Major Incidents

The circumstances and causes of industrial disasters can sometimes be confusing. Here’s one way to get a clearer picture.

OSHA requires State Plan programs to be “at least as effective” as federal OSHA. Recently, one state allegedly failed to meet that criterion, and it raises an important question that – shockingly – still has no good answer: What is OSHA’s definition of “effectiveness”?

The Center for Public Integrity recently was honored with its first Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the scourge of black lung disease in miners. And just this week, steps were taken to end the deadly disease.

Former OSHA administrator Joseph Dear died on Feb. 26. He was 62.

Humanity is capable of doing many great things. Unfortunately, we also are capable of causing many horrifying things.

Big news: OSHA last week proposed a new rule that will change much, and yet it changes very little.

Want to know what OSHA is up to? You might need to search beyond the usual channels.

For the past five years, I’ve had the privilege of hosting Safety+Health’s OSHA Top 10 presentation at the National Safety Council Congress & Expo, presented annually by a high-ranking OSHA official. This year was different.

CSB is an independent agency. That makes it, to a degree, answerable to no one. It’s free to investigate an incident without fear (in theory) of an oversight agency such as OSHA telling it what to do or what type of findings to release. This is good, obviously, but it goes both ways – CSB can’t force an agency to change.