The California Department of Industrial Relations' Occupational Safety and Health Division (Cal/OSHA) has cited two contractors for multiple serious safety violations after a worker was fatally struck by a steel beam while working on a light rail tunnel project in San Francisco last August. The agency is seeking a fine of $65,300.

Dmitry Kalinovsky / Shutterstock.com

“Hazards associated with tunneling operations can include collapses, falling objects and breathable air pollutants,” Cal/OSHA Chief Juliann Sum said in a statement.

The two contractors formed a joint venture to work on the Twin Peaks Tunnel Rehabilitation & Rail Replacement project. The tunnel project included infrastructure rehabilitation, rail replacement, and modernization of signaling systems and other parts of the over 100-year-old tunnel.

Worker hit by beam

On August 10, 2018, employees were working in and around the tunnel with heavy equipment and tools. A worker operated a rail crane to push two flat cars loaded with equipment into the tunnel.

The crane's boom was in an upward, vertical position when it struck a steel beam above. The beam came loose from its brackets and fell about 13 feet, fatally crushing an employee walking nearby.

Cal/OSHA investigators concluded that the two employers failed to recognize the potential hazards of pushing two loaded flat cars into the tunnel and did not control the crane's movement to avoid collisions. Investigators found that the crane operators had not been trained to operate the equipment safely and that the workers had not been trained in safe procedures when the crane was operating near them.

Serious, accidental violations

Cal/OSHA is seeking proposed penalties of $65,300 for two serious and two serious accidental violations.

Major accident-related violations cited were failure to control the crane while in motion and the employer's failure to implement an effective Injury and Illness Prevention Plan (IIPP). The California IIPP standard is Cal/OSHA's most frequently cited regulation. There is no equivalent federal OSHA standard.

The serious allegations were made for two violations related to the employer's failure to safely transport workers in the tunnel.

Cal/OSHA classifies a violation as serious if there is a possibility that the actual danger posed by the violation could result in death or serious harm. Violations are classified as accidental if the agency determines that the violation caused injury, illness or death.

Cal/OSHA Division of Mines and Tunneling

Cal/OSHA's Mines and Tunneling Division investigates complaints about hazards and reports of accidents in mines and tunnels and issues citations when violations are found.

The agency's mining and tunneling division also:

• Conducts workplace safety conferences;
• Issues permits prior to any initial underground mining or tunnel construction.
• Conducts regular inspections of tunnels, mines and quarries; And
• Offers safety training.

Employers in California face stricter rules

Employers in California must meet stricter workplace safety and health standards than employers in other states.

State workplace safety programs must be “at least as effective” as federal OSHA programs, but states can and sometimes do have more stringent standards than federal standards.

In addition to the IIPP standard, California also has its own unique standards for:

• Diseases transmitted by aerosols,
• heat stress,
• Repetitive motion injury and
• Prevention of workplace violence in the healthcare sector.

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Customers walk past products locked in safety cabinets at a Walgreens store scheduled to close in San Francisco, California on October 13, 2021. Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

• Walgreens said it was closing some stores in San Francisco due to an increase in retail thefts.

• Police data obtained from the Chronicle did not show high rates of shoplifting reports in the shops that were closing.

• An expert said people leaving town during the pandemic could harm Walgreens’ business.

Walgreens announced Tuesday that it would close five of its San Francisco locations for “organized retail crime” Saturday.

While the report says the chain experienced retail theft, other factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and store oversaturation were cited as potential factors in the decision to close stores.

Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso said retail theft at its San Francisco locations had increased five times the chain’s average in recent months, SFGate reported.

However, the data from the San Francisco Police Department received from the Chronicle contradicts claims made by Walgreens, as one of the stores slated to close since 2018 has only reported 23 shoplifting incidents per month since 2018.

“Organized retail crime remains a challenge for retailers across San Francisco, and we are not immune to it,” Caruso told SFGate. “To combat this problem, we have increased our investments in security measures in stores across the city over this time to 46 times our chain average to create a safe environment.”

San Francisco Mayor London Breed dismissed Walgreens’ reasons for closing the shops.

“They say (shoplifting is) the main reason, but I also think when a place is not generating revenue and when it’s saturated – SF has a lot of Walgreens locations across the city – so I think there are other factors coming into play “she told reporters last week.

The story goes on

Dean Preston, supervisor for San Francisco’s 5th District, which will be affected by a store closure, said the pharmacy chain was “out of the community” and had “long planned to close,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

“Weird that some would be so offended that I would suggest that a huge corporate chain shut down retail locations for the very reason they told investors they were going to shut down, rather than the reasons outlined in their external PR are specified, ”said Preston in a tweet on Friday.

In a 2019 filing by the Security and Exchange Commission, Walgreens announced it would launch a Transformational Cost Management Program that would close 200 stores in the US to save $ 1.5 billion annually through 2022 in spending.

A May study published by Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom found that 15% of San Francisco residents left and did not return during the pandemic, which the Chronicle says could explain Walgreens’ dwindling customer base in the city.

San Francisco has relatively high rates of property crime, which according to the Chronicle, criminal justice researcher Magnus Lofstrom may be due in part to the Bay Area’s enormous income equality.

Walgreens did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider

The post Walgreens cited shoplifting as rationale for closing 5 shops in San Francisco, however native officers, information, and consultants forged doubt on that rationalization appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

A Google Street view of the Hajoca showroom in Hendersonville, NC.

Google Maps

Six months after a wall under construction on a plumber’s branch collapsed, killing a bricklayer and injuring four others, three North Carolina state companies were charged and fined.

A notice from the North Carolina Department of Labor said that distributor Hajoca Corp. and Robert Crawford Masonry were each cited with an alleged willful willful gross violation and an alleged serious violation of the North Carolina Labor Protection Act, with each company fined $ 30,800. The department also cited Pinnacle Grading Co. Inc. with alleged serious breach of the law and fined $ 2,800.

According to the city of Hendersonville, on the morning of Jan. 13, a retaining wall under construction in the parking lot of Hajoca’s showroom in Hendersonville, NC, collapsed, trapping five contracted masonry members underneath. A press release said a crew member who got away with minor injuries said that four other members were working with him. Rescue workers rescued three of them, followed by the 37-year-old man who was pronounced dead at the scene.

Two of the injured were flown to hospitals and one was taken to a hospital by ambulance.

Hajoca describes itself as the United States’ largest private wholesaler of plumbing, heating and industrial supplies. It’s also one of the oldest – founded in 1858. Headquartered in Lafayette Hill, PA, northwest of Philadelphia, the company employs approximately 3,500 people.

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Professor Aron Walsh was named to Web of Science’s 2020 list of Frequently Cited Researchers.

The 2020 List of Frequently Cited Researchers identifies influential researchers from around the world who have been most cited by their peers over the past decade. Selected researchers have authored several frequently cited articles and found to be among the top 1% by subject and year citations on the Web of Science.

These researchers represent the top 1% of their fields of expertise, meaning that researchers and social scientists highly cited by the world’s population are 1 in 1,000.

Professor Aron Walsh said, “When you present your new research to the world, it is difficult to know who is watching. While we always have to take citation metrics with a pinch of salt, it’s comforting to know that my work is widely read. I made the list thanks to the efforts of my research group and my staff. “

Imperial is a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, which a Commitment not to consider journal-based metrics in evaluating the research performance of employees or candidates for recruitment.

Current research

Chemical Science, Vol. 11, No. 43

Professor Walsh’s group deals with the theory and simulation of energy materials such as solar cells, fuels and batteries. That year, his group developed a new technique or predicted the upper limit for the efficiency of converting solar energy into crystalline materials published in Energy and Environmental Science. The approach enables the rapid selection of next generation solar energy materials without expensive or toxic elements suitable for terawatt scale application.

His most recent discovery in collaboration with NIMS in Japan is a novel organic crystal, which is built up from a radical tetrathiafulvalene derivative and which leads to exceptional electrical conductivity. The publication was featured on the cover of Chemical Science.

Article text (without photos or graphics) © Imperial College London.

Photos and graphics are copyrighted by third parties and are used with permission or © Imperial College London.

Kayleigh Brewer

Department of Materials

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