Regulators with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have proposed $130,200 in penalties to Texas oil and gas drilling company Ringo Drilling in the wake of a June accident in which a worker was electrocuted.

According to OSHA, the 25-year-old worker, Servando Salinas Cervantes, died while performing repair work on an oil drilling rig.  After an investigation, OSHA safety inspectors found that the company failed to train workers on electrical equipment hazards, failed to provide guardrails to keep workers from falling into holes more than four feet deep near a well, and did not ensure stepladders were used properly. In another serious violation, inspectors found that the company did not properly guard electrical junction boxes.

Among other penalties against the company included three repeat violations for failing to provide worker protection from platform falls, not inspecting electrical cords and failing to ensure proper strain relief for electrical cables. The company was cited for similar violations in 2008 and again last year.

Ringo Drilling has 15 days to contest the findings with OSHA.

While it seems to make sense that seatbelts would make all drivers safe in a crash, a Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench judge recently ruled that buckling up may actually be more dangerous for transit bus drivers.

In an October 20 decision, Justice Grant Currie overturned Saskatoon bus driver Dean Christianson’s traffic court conviction for failing to wear his seatbelt. In his ruling, the judge said, “His experiences, and those of others that had come to his attention in the course of working in his industry, gave him reason to believe that his safety may be compromised by wearing a seatbelt.”

Christianson’s argument was based on his belief that, if his bus passengers assaulted him, being strapped into his seat would make him less able to defend himself. In his initial traffic court trial, Christianson cited violence against bus drivers as a “growing, nationwide epidemic.” He noted that he had been threatened by three people riding on the bus at the time he was pulled over.

“As someone who has been spit on, I discovered that you do not know who is going to grab your steering wheel while you’re driving or sucker punch you, or stab you, or spit on you. You have no idea who it’s coming from,” he said. “Some of the drivers have been sucker punched while they are driving and took repetitive blows while trying to get their seatbelt off so they can defend themselves.”

Under Saskatchewan’s Traffic Safety Act, a bus driver is not required to wear a seatbelt if they have reason to believe it may put them at risk of injury. While the Crown argued that the exemption applies only when there was a specific risk of injury, Justice Currie disagreed, and ruled that the regulation could also be applied to any driver who “may be continuously exposed to a compromise of his or her safety on a random basis.”

Since 2008, it is Saskatoon civic policy that all public employees wear a seat belt whenever they’re behind the wheel of a city vehicle, although the transit union is hoping this ruling will help change that policy. For the time being, until  the policy is changed, however, the union will continue to instruct drivers to wear seatbelts while on the job. However, if the city disciplines a driver for not wearing a seatbelt, the union will take the matter to arbitration.

British Columbia and Alberta are both gearing up programs designed to encourage drivers to be aware of, and careful around, workers who toil along the side of the road.

In British Columbia, a pilot project campaign called “Cone Zone,” was launched on June 14 by a group of more than a dozen organizations, including the BC Construction Safety Alliance, the BC Flagging Association, Ministry of Transportation and WorkSafeBC. “Cone Zone” will try to expand its focus beyond construction workers, by also encouraging drivers to keep an eye out for anyone who works roadside, including landscapers, traffic control workers, tow truck drivers, utility workers, emergency personnel and others.

The campaign includes both radio and print media, and will ask drivers to reduce speed, avoiding distraction while driving, and develop greater respect for the roadside as a workplace. The messages will also provide safe driving tips in a “cone zone,” including careful planning of routes, allowing extra travel time, staying below posted speed limits, especially those in work zones, putting away cell phones or other electronic devices, and getting to know work zone signs.

More information about the campaign can be found at www.worksafebc.com or www.BCAATSF.ca.

In Alberta, the Partners in Road Construction Safety (PIRCS) and the provincial government have again teamed up to remind motorists to be patient and drive safely through road construction sites this season, through their campaign, which features the slogan, “Don’t RIP Through Construction Zones” slogan. Their campaign suggests that accidents in these zones are avoidable, if drivers are slowing down and paying close attention to warning signs and flag people.

The Alberta government has been working for years to try to reduce the number of accidents in work zones, yet 2008 saw the highest numbers of accidents and fatalities in construction zones ever, with 1072 accidents resulting in 229 injuries and killing seven. The numbers seem to be going in the right direction, however. In 2009, there were 952 accidents in such work zones, resulting in 187 injuries and killing three. PIRCS hopes their efforts will reduce the numbers even further.

The PIRCS website, located at http://www.dont-rip.ca/, features road construction locations and safety tips. They have spent nearly $3 million for radio and television advertising, billboards, and signage in construction zones since 2003.

Toronto packaging manufacturer Electro-Pack Inc. was fined $50,000 for a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act after a worker was injured.

The incident that led to the fine occurred on December 5, 2009, when a worker was using a machine that forms plastic using heat and a press. The worker discovered the machine was jammed and attempted to remove the jam by reaching inside. The machine cycled while the worker’s hand was still inside, and the hand was seriously injured.

Electro-Pack Inc. pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that the machine was equipped with a guard or other device to prevent access to the moving part.

The fine was imposed by Justice of the Peace Lynette Stethem, who also imposed the mandatory 25% victim fine surcharge, as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.

A North Salt Lake City business, Thermal West Industrial Inc., has sued the University of Utah over a plumbing failure last November that left 12 workers with scalding burns.

The accident occurred beneath a parking lot in a vault near 300 South and 1850 East last November 1. The company had been hired by the university to install hot-water piping trunks in a new tunnel system through the school’s campus. As they worked on the underground pipe, at least 40,000 gallons of hot water poured into the tunnel system through a water line that was designated inactive and abandoned, burning the workers with 400 degree (Fahrenheit) steam, resulting in injuries to 12 workers, three of them critical.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigated the work-related accident and found Thermal West Industrial was not at fault. In April, the Utah Labor Commission cited the university for failing to cap the inactive water line, even though it was still connected to active lines.

In its lawsuit, Thermal West claims it has lost customers since the incident because the worker’s injury reports caused the contractor’s safety rating to drop, resulting in lost contracts with some of its biggest customers. In all, the suit seeks $4,505,000 in lost contract revenue and $325,000 in increased workmen’s compensation costs.

Ontario Court Clarifies Employers’ Incident Reporting Obligations

Although executives with the Blue Mountain Resort are unhappy and plan to appeal the recent ruling, the Ontario Divisional Court has issued a ruling clarifiying Section 51 of Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, which outlines the duties of an employer in all critical injury and fatality incidents.

According to Section 51, whenever a person is killed or critically injured from any cause at any workplace, the employer must notify an MoL inspector, as well as all other workplace parties. The employer must then secure the scene until an inspector clears the site, and send the ministry a written report on the incident within 48 hours.

But in the incident that led to the ruling, which occurred in December 2007, a resort guest drowned in an unsupervised pool at Blue Mountain, and the incident was never reported to the MoL. They only learned of it when a Ministry inspector conducted a field visit to the resort in March 2008. When the inspector found out, he wrote an order directing the resort to formally notify the MoL.

Justice Wailan Low, writing for the court, followed an earlier ruling from the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB), disregarding the resort’s argument that notification was unnecessary because the pool was not a workplace, per se, at the time of the incident. The resort had argued that the hazard involved in the guest’s drowning while apparently performing exercises underwater wasn’t likely to affect a worker, and they noted that whenever a guest was involved in a serious incident that could also have affected a worker, Blue Mountain had always been quick to notify the MoL.

In dismissing their argument, Justice Low noted that the OLRB “ought to have given recognition to the fact that [their] facilities are dual use premises – they are both recreational premises and a workplace, and the use may change depending on the circumstances.”

According to legal experts, the court ruling may impact a large number of Ontario workplaces, because it requires all employers to report all fatal and critical injuries that occur at a workplace, even if worker health and safety is in no way involved. The MoL is likely to see a much greater number of notifications from employers from industries such as health care, municipal, retail and other service sectors in which workers interact with the public.

The MoL considers the court’s decision to be consistent with their policy on enforcement of these requirements. They consider the requirement to be a reasonable expectation and in no way burdensome for employers.

If you are driving in New Brunswick, be aware that, as of June 6, it is now illegal to do so while talking, texting, or messing with your iPod, so you might want go hands free, or consider letting that call go to voicemail if not.

The new law prohibits the manual operation of use of any portable communications or entertainment devices while driving, and goes so far as to prohibit the manual programming or adjusting of any global positioning system while driving. That means, if your cell phone, GPS or MP3 player isn’t hands-free, you run the risk of a ticket.

And make no mistake; the ticket could cost you dearly. If police stop you, you could see a fine of $172.50 and lose three points from your license. In addition, the Insurance Bureau of Canada has strongly suggested that drivers can also expect to see higher rates for auto insurance.

Police throughout the province began enforcing the new legislation from day one, and they have let it be known that those who choose to disregard the law in its first few weeks do so at their own risk, as they plan no leniency. They note that the new law was passed in December, and the public has been aware that it was coming for months now, so they view that as a sufficient “grace period.”

Among the exemptions included with the new law are voice-operated systems, one-touch devices or built-in screens. Of course, police officers and other emergency personnel will be exempt, and drivers will be permitted to make emergency 911 calls when necessary without incurring a fine. Commercial vehicle drivers will still be allowed to use two-way radios, and ham radio operators can still use them for emergency activities.

Though New Brunswick is one of the last provinces to enact such a ban, lawmakers hope that the new legislation will create a cultural shift towards improved road safety. Lawmakers worry about the number of young people killed on New Brunswick’s highways every year as they play with their hand-held gadgets. Thus far, public feedback has been positive, although RCMP officers expect a bit of a learning curve. They note that the wearing of seatbelts has been required since 1983, but they still catch people driving without them.

According to the Canada Safety Council, drivers who take their eyes off the road to adjust their hand-held device are as much as 23 times more likely to get into an accident.

Last week, the Ontario Ministry of Labour announced that for the next month its inspectors will be conducting a safety blitz of construction sites with tower cranes.

A team of inspectors will be sent to focus mostly on sites in Toronto and Niagara. Not only will they be climbing towers to check access ladders, guardrails and fall arrest equipment, they will also examine inspection records, operator certification, and overall compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Inspectors will pay special attention to maintenance records, including proper documentation on the condition of the tower crane before and after erection, including engineer drawings. They will confirm that all cranes were properly inspected prior to first use and regularly inspected and maintained afterwards, and they will review log books to ensure operational functions such as limit and overload limit switches were properly tested.

This blitz was called because of concerns over an increased number of injuries and close calls resulting from incidents caused by tower cranes, including incidents in which workers were struck by materials being hoisted or pinned by loads that were lowered. There have also been several incidents in which cranes themselves struck scaffolding, or in some cases, tipped over.

A new project was unveiled by WorkSafeBC last week, one that hopes to get the word out about the importance of injury prevention at construction sites throughout British Columbia. If the project proves a success, that message will be difficult to miss, since the goal is to set up workplace signs everywhere to remind everyone working on construction sites to take safety precautions.

But WorkSafeBC is taking this project a step further than just promoting safety within the worksite itself. They are actually hoping to expand the scope of the message into the rest of the community at large by placing signs in areas, such as fences, that can be seen by the general public, and not just the construction workers themselves. This way, WorkSafeBC hopes to remind everyone to stay safe on the job, wherever they may work.

In 2010, WorkSafeBC saw 14,405 injury claims from construction sites across the province. Of that number, 32 of the injuries led to worker deaths, which is the largest number of work-related fatalities in any industry sector.

WorkSafeBC launched the project in partnership with The Community Against Preventable Injuries, otherwise known as Preventable, as well as a number of employers, including Stuart Olson Dominion, ITC Construction Group, Kindred Construction Ltd., Lafarge Aggregate & Concrete, and PCL Construction.

Nova Scotia government officials are trying to send a message to employers that young people who are entering the workforce for the first time can feel uneasy or intimidated, and are unwilling or unable to speak up about any concerns they have, and often don’t ask questions about their jobs. But that doesn’t absolve employers of responsibility for keeping such workers healthy and safe.

Overall, 3,665 young workers under the age of 25 reported claims to Nova Scotia’s Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) last year, and WCB officials want to see those numbers fall. To do that, they want all employers to know they must make all employees aware of their right to refuse unsafe work, their right to be informed about any dangers on the job and their right to the proper knowledge and equipment to perform their work safely.

They also note the importance of parents and guardians in keeping young workers safe, and they encourage all to talk to them about approaching their work safely. Parents or guardians should not assume their child’s workplace is safe. They should also not assume that they receive proper training, or that they will speak up when they think something is unsafe. After they’re hired, investigate the workplace and find out as much as possible about the job. Research shows that young workers are five times more likely to be hurt in the first month than those who have been in their current jobs for more than a year.