You are Fire Capt. Johns. Your fire chief has just radio-relayed your orders. You ascend a ladder to the second floor, carrying more than 50 pounds of equipment with Probational Officer Ed in tow. You break open a locked window and enter a room that feels like a furnace. A smoke-filled, gloomy haze blankets the limited vision your respirator mask allows. How can you hope to locate the victims in this smoke and heat?
UNFORTUNATELY, many employers eventually will have to deal with a hostile employee who may threaten co-employees with verbal and non-verbal conduct. There are a number of actions the employer should consider to protect the employees at the workplace, as well as the physical security of the facility.
MATERIAL Safety Data Sheets are just one element of a large periodical table of safety regulations with which employers must comply to best ensure workers' safety. On the surface it may appear a simple, singular task, but it can easily grow into a giant, complicated mess. The common practice still in use today for many companies is to keep hard copies of the sheets on hand in three-ring notebook binders. Many hours are spent updating these notebooks; despite an employer's best efforts, the results can become cumbersome binders filled with outdated or poor, fax-quality sheets that can become lost, torn, or covered in smudges and dirt.
ONE year ago in this space, I invited you to read Australia's Proposed National Code of Practice for the Prevention of Falls in General Construction because it intended to eliminate fall hazards during the design stage of structures, if possible. This month, another Australian safety success story is mentioned in our pages.
HARNESSES, lifelines, and other fall protection components are only as good as the life they have in them. One U.S. company is trying to add to that truism by showing safety directors that such equipment may only be as good as the RFID tags it has in it--tags that, when read by a handheld PDA, tell them something about the gear's life, including when it was last inspected, its assignment history, and other information.
NO one is an island. Consequently, we must learn to develop simple systems that will allow us to expand our ability to connect with others. This is true both within and outside our organization(s). If done appropriately, it provides us the best opportunity to achieve the goals we have set for ourselves. The more we work with others, the greater our ability to demonstrate flexibility in our relationships--an essential component in getting along with others, gaining cooperation, and having our input become more potent in the myriad situations we face.
SUCCEEDING at safety is easy, if you follow the formula used by managers and workers at Louisiana-Pacific Corp.'s Engineered Wood Products plant in Golden, British Columbia, to achieve 1 million hours without a recordable injury on June 19, 2006.
THE Internet can make many aspects of life easier, such as managing inventory, safety compliance, and worker's compensation claims; but the prospect of remembering more passwords isn't one of them.
AS our organizations continue to look for ways to advance in the marketplace, we need to constantly examine how we view our roles as individual contributors. As a result, it is ultimately our responsibility to continually assess the direction in which we are heading so we can positively contribute to the success of the organization and meet our own developmental needs.
"DON'T trust anyone over 30" was the cultural byword of the very generation that is now approaching retirement age. The graying of Woodstock Nation, a global demographic stretching from the United States to Japan, would normally have signaled the departure of older workers and the arrival of a younger generation. The relatively small number of children born to the Baby Boomers, however, has resulted in an unprecedented phenomenon: Employers in nearly every industrialized nation are starting to think about retaining their workers ages 50 and over, either as staffers or contractors.
THEY don't make phone booths like they used to. The clear-paneled boxes with folding doors and actual phone books on built-in shelves began disappearing from the landscape long before the rise of cellphones, but now that nearly three out of four people in this country have mobile phone service, even the traditional, unsheltered payphone itself is becoming more passé every day.
MORE planning is needed to accommodate special needs populations in a major hurricane evacuation, according to a recent report to Congress by DOT and DHS that examined preparedness for such a mass evacuation. The full report, available at www.fhwa.dot.gov/reports/hurricanevacuation/, is much broader in scope and indicates evacuation of all coastal residents, not just disabled ones, is not yet adequately planned despite the problems encountered during 2005's hurricanes.
SINCE 9/11 and the events that followed, a spotlight has shown on the dangers faced by first responders, which has resulted for many Americans in a newfound sense of appreciation and support for police officers, firefighters, and military personnel for the tireless service they perform on a daily basis, often with little thanks.
AN accident is an unwanted event that is never scheduled or planned. Many factors contribute to accidents' occurrence; significant losses and even bodily injury can result following each incident. These basic facts are well understood, yet accidents continue to occur, property damage accumulates, work schedules remain interrupted, and injuries reduce personal income.
SAFETY meetings and safety training are profitable investments, not costs, as all of us in this industry understand. You'll be pleased to know that a March 2006 survey of a sample of Occupational Health & Safety readers confirmed the value of both activities and suggested most respondents are using them wisely.
AT least 5 million people worldwide die from injuries each year. Two professors in Seattle have declared a global campaign to prevent 20 percent of those deaths, saying it is "within our grasp" to save about 1 million lives annually.
GENETIC screening done for occupational reasons is a potentially explosive issue. It burned Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., which agreed to pay $2.2 million three years ago to employees it had secretly tested. But we're seeing no headlines now: Is the issue settled? Hardly.
IS H5N1 avian flu the real deal? Surprisingly, many Americans don't fear it. They may have taken comfort from Turkey's outbreaks early this year; the disease was fairly widespread there but, as of this writing, still could not be passed easily from person to person. Health care professionals are very worried, however.