WE live and work in the 21st century--the age of information and the Internet. The prevalence of data and the desire to obtain more information, and get it faster, consume our personal as well as our professional lives.
Editor's note: End users' confusion about multiple classes of protective apparel will ease as they become familiar with new editions of NFPA standards for responders' protective apparel, says Jeffrey O. Stull, president of International Personnel Protection Inc. of Austin, Texas.
THE promotional products business has witnessed much debate over whether safety incentive programs are successful--or even necessary--in the workplace. Opponents claim that rewarding or motivating employees to achieve positive safety records actually encourages covering up injuries and falsifying records.
CHEMICALS and the potential risk of exposure to their vapors go hand in hand, making worker protection a complex challenge for many firms. For CH2M HILL, a prime contractor on the U.S. Department of Energy's Hanford Site in Washington State, the complexity of this challenge is compounded by large volumes of radioactive waste intermixed with the chemicals.
THE welding industry is rated number one among all industries for the highest number of eye injuries. Based on a Prevent Blindness America report (www.preventblindness.org), eye injuries accounted for approximately 15 percent of total injuries and accounted for more than three times the number reported in the construction industry.
THERE are two conflicting factions of safety professionals: those who believe it is important to motivate and reward people to achieve specified safety results by offering tangible incentives, such as merchandise and travel, and those who believe that tangible incentives are not necessary because safety results are part of their job and regular compensation.
MOST people agree cultural diversity in the workplace utilizes our country's skills to their fullest, while also contributing to our overall growth and prosperity. However, many of the workers employed in the commercial and industrial sectors continue to rely mostly, if not totally, on their native tongue.
ACCORDING to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, about 2,000 workers have a job-related eye injury that requires medical treatment each day. One-third of these injuries are treated in hospital emergency departments, and more than 100 result in one or more lost work days.
Editor's note: The promise of AEDs has not been fully realized for several reasons, most notably our failure to train potential users in a way that truly prepares them for the experience, contends Frank J. Poliafico, RN, director of the Initial Life Support Foundation (www.ilsf.info, 610-566-2824) of Media, Pa.
"HERE, look through these--look at the glare on that glass building," he said, handing me a stylish pair of top-of-the-line polarized safety sunglasses. "Now, look through these.
QUICK fairy tale: A recently promoted case study lauded a large national service company's comprehensive safety incentive program, which awarded safety vouchers that could be redeemed for rewards. The program succeeded in raising safety awareness, promoting safe work practices, and lowering claim counts.
WELDING is dangerous enough when it takes place in an enclosed welding shop with the combination of heat, burning metal, and the optical rays given off by the process. On an open manufacturing floor or maintenance shop, the welding risks to those who are nearby and unprotected include:
EACH day, about 2,000 U.S. workers suffer a job-related eye injury requiring medical treatment, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). In addition, roughly one-third of these injuries require treatment in hospital emergency rooms, with 100 injuries resulting in one or more days of lost work.
IF you feel that there have been more "once in a lifetime" natural disasters in the past few years to last 10 lifetimes, you're not imagining things. The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which publishes a World Disasters Report annually, calculates that from 1994 to 1998, reported disasters averaged 428 per year.
"IT showed something bad. . . . Come check this thing out, it showed something!" were the gasping utterances of a dirty, sweat-streaked, very excited (and obviously frightened) maintenance fellow. The multi-gas monitor, after months of use, had sounded an alarm that startled the crew while working in a tunnel.
THERE'S been a change in the motivation of the companies that call STI Machine Services, Inc. seeking help with their machine guarding concerns. The change is that most of them haven't been stampeded into action by an OSHA citation or a crippling injury.
FOR many industrial protective apparel end users, determining the proper protective garment to ensure worker safety is problematic. 29 CFR 1910.132, the personal protective equipment section of the OSHA General Industry Regulations, requires that employers "assess the workplace to determine if hazards are present, or are likely to be present, which necessitate the use of personal protective equipment (PPE)."