ask a 5 year old girl what frustrates her and figure out how to make Programming+STEM do it for them. And if it's something that is 'cliché' for little girls to like, who cares? What if Barbie had a self driving car? In an afternoon Barbie could have a self balancing Segway and line following Barbie car.

If there is a trinket or toy that they want/need, figure out how to 3D print it. If the part breaks, figure out why. Our local librarian bought a 3D printer with grant money and is trying to turn our tiny library into a small maker space. She has a bunch of 3D models of jewelry and small things to get girls interested in it, and it works. Sure they are low quality cheap parts but the real 'product' is that the girls know G-code, grbl, parametric modeling, etc. So that when they can afford to they can buy a CNC Machine to turn jewelry. I've already told her that I can teach the kids how to use the 3D printer to make a mold to pour actual metal. Johnny Tremain was 14 and doing the same stuff. (But didn't have good PPE). If she came out and said that a girl reached the limit of what the 3D printer could do I'd personally pay for the next model up.

If boys like destruction, battle bots will get them into it. If girls aren't into destruction it doesn't matter how much money you throw at getting girls into the battle bot arena, the only ones that are going to bite are the ones that would have been interested in it anyway.

And for the love of god it doesn't need to be Pink. Stop Pinkwashing.

police injury rates are _much_ higher than most work. According to Governing Magazine they're only surpassed by nursing care, and I can easily believe that.

That is not what your citation says:

Occupations recording the highest injury and illness rates include nursing and residential care facilities, police and fire personnel.

Note the weasel word "including" - there is no inherent ranking there, not even to say that the listed occupations are even at the top. The fact that they don't mention construction, which accounts for 20% of all workplace fatalities, more than any other occupation, suggests that site is being sneaky to promote their own agenda.

I don't really care about the numbers, but if you do, I recommend putting in the effort to analyze the BLS data yourself. I couldn't find an easy summary with less than 2 minutes of googling so I gave up.

There are plenty of contaminants in water that would be a serious problem at the parts per trillion level

Name one. I don't think you can.

Most people don't understand how dilute ppm is. Just think: 20 people in a room would be 1 ppm in greater NYC. 7 people in a room would be 1 ppb in all of earth.

OSHA uses ppm as the base unit for exposure limits. Most toxic substances are toxic at concentrations of more than 1 ppm - in other words, at least a million times more concentrated than ppt.

Look at this page. The most toxic substance I could find was Nickel carbonyl, which is toxic at 1 ppb, which is still 1,000 times more concentrated than ppt.

UL listing is important because many businesses will only buy equipment certified by a Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL). UL isn't the only NRTL, here's a list. That market can obviously support more than just UL. I think that if businesses started insisting on certifications for security, the market could support a few security certification labs.

OSHA requirements for robots in the workplace

  6. Audible and Visible Warning Systems

Audible and visible warning systems are not acceptable safeguarding methods but may be used to enhance the effectiveness of positive safeguards. The purposes of audible and visible signals need to be easily recognizable.
https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaw...

Minimum standards for a Safety Data Sheet (supercedes MSDS)
https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaw...

As to the exact composition you can get it if you need it:
29 CFR 1910 (other subparts omitted)
1910.1200(i)(3)
In non-emergency situations, a chemical manufacturer, importer, or employer shall, upon request, disclose a specific chemical identity or percentage composition, otherwise permitted to be withheld under paragraph (i)(1) of this section, to a health professional (i.e. physician, industrial hygienist, toxicologist, epidemiologist, or occupational health nurse) providing medical or other occupational health services to exposed employee(s), and to employees or designated representatives, if:
1910.1200(i)(3)(i)
The request is in writing;
1910.1200(i)(3)(ii)
The request describes with reasonable detail one or more of the following occupational health needs for the information:
1910.1200(i)(3)(ii)(A)
To assess the hazards of the chemicals to which employees will be exposed;
1910.1200(i)(3)(ii)(B)
To conduct or assess sampling of the workplace atmosphere to determine employee exposure levels;
1910.1200(i)(3)(ii)(C)
To conduct pre-assignment or periodic medical surveillance of exposed employees;
1910.1200(i)(3)(ii)(D)
To provide medical treatment to exposed employees;
1910.1200(i)(3)(ii)(E)
To select or assess appropriate personal protective equipment for exposed employees;
1910.1200(i)(3)(ii)(F)
To design or assess engineering controls or other protective measures for exposed employees; and,
1910.1200(i)(3)(ii)(G)
To conduct studies to determine the health effects of exposure.

I'm not sure it would be a bad thing for OSHA to require employers to provide adjustable desks for office workers.

Check that make-a-law impulse. A desk job is just about the safest thing you can do (assuming you don't have to travel for work). Very little chance of suffocating a mile underground (mining), disappearing into the sea (commercial fishing), losing a limb (logging, mill works), or routine exposure to carcinogens (many factory jobs). (Obligatory slideshow: the twenty deadliest jobs.)

That's not to say OSHA should have no concern but office workers (which they do)... just that it should be proportional to the risk involved.

I'm not sure it would be a bad thing for OSHA to require employers to provide adjustable desks for office workers.

Check that make-a-law impulse. A desk job is just about the safest thing you can do (assuming you don't have to travel for work). Very little chance of suffocating a mile underground (mining), disappearing into the sea (commercial fishing), losing a limb (logging, mill works), or routine exposure to carcinogens (many factory jobs). (Obligatory slideshow: the twenty deadliest jobs.)

That's not to say OSHA should have no concern but office workers (which they do)... just that it should be proportional to the risk involved.

I'm not sure it would be a bad thing for OSHA to require employers to provide adjustable desks for office workers.

Check that make-a-law impulse. A desk job is just about the safest thing you can do (assuming you don't have to travel for work). Very little chance of suffocating a mile underground (mining), disappearing into the sea (commercial fishing), losing a limb (logging, mill works), or routine exposure to carcinogens (many factory jobs). (Obligatory slideshow: the twenty deadliest jobs.)

That's not to say OSHA should have no concern but office workers (which they do)... just that it should be proportional to the risk involved.

Yes, it is.

I was confident that rules would exist. Two minutes playing on the OHSA website produced https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaw... which lays out comprehensive requirements for biohazard materials. I would have been amazed if they hadn't existed - which is why I 'guessed'. Governments are often predictable!

Nah - there's a process called a hazard analysis that should reveal the potential hazards of what somebody is doing. Why these aren't performed at an academic institution is a separate problem. The problem in academic institutions which doesn't exist in either corporate or government research labs is a lack of line management responsibility. The university culture generally allows for throwing a professor (or even a department) under the bus when something goes wrong and OSHA has allowed them to get away with it. In other areas it's been pretty clearly demonstrated that line management is responsible for safety.

For example look at NIST Boulder's plutonium incident - the director of the entire facility is who lost the job because it was his responsibility to have a lab safety program that was sufficient and effective. What is only just starting to wake up academic institutions is the fatal UCLA lab fire which the university was able to plead out of criminal charges, but the professor in charge has not. While the university had some pretty stiff penalties as part of the plea bargain - all of the accountability has come down on the professor and not the university management chain (i.e. with the criminal charges against the university, it should have landed at least at the VP level). I don't think universities will actually foster a safety culture until core administration accepts that the responsibility for doing so is theirs - and this is not likely to happen as long as a professor can be thrown under the bus (whether or not he or she deserves it) and administration escapes major personal (as opposed to institutional) penalties.

Surprised how many people aren't aware of the proper fit test for respirators. It takes all of 10 seconds...
FYI, most people are using negative pressure respirators. (I have a beard, so I'm forced to where the much more cumbersome positive pressure setup. Although, I do find it more comfortable for longer periods.)

Literally 10 seconds of googling found this: https://www.osha.gov/dts/hib/h...

When I did some RF stuff at college, they talked about the possibility of a spark coming off a (high) power antenna if various other factors all came into play at the same time (intuitively it makes sense - you've got a whole lot of energy in the antenna, which you're providing an easy release for). I assume it to be true, although I've never seen it (because I don't do any RF work to speak of).

I'd imagine that way-back-in-the-day, the first generations of mobile phones were literally hand-held cookers. There was some story where some BT engineers were going a bit doo-lally and it was supposed their phones were the cause. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that modern phones use a lot less power than their older counterparts, so I presume the risk of sparking to be as good as zero these days. I still wouldn't want to find out I was wrong in the presence of petrol fumes that ignite rather easily though.

As for this study, it's really saying exactly what we expect them to say. There was no way a 'proper' study was going to say there was any risk using a phone. As I say though, I'm rather glad I didn't have one of the first generations of phones - I seriously doubt they were safe in the longer term (and no, I can't prove it).

For the race to the bottom solution. Any promising ideas so far? Let me throw out one - promote cheap microfinancing over the warrantied life of the product (or some percentage). How often is the superior product actually cheaper on a cost-per-year basis, but passed over in favor of the lower sticker price? Or even just requiring cost-per-warranty-year to be prominently displayed on the sticker price for all non-consumables?

Cheap microfinancing? Do you mean something like a 0% loan over the course of the warranty? IE a $500 fridge with a 4 year warranty would be $125/year, vs a $600 year fridge with a 6 year warranty being $100? That would be an interesting option. Though you have the problem that in many cases everybody offers the same 1/2 year warranty, but your option might just convince those with better products to increase the warranties, then improve their products so they cost less even with the longer warranty.

As for labeling - we already require energy star guides; one of my ideas was to do with ALL products what we're requiring for LED lights - make manufacturers estimate product lifespans, and hold them to them. I know that even if it costs a little more electricity, a fridge that lasts 15 years is probably going to be cheaper and more energy efficient than having to go through 2 that only last 7. Lots of energy involved in creating and shipping one, after all. Not to mention having to shop for a new one. As such, I'd probably spend the extra money to get a longer lasting appliance, if I had any real way to telling how long I could expect one to last(and somebody making sure they actually DO normally last that long).

As for lead though, you're dead wrong. Elemental lead is absorbed through the skin, lungs, and digestive track.

Skin: incorrect.
Lungs & Digestive track: I'm not suggesting that you smoke or eat your electronics.

For that matter, unless you're coating your product in lead there shouldn't be any skin contact anyways.

Moderate lead exposure may not be likely to kill you, but it makes you more likely to kill me.

At this point I believe that Tetraethyllead(TEL) was the cause of the crime spike that ended in the '90s. But TEL isn't elemental lead. Neither is the lead found in paint - PbCrO4 or PbCO3. Kids are much more likely to eat paint than a DVD player.

I have no problems with banning leaded gas/paint. The amount of lead a child is likely to absorb from solder in electrical appliances is likely less than he'll get eating fish(at least for the next couple hundred years). Heck, if a factory wants to eliminate the lead in their soldering to keep exposure in the workers down, it's free to do so.

the punishment is certainly dire, but mexicos lack of preventative efforts should be called into question. Was the vehicle marked as carrying radioactive cargo? why was there a layover of such dangerous material? were there warnings in multiple languages? pictographs from local health and safety agencies are surely readily available. the GHS is surely used in Mexico
https://www.osha.gov/dsg/hazcom/ghs.html
two people are dead and numerous others exposed because they either did not know what the truck contained, or could not read the ample warnings. Mexico has a 93% literacy rate. there is no excuse for this accident.

This is already misleading. You do not currently need to report injuries that do not result in 3 or more employees being hospitalized to OSHA.

https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/index.html

In the past, all you needed to do was keep records within your office of workplace injuries that do not need to be reported and post summaries once a year so employees could see them. The problem is, a guy shows up to work feeling bad and has a heart attack on the production floor. Is that a workplace injury or is that just the guy being ill? The new employee flips out and drives his car through the front of the store after his shift because a customer said he was too incompetent to take his order, and that customer was sitting in front of the window. Is this a work place injury or an illegal act? How about if it wasn't an angry employee at the end of their shift and a person who is having a heart attack or stroke while driving home from the grocery store and veers into the store front?

There is the problem. So many things are either out of the control of the employer or are an acceptable risk. Safety protocol says if you are working over 10 feet in the air, you need either a safety harness to arrest your fall or guardrails. So when your shoe lace comes untied and you fall with the guardrails breaking your arm or the safety harness jerking you hard enough to break a rib, does that count as a workplace injury and if so, how is it distinguished between one due to an unsafe work environment verses an unfortunate accident that might or might not have been worse if the safety features weren't in place?

How do you forget to clip on? Even after a decade working in the job how could you possibly forget? I

They don't forget. They don't bother, because it takes longer, and they're being pushed to get as much work done as possible. To prevent people from getting killed, you need a safety system. That requires government regulators, unions, and employers that are all committed to safety. We don't have those any more.

If an employer cared about their employees' lives, they would require them to clip on and fire them if they didn't. It's the employer's choice.

There's a similar situation with trench collapses, which is one of the major causes of workplace deaths.

If you do it right, you dig a trench with a back hoe, and reinforce the sides of the trenches with sheets of plywood and lumber.

If you don't do it right, and you don't reinforce the sides, you can save a lot of time and money. So many contractors don't do it.

But if you don't reinforce the sides, the trenches can collapse and kill the workers inside.

If you hire the lowest-bidding contractors, they're under pressure to work fast and skip the reinforcement.

In fact, if a contractor doesn't work fast and skip the reinforcement, they'll lose the bid to somebody who does, and they'll go out of business.

That's one of the problems with the unregulated free market. They're under a darwinian pressure to work unsafely and let workers die.

The only way to stop workers from dying is to have strong outside regulation forcing contractors to work in a safer, slower, and more expensive way.

You need strong state and federal workplace safety inspectors enforcing the safety rules. We don't have that any more. The states and federal governments cut back on workplace safety regulations since the 1970s. One of the leaders in cutting budgets for workplace safety was Ronald Reagan, who as governor cut back on the budget for CalOSHA, which was doing some of the best safety research in the country. I used to read their studies of workplace electrical accidents.

How often does an OSHA inspector show up at a job site? There are 2,200 OSHA inspectors and 8 million worksites. https://www.osha.gov/oshstats/commonstats.html You do the math. (BTW, falls and electrocutions are almost totally preventable.)

Shrink the government, get more workplace deaths.

You also need a strong union. Workers can't do things the slow, safe way if they'll get fired for it.

These wireless workers aren't even employees. The subcontractors hire them as "independent contractors," so they're not responsible for worker's compensation or liability. It's like the newspapers that hired teenagers to deliver their newspapers by bicycle. The newspapers weren't responsible if the "little merchant" got hit by a truck.

You also need employers who care about their workers, invest in their workers, and are willing to spend more to prevent their workers from being injured. Fat chance finding a company like that today. That also went out in the '70s. The old unionized monopolies were inefficient, but they could afford to spend money on employee safety.

So that's why those wireless workers are dying. It's because of the way our economic system is structured.

Children asphyxiating at 400 ppm CO2 is completely unrealistic. It is hyperbole. It is absurd. At 40,000 ppm it might become credible, but 40K ppm is not plausible if we cooked off every potential fossil fuel

It's actually plausible at around 2,000 to 4,000 ppm CO2, more likely at 5,000 to 10,000 ppm, 30,000 ppm will kill you. (5,000 ppm is OSHA's 8-hour TWA limit, some people feel symptoms at lower exposures) It's not the lack of oxygen that would be the issue, it's the body's respiratory/metabolic feedback mechanisms which can't cope with that much CO2. And the Earth has had CO2 levels above 5,000 ppm in the distant past, so it's not completely beyond concern.

Kind of like official language of the USA. There isn't one. Just like customary units, there are customary languages.

Metrification is already happening. Executive order http://www.osha.gov/dts/osta/otm/otm_x/otm_x_1.html. The Federal government has a preference, but it is only that.

The CIA World factbook has a snarky "At this time, only three countries - Burma, Liberia, and the US - have not adopted the International System of Units (SI, or metric system) as their official system of weights and measures. Although use of the metric system has been sanctioned by law in the US since 1866, it has been slow in displacing the American adaptation of the British Imperial System known as the US Customary System. The US is the only industrialized nation that does not mainly use the metric system in its commercial and standards activities, but there is increasing acceptance in science, medicine, government, and many sectors of industry."

Don't worry though, moving 300 million takes a hell of a long time - measured in generations. If you go to the store you will see lots of metric rounded numbers (drinks in 500 mls). Dates on the immigration forms have moved to ISO DD-MM-YYYY. Give it another 50 years, globalisation will take care of it.

Uniforms. If an employer requires that an employee wear a uniform, the employer must pay the cost of the uniform.

This is absolutely false. Essentially deducting the cost of uniforms can not cause the person to fall below minimum wage, that is the only requirement. They can choose to pay someone $10/hour and buy the uniforms for the employee or pay them 11$ and hour and require the employee to buy them themselves.

Uniforms and Their Maintenance Under the Fair Labor Standards Act

In response to many inquiries, the Wage and Hour Division has prepared the following statement which contains the answers to the most frequently asked questions about uniform procurement and maintenance under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

(1) (Q) When is an employer required to furnish an employee with a uniform? (A) The FLSA does not require that employees wear uniforms. However, if the wearing of a uniform is required by some other law, the nature of a business, or by an employer, the cost of the uniform is considered to be a business expense of the employer. If the employer requires the employee to bear the cost, it may not reduce the employee's wage below the minimum wage or cut into overtime compensation required by the Act. For example, if an employee who is subject to the statutory minimum wage of $3.35 an hour is paid $3.50 an hour and works 45 hours in the workweek, $6.00 is the maximum amount the employer can legally deduct from the employee's wages and still satisfy the minimum wage and overtime requirements of the Act ($3.50 - $3.35 = $.15; $.15 x 40 hours = $6.00). If the same employee works 30 hours in the workweek, $4.50 is the maximum amount the employer can legally deduct from the employee's wages ($.15 x 30 hours)...

Testicular cancer.

The experts have some simple remedies:
    http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/chem_profiles/aluminum_powder/working_alu.html
    http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=DIRECTIVES&p_id=3830

While you can ignite Aluminium particles in a moist enough environment, Aliminium, unlike wood, is a pretty good conductor. Static buildup is easier to control than in wood or grain dust. Grain processing plants are particularly difficult because the dust is in a contained space on a fast moving conveyor belt that is difficult to ventilate. You can get explosions from static discharge in addtion to friction heat sources like a broken ball bearing. Even with grain silos, the experts have some remedies that work (oxygen deprivation plus temperature probes). But the regulation that covers aluminium dust in America is in the Housekeeping section of the OSHA Sanitation standard. The Canadioan OSH also says "Practice good housekeeping" and talks about "mechanical ventilation". That should tell you it's not quite as mind boggling as you think. Basic sanitation measures we take for granted would have prevented the so called "iPad death toll".

Defending deaths caused by poor housekeeping and lack of adequate ventilation as somehow do to inherent risk does not do Apple any service.

I'm not a physicist, and there isn't complete agreement on this issue anyway, but I'm pointing to these:
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/03/nyregion/connecticut-is-first-state-to-bar-hand-held-radar-guns.html
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/radiofrequencyradiation/fnradpub.html#results1

And you can ask someone who works with microwave communication what the known dangers are. If the EM spectrum is arranged in order of danger, then IR would be more dangerous than microwave, not less.

A step in the right direction but not adequate. I we had adequate laws in place already, BP's Gulf disaster, and others like it*, would be far less frequent and less disastrous. In short, this ain't enough to keep your groundwater from igniting. It's just going to cost corporations a little more money to keep doing what they're already doing. The only real answer here is to cull the demand if what your after is environmental conservation. Expect egregious and negligent violations whenever money and energy are involved.

[*] - http://www.osha.gov/dep/bp/Fact_Sheet-BP_2009_Monitoring_Inspection.html

You may not have noticed that the FOI Request was filed on 13-Aug and that the OSHA download page was only created on 27-Oct to satisfy it.

The source code is available: http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/heatillness/heat_index/heat_app.html

FTA:

The other issue is the source code. In my opinion, since we taxpayers paid for the development of this piece of shit, we should at least be able to modify and redistrubute the code. Apparently though, the Government doesn't have to supply any information which it considers to be a "trade secret," and OSHA has determined that this crappy source code is somehow a privileged secret. This means that the company which wrote the application was allowed to object to the release of the source code, since the time limit on their objection time has since lapsed and OSHA hasn't sent the source code, I can only assume that they have filed such an objection, making this $200,000 worth of broken proprietary software which the public isn't even allowed to fix.

Or he could do a bit of fact-checking Fuck, the source is not only available on a OSHA's Web site, it's also available on site the article itself links to.

Looking at the iOS version, there is very little code, and essentially no graphic or custom UI design. According to the original iOS developer's blog, there were indeed a lot of change requests that "began to add up." In light of the public outcry, I'd feel bad for the guy even if he had made the full $56,000 for his work on the app, which he clearly didn't.

Finally, compared to the requirements churn I've personally experienced subcontracting on similarly "trivial" projects in the private sector, a "mere" $56K sounds like a good deal. Taking salaries into account, I've seen Fortune 500 companies easily drop $50,000 on what amounts to a two-page proposal for a project with similarly trivial scope.

So even if "government" is the problem, returning to the trees sounds like a more promising solution than "business."

Here is a link to the code

- (float)getHeatIndex:(float)temp:(float)humidity {

        NSLog(@"[getHeatIndex] temp: %f, humidity: %f", temp, humidity);

        float hIndex =
        -42.379 + 2.04901523 * temp
        + 10.14333127 * humidity
        - 0.22475541 * temp * humidity
        - 6.83783 * pow(10, -3) * temp * temp
        - 5.481717 * pow(10, -2) * humidity * humidity
        + 1.22874 * pow(10, -3) * temp * temp * humidity
        + 8.5282 * pow(10, -4) * temp * humidity * humidity
        - 1.99 * pow(10, -6) * temp * temp * humidity * humidity; //hIndex = round(hIndex);
        NSLog(@"-Heat Index: %f", hIndex);
        return hIndex;
}

There's probably a reason it's calculating 140F in boston.

When training us about "confined space entries" at one chemical company I worked at (before switching to writing business software... as opposed to chemical process modelling), they told us about a contractor who entered a confined space at one of our plants without a confined space entry permit where nitrogen lines were vented (over-pressure vents or something like that). Before he entered, the lines vented a lot of nitrogen, displacing all the oxygen. From what I heard, the investigators figured the guy walked in the room and dropped unconscious almost immediately, and died very, very soon thereafter. Very quick and painless. i.e.He didn't know what hit him.

The rule at the place (following OSHA guidelines) was that to enter a confined space required authorization from someone trained and authorized to sign the permits. The permits were always time based never lasting more than a half shift (e.g. if you got a permit in the morning, you needed another one to either continue working more than four hours, or to go back in after you took any sort of break). And you always had to have a spotter/safety person, and be roped off, and have breathing and/or other required safety gear. This was always explained to all workers and contractors. As part of the authorization, O2 levels, explosive gas levels, poison gas levels are measured in the confined space either by monitors permanently mounted in the room/confined space, or by probes pushed into the space. Gas lines would be capped/locked out, dangerous equipment locked out etc. Notices posted and operations personal warned not to start up equipment in the space (even though the equipment is locked out anyway... redundancy and communication). This guy was authorized to work in that room in the morning. The permit expired, and the vent lines opened after they left at lunch during some operations activities. Without authorization the guy came back after lunch and thought it would be OK to just go in for a minute to retrieve something he forgot inside without asking for a permit (which hey, would take too much time for just ducking in and out of the room). But like I said, the room had no oxygen in it. He walked in without proper authorization and dropped pretty much on the spot. Just because you might take 4 minutes to die if you stop breathing, doesn't mean you won't pass out really fast, or die fast if you displace the oxygen in your lungs.

But the guy probably didn't feel any distress... or very little since they found him just inside the doorway. That is, he didn't last long inside the room. Poor guy. And FWIW, I consider that company to be very good on safety and it had a very low lost time injury count compared to many others. This was a clear incident of not following standard safety practices.

Have you tried moving the monitor closer? I use a 24" at 1920x1080, placed about 50-60 cm from my eyes. This is at the lower end of what OSHA suggests, but looks much the same as a 32" display at 70-80 cm. The only difference is whether your eyes can comfortably focus at that distance. I'm myopic enough to need glasses to see anything beyond 30 cm properly, so the decreased viewing distance is not a problem, but if you have even mild hyperopia, I'd advise against this.