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Copyright 2026 J. J. Keller & Associate, Inc. For re-use options please contact copyright@jjkeller.com or call 800-558-5011.
FEATURED NEWS
2026-03-18T05:00:00Z
NewsIndustry NewsHazmat SafetyHazmat: HighwayHazmat Driving and parkingIn-Depth ArticleFocus AreaEnglishTransportationUSA
Driving smarter with a cargo tank
Driving a cargo tank is different than hauling a dry van or a flatbed, and most drivers who’ve done it know that right away. The equipment is more complex, the load behaves differently, and the consequences of a small mistake can get serious fast. Cargo tank driving rewards patience, attention, and steady habits more than almost any other type of hauling.
This is a practical reminder of what tends to bite drivers during inspections, roadside stops, or "normal" days that turn into long ones. If you keep the basics tight, most trips go exactly the way they should.
Periodic inspections
Cargo tanks aren’t something you hook up and forget about. They’re subject to periodic inspections and tests, and those dates matter every time the tank is used. Even if you aren’t the one performing the tests, you should know whether the tank is current and legal to haul.
Before heading out, take a moment to confirm the inspection status through the markings or the documentation your company uses. An out-of-date cargo tank isn’t just a paperwork issue; legally, it can’t be filled. If something doesn’t look right or you’re not sure what you’re looking at, it’s better to ask before you move.
Slosh and surge
Liquid loads move, and that movement changes how your truck handles in ways solid freight never will. Surge can push you forward when braking, and slosh can make curves and ramps feel unpredictable if you take them too fast. Even experienced drivers have to respect how quickly that load can start "talking back."
Smooth driving isn’t just "nice to have" with a cargo tank, it’s the whole game. Brake early, accelerate gradually, and slow down well before turns so the liquid has time to settle. Leave more following distance than you think you need, because it buys you reaction time without having to stab the brakes.
Know your product
You don’t need to be a chemist, but you do need to know the basics of what you’re hauling. Flammable, corrosive, toxic, and oxidizer loads don’t all get treated the same, especially when you’re thinking about stops, parking, and what you’d do if something went wrong. Knowing the general hazards helps you make better decisions without overthinking it.
It also helps to understand your tank’s design and key controls. Baffled and unbaffled tanks can feel very different, and emergency shutoffs and valve locations matter when seconds count. If you don’t know where something is or how it operates, that’s worth fixing before you’re in a stressful situation.
Be ready for inspections
Cargo tanks tend to get more attention during roadside inspections, and that’s not a surprise. Inspectors often look closely at placards, markings, closures, and any signs of leakage or product residue. Being prepared makes the stop quicker and a lot less stressful.
Keep your paperwork organized so you can produce it without digging through a mess. Know what you’re hauling, and be able to speak to the basics without sounding unsure. A calm, professional approach usually sets the tone and keeps the whole interaction smooth.
Habits and patience
Most cargo tank problems don’t come from one big mistake. They come from small things that were rushed, skipped, or assumed to be fine. Good cargo tank drivers build habits that don’t change, even on busy days.
Check the tank, drive smoothly, and think a few steps ahead, especially in traffic and bad weather. If something feels off, stop and look instead of hoping it’ll work itself out. Patience and consistency are what keep cargo tank trips boring, and boring is exactly what you want.
Key to remember: From understanding inspection requirements to handling slosh and surge, cargo tank driving requires a different mindset. Patience and attention to detail are what keep trips safe.
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RECENT INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTS
2026-03-18T05:00:00Z
NewsEmergency Planning - OSHAIndustry NewsSafety & HealthEmergency PreparednessConstruction SafetyGeneral Industry SafetyIn-Depth ArticleEnglishFocus AreaUSA
Are we testing evacuation readiness…or just running a drill?
Many employers can confidently say they conduct an annual evacuation or fire drill. The alarm sounds , employees exit the building, headcounts are completed, and the drill is labeled “successful.” From a compliance standpoint, that box is checked.
However, a more important question deserves attention. Did the drill actually test our readiness, or did it simply confirm that we can follow a script?
Effective evacuation drills aren’t about perfection. They’re about finding the gaps. When drills are treated as learning opportunities instead of routine exercises, they reveal real world risks that don’t always show up on paper.
Compliance is the starting line, not the finish
OSHA outlines the minimum expectations for workplace evacuation readiness under 29 CFR Subpart E (Exit Routes and Emergency Planning). These requirements include written emergency action plans, clear exit routes, functional alarms and emergency lighting, and a method for accounting for employees after evacuation. Meeting these requirements is necessary, but it is only the baseline.
True preparedness goes beyond documentation. It requires validating that people, processes, and systems work together under realistic conditions.
Predictability can hide risk
Many times, drills are announced well in advance. Employees are reminded to review evacuation routes, supervisors prepare for headcounts, and operations adjust accordingly. While this approach reduces disruption, it also reduces realism. When people know a drill is coming, their reactions are calm, deliberate, and rehearsed.
In an actual emergency, there is no warning. The alarm is unexpected, information is incomplete, and reactions are instinctive. People hesitate, look at others for cues, question whether the alarm is real, or try to finish what they’re doing before leaving. Stress and uncertainty change how decisions are made, often slowing response time in ways that a scheduled drill never reveals.
Combat this challenge by providing a time window for drills rather than a fixed date. This allows organizations to observe more authentic responses while still managing operational needs.
People don’t stay in one place
Traditional drills often assume employees are at their assigned workstations. In reality, people move throughout the day; they may be in restrooms, break areas, offices, and other departments. A strong evacuation program tests whether employees know how to respond from wherever they are, not just from where training materials or maps say they should be.
Do employees recognize the nearest exit in unfamiliar areas? Do they know alternate routes? These questions only get answered when drills reflect true movement patterns.
Behavior matters as much as results
One of the most valuable aspects of a drill is observing behavior. Do employees evacuate immediately, or do they hesitate? Do they treat the alarm seriously or assume it’s “just a drill?” Small delays such as grabbing personal items, finishing a task, stopping at the restroom, or chatting with a friend, can have serious consequences in a real emergency.
Drills should reinforce instinctive action. The goal is to build muscle memory so that when an alarm sounds, the response is immediate and automatic.
Accountability isn’t always simple
Accounting for employees after an evacuation is critical, but drills should test more than ideal scenarios. What happens if someone can’t reach their designated assembly area? What if supervisors are absent or teams are split?
Effective drills challenge accountability processes and ensure they are flexible enough to handle real world fluctuations.
Test the entire system
Evacuation drills are also one of the best opportunities to test emergency systems under live conditions. Alarms, emergency lighting, exit signage, and exit doors may appear functional during inspections but fail during use.
Having designated observers during drills allows organizations to verify:
- Alarms are audible over workplace noise,
- Emergency lighting activates properly,
- Exit routes are clear and free of bottlenecks, and
- Exit doors function as intended.
Many organizations discover equipment failures during drills, issues that might otherwise go unnoticed until an actual emergency occurs.
The real value comes after the drill
The most important part of an evacuation drill happens afterward. Organizations that gain the most value collect observations from multiple perspectives, document findings, and identify specific improvement actions.
Common findings include evacuation delays, exit congestion, alarm audibility issues, and gaps in training or supervision. These insights should drive follow up and meaningful changes to continuously improve the organization’s overall emergency evacuation response.
Key to remember: When leaders shift their mindset from “running a drill” to testing actual readiness, evacuation exercises become powerful tools for protecting people, strengthening systems, and building a culture of safety that performs when it matters most.
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2026-03-18T05:00:00Z
NewsIndustry NewsIndustry NewsAssociate Benefits & CompensationHR GeneralistFamily and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)Associate RelationsEnglishHR ManagementFocus AreaHuman ResourcesUSA
Court: FMLA discrimination claims exist
The federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) isn’t a true anti-discrimination law, but employees can claim that employers discriminated against them for asking for or taking FMLA leave, as one employer recently learned.
Alisa, a college instructor, had several health issues: rheumatoid arthritis, vein trouble, plantar fasciitis, and neuropathy. One (or more) of these problems could potentially qualify as serious health conditions under the FMLA. After requesting FMLA leave and receiving workplace accommodations for her disabilities, Tracy, Alisa’s supervisor, and others allegedly:
- Mocked her;
- Sent her passive-aggressive emails;
- Discouraged her from taking FMLA leave;
- Planned to deny her FMLA leave;
- Exhibited animosity toward her because she requested FMLA leave;
- Claimed she was a low-performing employee;
- Denied her permission to engage in outside employment;
- Revoked her permission to attend work conferences;
- Removed her accommodations to work non-consecutive, in-person classes;
- Changed her benefits and job duties;
- Failed to restore her to her previous position with the same conditions and benefits; and
- Constructively discharged her.
Alisa resigned because of this mistreatment. She then sued for FMLA interference, retaliation, and discrimination.
In court, the employer argued that FMLA discrimination claims don’t exist. The Eighth Circuit disagreed, saying that there are three types of FMLA claims: interference, retaliation, and discrimination.
The court said that Alisa’s FMLA retaliation and discrimination claims can go forward, mostly because Tracy changed Alisa’s schedule when she returned from FMLA leave. Therefore, the court denied the employer’s request that those claims be dismissed.
The court, however, dismissed Alisa’s claim that the employer interfered with her FMLA rights, as the employer gave her the FMLA leave she requested.
White v. Board of Trustees of The University of Arkansas, et al. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 4:25-CV-00702, December 9, 2025.
Key to remember: Employers should train supervisors on what not to do when employees ask for or take FMLA leave, including discriminating against them.
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2026-03-17T05:00:00Z
NewsIndustry NewsIndustry NewsSafety and Health Programs and TrainingSafety & HealthConstruction SafetyGeneral Industry SafetyAgriculture SafetyMaritime SafetySafety and Health Programs and TrainingEnglishFocus AreaUSA
OSHA publishes new Safety Champions Program resources
As part of its newly launched Safety Champions Program, OSHA has published two new resources: a step-by-step guide and a fact sheet. The voluntary, self-guided program is aimed at helping employers develop and implement effective safety and health (S&H) programs to prevent workplace injuries, illnesses, and deaths.
The step-by-step guide helps businesses navigate the seven core elements of OSHA’s Recommended Practices for Safety and Health Programs:
- Management leadership.
- Worker participation.
- Hazard identification and assessment.
- Hazard prevention and control.
- Education and training.
- Program evaluation and improvement.
- Communication and coordination for host employers, contractors, and staffing agencies.
The fact sheet provides an overview of how the program works, eligibility criteria, and key benefits for business participation.
Employers can work at their own pace or collaborate with a Special Government Employee who can evaluate their programs and progress.
The program is open to all private- and public-sector worksites covered by OSHA.
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2026-03-17T05:00:00Z
NewsIndustry NewsWage and HourWage and HourAssociate Benefits & CompensationHours WorkedHR GeneralistFair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)OvertimeIn-Depth ArticleHR ManagementEnglishFocus AreaHuman ResourcesUSA
Court: Employer didn’t owe overtime it didn’t know about
Ignorance is bliss, even when it comes to keeping an accurate payroll.
Employers must pay nonexempt (“hourly”) employees overtime — time and one-half their regular rate of pay — for any hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. Employers don’t have to pay overtime, however, if they don’t know that employees are working any extra hours. In this case below, ignorance saved the employer in court.
The story
As an agency manager, Jerry supervised a team of insurance agents. The employer classified all agency managers, including Jerry, as independent contractors. Jerry:
- Set his own schedule,
- Decided how many hours he worked every day, and
- Had no obligation to track his time, and
- Didn’t have to disclose to the company the hours he worked.
The employer didn’t supervise Jerry’s hours worked or his completion of daily tasks. The employer paid Jerry a commission for policies sold and renewed.
In November 2019, Jerry sued the employer, challenging his classification as an independent contractor. Claiming to be an employee of the company, he sought unpaid overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
The court’s ruling
Bad news for the employer: The court ruled that it should have classified Jerry as an employee (not an independent contractor) and that he had worked at least 816 hours of overtime. The bigger issue, however, was whether or not the employer knew about Jerry’s extra hours worked.
Jerry argued that the employer owed him overtime pay because it “suffered” or “permitted” him to work as much as he wanted. Because the employer allowed him to work unlimited hours, Jerry argued that the employer’s knowledge of his overtime work was irrelevant.
The court disagreed. Allowing Jerry to work as much as he wanted can’t mean the employer automatically owed him for any time he happened to work overtime, regardless of the employer's knowledge of those overtime hours. Rather, employees claiming to be entitled to overtime pay must be able to prove that employers knew employees were working overtime.
Employers don’t need to be clairvoyant
Employees must notify employers when they’re working extra hours. If employers neither knew nor had reason to believe that overtime work was being performed, that time doesn’t constitute “hours worked” under the FLSA.
The employer in this case didn’t know, or should have known, about Jerry’s overtime.
Jerry then argued that the employer should have known because it made “no effort” to record his time despite an alleged legal requirement to do so. This lack of a timekeeping system, he claimed, showed the employer’s failure to exercise “reasonable diligence” to find out about his overtime. Jerry went on to say that he had no “common-law” duty to notify the employer of his overtime; his only duty was to comply with the company’s timekeeping system, which didn’t exist.
The court again disagreed with Jerry on these two points:
- It was his burden to show the employer knew he was working overtime.
- An employer’s failure to maintain a timekeeping system in itself doesn’t mean the employer should have known about an employee’s overtime work.
The employer didn’t require agency managers to track their time, nor did it pay them hourly. Consequently, it had no reason to think of Jerry’s work in terms of “regular time” versus “overtime” hours.
Meritt v. Texas Farm Bureau et al., Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 24-50127, February 6, 2026.
Key to remember: The FLSA doesn’t require employers to pay overtime if employees don’t tell them about it.
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2026-03-17T05:00:00Z
NewsIndustry NewsEnforcement and Audits - OSHAOSHA InspectionsEnforcement and Audits - OSHASafety & HealthConstruction SafetyGeneral Industry SafetyAgriculture SafetyMaritime SafetyFocus AreaIn-Depth ArticleEnglishOSHA Violations and PenaltiesUSA
OSHA sidelines $40K-plus penalty case data
OSHA recently removed a link from its Data topic page. The missing link went to a webpage that displayed a growing list of almost 15,800 “high-penalty cases” at or over $40,000 since 2015. The move coincides with the agency’s revamp of the Data page in December.
Background
In August 2015, OSHA announced a new “high-penalty map.” The agency remarked, “For the first time, this map shows high-penalty cases in states that operate under federal OSHA as well as in states that operate under OSHA-approved state plans.” An alternative “table view” was also available. It could be sorted by initial penalty amount, date, case number, employer name, state, and city.
Fast forward to today, an OSHA spokesperson tells J. J. Keller® Compliance Network, “The ‘Enforcement Cases with Initial Penalties of $40,000 or Above’ page was discontinued and removed (in December 2025) as it was no longer going to be updated … Data found on https://www.osha.gov/data is what is available.”
The spokesperson adds, “We do not have webpages on enforcement cases with specific dollars amounts, except the ‘Top Enforcement Cases in History Based on Total Issued Penalty’ webpage.” That historical page highlights only 25 cases since 1988. Each one amounts to $2.89 million to $81.3 million in initial penalties.
Data are not lost
While the data have disappeared from OSHA’s Data page, they’re archived here, here, here, and here. Frozen in time, the data reveals 15,797 cases spanning from January 1, 2015, to June 20, 2025.
The introduction to the $40,000 or Above page said the data “includes citations issued starting January 1, 2015.” The table view tallies 16,119 cases. However, 322 of them had an issuance date prior to 2015, and we do not analyze them here.
Some employers are listed more than once if they had more than one penalty case at or over $40,000.
Top high-penalty cases
Single inspections with the highest initial penalty figures include:
- $4.13 million for an auto parts manufacturer in Nevada.
- $2.89 million for an auto parts manufacturer in Ohio.
- $2.81 million for a frozen food manufacturer in Illinois.
- $2.51 million for an auto parts manufacturer in Alabama.
- $2.47 million for a sawmill in Alabama.
- $2.03 million for a fruit farm in Washington state.
- $1.92 million for a meat processor in Ohio.
- $1.92 million for a metal-product manufacturer in New Jersey.
- $1.86 million for a utility construction company in North Dakota.
- $1.84 million for a milk manufacturer in Washington state.
- $1.84 million for a long-distance trucking company in Washington state.
Most inspections did not reach millions of dollars
The majority (about 79 percent) of inspections on the list have under $100,000 in initial penalties:
- 0.2 percent ranged from $1 million to over $4.13 million.
- 0.5 percent ranged from $500,000 to under $1 million.
- 5 percent ranged from $200,000 to under $500,000.
- Almost 16 percent ranged from $100,000 to under $200,000.
- Almost 14 percent ranged from $75,000 to under $100,000.
- Almost 65 percent ranged from $40,000 to under $75,000.
“Initial penalty” amounts are not necessarily the current penalty amounts. Some cases might have even ended up with a final total penalty under $40,000.
Number of high-penalty cases per month
Taking the number of high-penalty cases in a year and dividing by the number of months gives us a case rate per month. The case rate increased over the 10.5-year period. This may be associated with the maximum civil penalties at 29 CFR 1903.15 that were increased annually per 28 U.S.C. 2461 statutory notes. Yet, you’ll see the rate of high-penalty cases decreases during the pandemic and last year:
- 2015 — 82.9 cases per month.
- 2016 —101.5 cases per month.
- 2017 —122.25 cases per month.
- 2018 —126.9 cases per month.
- 2019 —131.4 cases per month.
- 2020 —97.3 cases per month.
- 2021 —108.8 cases per month.
- 2022 —128.4 cases per month.
- 2023 —170.2 cases per month.
- 2024 —180.5 cases per month.
- 2025 —140.1 cases per month.
States with the most high-penalty cases
Thirteen states had the greatest number of cases at or over $40,000 in initial penalties. They made up over 70 percent of all high-penalty cases on the list:
- California with about 1,850 cases.
- Ohio with about 1,530 cases.
- Texas with about 1,280 cases.
- New Jersey with about 1,190 cases.
- Illinois with about 1,000 cases.
- Florida with about 630 cases.
- New York with about 620 cases.
- Georgia with about 560 cases.
- Wisconsin with about 560 cases.
- Pennsylvania with about 550 cases.
- Massachusetts with about 500 cases.
- Washington state with about 500 cases.
- Missouri with about 380 cases.
The remaining states and territories had under 300 high-penalty cases each.
Key to remember
Data for the over $40,000-plus penalty cases slid off the OSHA Data page. The agency says it discontinued and removed it in December. The data is frozen and archived elsewhere.
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Copyright 2026 J. J. Keller & Associate, Inc. For re-use options please contact copyright@jjkeller.com or call 800-558-5011.