Workplace Safety Culture

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Delegates at the International Labour Conference (ILC) overwhelmingly adopted (439 for, 7 against) on June 21, 2019, the Violence and Harassment Convention and Recommendation. The new convention views occupational safety and health (OSH) as a subset of overall work well-being.

Operations that produce dust as a byproduct of their processes rely on an industrial dust collection system to provide clean air to the workplace. However, the dust collection system itself could be a source of danger if it isn’t properly equipped and maintained.

Telling employees to watch their step isn’t enough to eliminate slip, trip and fall injuries in production areas. Like other safety hazards, slip, trip and fall hazards can be identified and in many cases eliminated.

Each year when OSHA reports its most frequently violated standards, the control of hazardous energy, also known as lockout tagout (1910.147) consistently appears high on the list of greatest offenders. In fact, citations for improper lockout tagout procedures ranked fifth on OSHA’s 2018 top 10 most frequently cited standards list, with nearly 3,000 violations.

Imagine a work setting with all the latest and greatest eye washes and safety showers installed in every area that poses an exposure risk with easy and unobstructed access.

Our safety programs, if they exist at all, tend to focus on participation and completion, rather than transformation. To be fair, the chief obstacle stems from a preponderance of wrong assumptions and dangerous misconceptions. Identifying some of these (see below) may help us as safety professionals become more effective in our mission.

Homicide as the cause of death in the workplace has risen from ninth in 2015 to fourth in 2018.  OSHA has increasingly invoked the General Duty Clause to require employers to protect workers from workplace violence from bullying to homicides.

“What are you going to do for an 18- to 23-year-old who yesterday worked at Wendy’s and today will be walking into a high-risk work environment?” asked Mike Deetsch. Mike is the director of education and engagement for the Toledo Museum of Art.

ISHN recently exchanged an email Q&A with Amanda Alexander, global product manager for Emerson’s Location Awareness System.