With the holiday season underway, people are feeling festive – including at work. But whether you’re decorating your cubicle or taking part in the office potluck, safety should always remain a top priority.

For women in safety, a mentor can offer guidance and open doors. Three women share their stories.

Atlanta — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released guidelines intended to help businesses, as well as schools and mass transit operations, safely reopen amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The National Safety Council has launched SAFER: Safe Actions for Employee Returns, a comprehensive, multifaceted initiative aimed at developing industry- and risk-specific recommendations and resources for all U.S. employers.

The NSC-led initiative wants to help employers ‘understand the spectrum of what they can do’ to safely return employees to the workplace.

Washington — Aimed at protecting restaurant/food and beverage workers from exposure to COVID-19, a new OSHA safety alert lists measures employers should take during the pandemic.

Washington — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published guidance on cleaning and disinfecting non-emergency vehicles used to transport patients with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19, as well as safeguarding their drivers.

Washington — Representatives from two labor unions are bringing attention to resources intended to protect workers in “frontline industries” from exposure to the new coronavirus and are calling on the federal government to provide coordinated guidance.

Silver Spring, MD — The nation’s largest union and professional association of direct care registered nurses is urging the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to update agency guidance and reinstate the “recommendation to everyone to wear masks in public or in physical proximity to others outside their own household.”

Silver Spring, MD — Claiming the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is “once again responding to political pressures from those desperate to remove any safety protocols during this deadly pandemic that is still causing unacceptable numbers of infections, hospitalizations and deaths every day,” the nation’s largest union and professional association of registered nurses is calling on the agency to reverse its most recent COVID-19 guidance.

Washington – OSHA should consider developing separate guidance for the construction industry on best practices pertaining to temporary workers, stakeholders suggested to an advisory committee workgroup that met May 7.

Washington – Staffing firms and host employers looking to better protect temporary workers from job hazards can now review recommended practices in a guidance document issued Aug. 25 by NIOSH and OSHA.

Falls Church, VA – The American Industrial Hygiene Association on Oct. 31 issued guidance about safely removing corrosive drywall from buildings.

London – Guidance documents released Jan. 29 from the Energy Institute aim to help employers meet four particular focus areas of a process safety management program.

Washington – April is National Workplace Violence Prevention Month, and OSHA hopes to raise awareness by releasing updated guidance for health care and social service workers.

Washington – Employers should provide transgender workers with access to restroom facilities based on workers’ gender identity, OSHA stated in a guidance document published June 1.

Washington – Newly released interim guidance from OSHA and NIOSH urges employers to train employees on the risks of exposure to the Zika virus and outlines protective measures.

Washington – OSHA has released three guidance documents intended to help chemical facilities comply with the agency’s Process Safety Management Standard (1910.119).

Darien, IL — In an effort to balance “the need to meet operational demands with the need to manage fatigue-related risks” related to shift work, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society have issued guidance on designing optimal work shift durations.

Hispanic and Latino workers were the only demographic to see its fatality figures increase from 2012 to 2013. Experts explore why Latinos are at a higher risk of workplace injuries and death, and provide potential solutions to reverse the growing trend.

Washington – The Environmental Protection Agency and the Pesticide Educational Resources Collaborative have released a guide intended to help agricultural pesticide handlers, workers and managers comply with 2015 revisions to the federal Worker Protection Standard.

Washington — To help protect retail pharmacy workers from exposure to COVID-19, OSHA has issued a safety alert.

Washington — A new OSHA safety alert lists measures employers should take to protect stockroom and loading dock workers during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Washington — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published guidance to help nail salon employers protect their workers from exposure to COVID-19.

Washington — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released guidance intended to help employers in the retail and service industries protect workers from violence that may occur when they ask customers or co-workers to comply with store policies aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Washington — To help keep safe the workers who play a role in getting “gifts from the warehouse to your home” for the holidays, OSHA has published a series for seasonal workplace safety tips and a video – including COVID-19-related guidance.

Washington — In response to new data and updated recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, OSHA has updated its COVID-19 guidance in an effort to help employers protect at-risk or unvaccinated workers.

Washington — NIOSH has released four guidance documents intended to “provide options” for employers to better protect workers exposed to nanomaterials.

Washington – Stakeholders are encouraged to comment on a draft guidance document from OSHA intended to help employers develop a whistleblower protection program.

Initiated in 2020, the standard provides a method of creating an alarm scoring or classification metric for unauthorized human activity detected by alarm systems.

Offering Black Friday and holiday season shopping deals aren’t just for the retail industry. Security dealers can get in on the action too. 

Washington – The Federal Aviation Administration has published new guidance aimed at keeping airport workers safe as airplanes are taxied and towed.

Atlanta — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published a series of fact sheets for airport, airline and transit employers to help protect their workers from exposure to COVID-19.

Washington — The Senate on Sept. 29 confirmed the nominations of Mary Lu Jordan and Timothy Baker to serve as members of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission.

Washington — In the absence of an emergency temporary standard on infectious disease from OSHA amid the COVID-19 pandemic, North America’s Building Trades Unions and CPWR – The Center for Construction Research and Training have developed national guidance on infectious disease exposure control practices for construction sites.

Washington — Construction workers who operate dump trucks or work nearby are at risk from “multiple hazards, including struck-by, tip-over from loss of vehicle control, crushing, electrical and falls,” NIOSH says.

Washington — Two new fact sheets from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are intended to help fitness center employers and workers reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Washington – The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will issue guidance intended to “ease the transition” to full implementation of its rule – set to go into effect Dec. 18 – on electronic logging devices in commercial motor vehicles, the agency announced Nov. 20.

Grain Valley, MO — The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has sent a petition to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration seeking to alter current hours-of-service regulations, the association announced Feb. 14.

Washington — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is seeking public comment on a proposal to revise the agency’s guidance on “yard moves” and commercial motor vehicle drivers’ hours of service.

Washington – OSHA has extended, to May 2, the deadline to submit comments on the agency’s draft document on using the “weight of evidence” approach to classifying hazardous chemicals.

Washington — To support implementation of the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals, OSHA and Health Canada have released joint guidance on pictogram requirements for three hazard communication categories.

Real-life applications of security technologies.

Washington — Responding to an outbreak of avian flu, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated interim guidance intended to protect workers exposed to certain animals and animal products.

Tallahassee, FL – Florida legislators have expanded the state’s “Move-Over Act” to include protections for workers who operate or ride in or on sanitation and utility service vehicles.

Richmond, British Columbia — New safety guidelines from WorkSafeBC and Canada’s Automotive Retailers Association are intended to protect workers from shock-, fire- and fume-related hazards associated with electric vehicles and the high-voltage lithium-ion batteries that power them.

Washington — The Department of Labor is advising OSHA and other enforcement agencies not to publish press releases – “absent extraordinary circumstances” – about fines and penalties levied against employers for worker safety and health violations “before achieving a successful outcome,” according to a DOL guidance memo obtained by The New York Times.

Pocatello, ID — A tanker testing and repair company owner has pleaded guilty to lying to OSHA and making illegal repairs to a cargo tanker, the Department of Justice announced May 20.

Pocatello, ID — The owner of a tanker testing and repair company was sentenced to one month in prison and five months of home confinement for lying to OSHA and making illegal repairs to a cargo tanker, the Department of Justice announced Nov. 19.

Washington — In an effort to preserve the supply of N95 filtering facepiece respirators during the COVID-19 pandemic, OSHA has temporarily suspended its requirement for annual respirator fit testing in the health care industry.