The U.S. Department of Labor has announced a new program designed to encourage COVID-19 vaccination among miners in Kentucky and Arizona. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that vaccination rates are below 60% in the two states where a number of mining operations exist. The department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) will pilot the Mine Vaccine Outreach…
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Proposed MSHA rule targets mobile equipment
MSHA announced a proposed rule in October requiring mine operators that employ six or more miners to develop a written safety program for mobile equipment and powered haulage equipment (except belt conveyors) used at surface mines and surface areas of underground mines. The written safety program would include actions mine operators would take to identify hazards and risks to reduce…
Read MoreMSHA: No mining operation meets POV criteria
For the seventh year in a row, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) found none of the nation’s 12,000 mining operations met the criteria for one of the agency’s toughest enforcement tools, its pattern of violations (POV) screening. In MSHA’s annual screening of operations from Aug. 1, 2020 to July 31, 2021, the agency found…
Read MoreMandatory Vaccination Policies for Employees: What Can (and Should) We Do?
By Caroline J. Sundbaum and Willa B. Perlmutter, Stoel Rives LLP Just a few short months ago, we would have thought that COVID-19 was almost behind us and that it was only a matter of time before mine operators would no longer have to worry about the spread of the disease at their worksites. It looked like face masks and…
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