June 2010 Blog Posts (32)

Effective on the 18^th of this month (06/18/2010) OSHA has begun the Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP) to protect workers whose employer willfully disregards OSHA regulations.

From the OSHA Website:

"OSHA's SVEP focuses enforcement efforts on employers who willfully and repeatedly endanger workers by exposing them to serious hazards. The directive establishes procedures and enforcement actions for the severe violator program,…

You have random drug tests to ensure a drug-free workplace because a worker on drugs is a danger, not only to himself but to everyone else.

You wouldn't dream of allowing an employee to come to work smelling of alcohol.

Problem is there's one performance inhibitor that you can't test for and for which there are no laws. We're speaking, of course, of sleep-deprivation.

Just going to bed 1.5 hrs later than normal for a single night can reduce your employees' alertness by…

Proforma Safety President Scott Arnold has worked with the major oil companies -- including BP -- for many years on offshore installations. In a post on blog.proformasafety.com, he offers his insight into the causes of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy and urges the energy industry to prioritize safety over cost and schedule.

"I challenge…

According to a June 2010 article posted in Construction Accidents, the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that more than 230,000 work-related fall accidents have occurred in each of the last five years with falls being the number one cause of workplace fatalities with 4,670 deaths in 2008. In a June 2010 publication of the Daily News, a 35-year-old…

If you use coveralls and have a few cases in the warehouse consider yourself fortunate. If you don't, you might need to find an alternate way of doing what you need to do because coveralls are getting more and more difficult to come by.

The problem, of course, is that the normal inventory is being shipped down to workers trying to clean up the oil spill. Other shortages include boot covers, gloves, oil pads and orange vests, all of which are used by BP Oil Spill cleanup…

In general, it is better to use fall prevention systems such as guardrails rather than fall protection systems like safety nets or fall arrest devices due to the fact they provide a more positive safety means. According to a February 2010 article on PR WEB by snugharness.com, passive fall protection systems are actually preferred by…

In case you hadn't heard, ANSI (American National Standards Institute) approved a new Z87.1 standard.

The new standard, Z87.1-2010 attempts to cover more ground, extending the standard to cover more in the nature of hazards that relate to eye and face protection. The changes are pretty broad and change the nature of the standard substantially. Because of this, the markings on protective eyewear has also changed.

Need help understanding and deciphering the new standard?…

Well it has a lot to do with the state of that substance. Some substances are harmless in certain states, but can be considered toxic or…

The lessons that we learn when we first start learning are often the ones that we tend to forget over time. Robert Fulgrum wrote a book entitled "Everything I needed to learn I learned in Kindergarten" that turned into a bestseller. It was essentially a reminder of the important lessons that we have forgotten over the years such as "Play nice" and "Everything is better with milk and cookies".

In the world of safety, I have found the same principle to be true. One of the basic lessons…

"On January 1, 2010 a new Oregon law goes into effect mandating placement of Automated External Defibrillators (AED defibrillator) in "places of public assembly" throughout the state.

Under this law, virtually every public and commercial building of…

At the moment, health care reform appears to have a number of positive and negative potential impacts on workers compensation over the next few years. The net results cannot be estimated this early in the game. We can, however, identify a few elements and their possible…

Lead abatement has gone the way of asbestos abatement. Effective as of April 22 of this year, the EPA is now requiring certification of all contractors who work on homes that were built prior to 1978 because of potential lead paint issues.

This means that a whole lot of small businesses are going to have to fork out a lot of money and PPE if they are going to continue doing work on any and all older homes if that work has the potential of stirring up any…

I know that we’re half way through June already, but some of these ideas are easy to pull together. Others, you may need…

Most people don’t think of Hard Hats very often, we definitely take them for granted. They are heavily used daily yet are an understated piece of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE). The…