We select several management and labor employees to be on the team, get the “lucky members” together, and get them all pumped up. They’re ready to rumble! Next, we announce the committee’s first assignment is to rebuild the engine and transmission in the company van. Once they do the rebuild, their next task is to meet once per quarter to service the van and keep it in tip-top running order.
We know the basics of head and face protection: impacts, flying particles, glare, radiation, and chemical exposure are givens, as is bloodborne pathogens exposure for medical personnel. Injuries range from the simplest scrapes to deaths and activities from medical care to heavy construction. Most companies have the physical items of PPE to work safely in all types of situations. Considering the potential for a workplace head/face injury, is basic really enough?
A recent survey of nearly 100 employers regarding their worker’s compensation policies and practices, conducted by Occupational Health & Safety and Injury Management Partners LLC, demonstrated some alarming findings. The most disconcerting result was that nearly 60 percent of the respondents did not know how their insurance companies, third-party administrators (TPAs), or managed care organizations (MCOs) were compensated for the building and management of medical provider networks.
Workers' compensation is just one of the challenges during economic hard times. There are many others leaders must manage in their organizations.
Music not only “hath charms to soothe a savage beast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak” (William Congreve), rhythmical principles can elevate your leadership. And you don’t have to play an instrument or sing to realize positive gains.
It’s late in the afternoon on a Friday at International Meta-Multi-Mega Manufacturing Inc.’s corporate headquarters, and Bill, the manager of Safety, Health and Environmental Services, is on the hot seat regarding management’s latest concerns about compensation liability. The director of Finance, Samantha, is anxious to get some answers. The HR manager, Hector, nods in agreement.
While the site is geared mainly for industrial shiftwork, special sections of the e-commerce site are devoted to those in the nursing and trucking industries.
"The sizable fines proposed here reflect the fact that this company knew several of these critical safeguards were necessary yet chose not to provide them," said Arthur Dube, OSHA's area director in Buffalo, N.Y.
"Anyone involved in the energization of electrical equipment should consider this document a must have," says Al Peterson, president of Utility Service Corporation.
In addition, one of the plant's maintenance providers has also been cited, in part for failing to adequately train employees to fight fires, which it contracted to do at the site.
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski said his state will seek to join Washington state in a lawsuit to speed the cleanup of radioactive waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Copper theft has become a serious public safety issue in recent years as the price of copper in the U.S. has increased.
The partners said they will work together to develop and distribute safety and health training materials for warehousing to enable employers and employees to implement and follow best practice standards and guidelines.
The company was issued one willful citation, with a proposed penalty of $35,000 alone, for not providing employees with confined space rescue training at least every 12 months.
Hazards included the lack of a confined space training program for employees whose duties involve entering sauerkraut tanks and numerous instances of moving machine parts not guarded against accidental employee contact.
Research conducted at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggests that operating buildings more energy efficiently could have benefits for the health of occupants and, surprisingly, also for their comfort.
"Employees have a strong and clear right to raise legitimate safety and health concerns about their working conditions without fear of termination or reprisal," said Marthe Kent, OSHA's New England regional administrator.
PowerTest 2009 will bring the testing and maintenance industry together on the San Antonio Riverwalk for the March 9-12 event hosted by the InterNational Electrical Testing Association (NETA).
A free, one-hour safe handling CE webinar on the subject is planned for April 20--the inaugural Safe Handling Awareness Day--and all health care professionals are invited to participate.
According to EEOC's suit, a woman applied for a truck driver position at one of the company's facilities in Georgia, and even though she was more qualified than a number of male applicants who were hired, she was never interviewed and never received an offer. An investigation revealed a class of similarly qualified women who also were rejected despite their qualifications.