I'D be the last person to recommend betting the house on an unscientific poll, but some of them are useful. It seems you and I agree: OSHA should divide into two separate units, one for enforcement and the other to perform consulting functions.
OSHA's injury, illness, and inspection rates for 2001 lend credence to its stance that strict enforcement of standards, along with intensive education and development of alliances in the business community, is the winning prescription for the safety and health of American workers.
LIFE is full of surprises. They can either take our breath away with delight or kick us in the head with steel-toed work boots--or worse. If it's your birthday or you work at a place that actually grants promotions, then, hey, surprises can be good.
BAD traffic accidents usually bring them out. Drive-by shootings, rapes, homicides, and other crimes can summon them, as can natural disasters.
OUR company recently instituted drug tests for prospective employees. We could be doing much more: I believe our policy should include reasonable cause, post-accident, and possibly random testing of every employee. Shouldn't workplace drug testing be almost universal by now?
ALTHOUGH compliance is important, it is no longer the driving force in modern safety management. What is? Reducing costs, specifically reducing insurance premiums, is the primary driver.
THE thumping in your head just won't go away. Neither will your 5 p.m. deadline. What can you do? Let's face it: Headaches and the business world go hand in hand.
IF you're reading this column online, it's probably too late. You may well already have it, whether or not you're even aware of it. And even if you're reading a hard copy, if you're otherwise a regular computer user, there's a good chance you are afflicted with it, too.
HERE's a rulemaking that has gone seriously awry. With its "limited reopening of the rulemaking record" in the Employer Payment for Personal Protective Equipment rule, OSHA this year did much worse than nothing. It turned a well-settled safety topic into a cauldron, thus creating a can of worms its stakeholders aren't sure can be sorted out.
ADD it up. Add your total noise exposure for a 24-hour period, that is, if you want to know how much damage is being done to your hearing.
TO turn around the performance of a troubled company, a new leader or change agent must gather information in the shortest possible time.
IT sounds like urban legend, but it's not. A 50-year-old Swedish scientist was using his laptop computer while sitting in an armchair one evening in his home. With the computer on his lap, he typed for about an hour, occasionally feeling heat and what was later described as "a burning feeling on his lap and proximal thigh," a sensation the scientist dealt with and temporarily relieved by slightly adjusting the computer's position as he went on with his work.
QUESTION: What do you call a robot that can navigate a building's rooms and corridors on its own, integrating with the facility's infrastructure; responding to alerts; detecting and reporting possible hazards such as smoke, gas, elevated temperatures, or intruders; and providing back-up during power outages or other system failures?
IT was during a recent safety inspection for a contractor that I finally realized not everything is a safety problem.
DO you sleep soundly through these hot summer nights? Are you getting enough rest to stay sharp at your job?
STRAPPING yourself behind the wheel of a vehicle and hitting the road is always a dicey proposition. No matter how proficient a driver you are (or think you are), there are always hundreds of others strapped and revving behind their respective wheels just beyond your driveway, and they're all hell-bent on getting there first. With their cellphones turned on.
I am momentarily taken aback whenever I pass one of the smokers' rooms set aside in some large airports. What I feel at those moments is pity, both because the people inside look unhappy and because they're kept apart from the rest of us almost like zoo animals.
According to the latest Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index, employee injuries are costing U.S. businesses almost $1 billion each week, an amount that's up from recent years even after adjusting for inflation in medical and wage benefits.
IF you walk around a Walt Disney World resort or theme park, you are likely to witness something that in most other settings would seem bizarre.
IF you and your family travel by car this summer, be sure to watch out for work zones. And keep this tidbit in mind: There's about a one-in-four chance each tractor-trailer you encounter has a problem that would cause an inspector to order it out of service.