Category: Workplace Accidents

• August 6, 2019
• Evans & Herlihy

Do you work the late shift? Alternative shift workers face several hazards. If your work hours occur when most people are asleep and you sleep when most people are awake, you might suffer from the effects Shift Work Disorder, which is characterized by disturbances in sleep patterns, including insomnia, non-restorative sleep, and excessive sleepiness. People who suffer from SWD (sometimes called Shift Work Sleep Disorder) might feel fatigued at work, especially if they are working extended work hours, which is common in shift work. Other symptoms include impaired cognitive abilities, anxiousness and irritability, unintentionally falling asleep on the job, reduced job performance, and increased incidence of on-the-job injuries. Who is at [...]

• October 25, 2017
• Evans & Herlihy

Construction in Texas is booming – so much so that some construction companies are turning down big contracts, because they don’t have the laborers needed for the job. One might assume that’s good news for construction workers, because it means there are plenty of job opportunities. But these jobs often pay very little, and workers have a high risk of workplace injuries and fatalities. Texas leads the nation in construction workplace fatalities – a construction worker dies on the job every three days, and more than 70 Texas construction workers died at work during the first four months of 2017. This deadly trend isn’t specific to Texas, however. An in-depth study found that in the south, construction workers are exposed to [...]

• May 22, 2017
• Evans & Herlihy

Before the age of cell phones and computers, most of the United States workforce reported to work at a certain time, and when they clocked out and came home, they put the workday behind them. But today, many people seem to be always “on the clock” – for example, checking email after dinner and before bedtime. Maintaining that kind of hectic lifestyle may undermine healthy sleep patterns. So, in an effort to accomplish more in a day – to be more productive – workers may be missing out on valuable hours of sleep, which in turn makes them less productive throughout the day. Most adults of working age need seven to nine hours of sleep per night – and at the very least, six hours. Getting too little sleep, or sleep of poor qua[...]

• October 21, 2016
• Evans & Herlihy

In August, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a 19-page report, detailing its findings of a February inspection at the Tyson chicken processing plant near Center, Texas. OSHA also released results of a July inspection, and, altogether, inspectors found the company guilty of 15 serious and two repeat safety violations, with fines totaling $263,000. These inspections revealed potentially deadly hazards, like the lack of safety guards on machines. One worker lost a finger in one such machine at the Center plant earlier in 2016 while trying to dislodge a jam. Tyson safety violations are not isolated – OSHA has been uncovering hazards in chicken processing plants for years, in Texas and elsewhere. But for a company[...]