Articles Tagged with ''heat safety''

Historically high temperatures are breaking records and exposing millions of people to the serious dangers of heat in the workplace

It doesn’t have to be this tragic — both indoors and outdoors when temperatures reach dangerous, extreme levels. Preventive measures are found all over the internet. But heat prevention practices, in reality, are not always easily practiced, if attempted at all. 

 The Department of Labor will ramp up enforcement of heat-safety violations, increasing inspections in high-risk industries like construction and agriculture, while OSHA continues to develop a national standard for workplace heat-safety rules.

At ASSP’s Safety 2023 event in San Antonio in early June, Doug Parker, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, discussed the current state of OSHA and answered questions from audience live as they came in via text.

Safety wearables are quickly becoming the go-to fix for ergonomic injuries in the workplace, but their injury reduction capabilities extend further than that. 

It’s paramount to know the exact temperature on your jobsite to protect workers in hot conditions. At higher temperatures, a change of even a few degrees can be a warning sign.

Wearing a hard hat or helmet is essential when there is a risk of head injury, but this equipment can also increase a person’s body temperature. We lose most of our body heat through our heads. Managers need to do everything they can to protect their workers in the field, keeping them as cool and comfortable as possible.

The internet is full of outdated, incomplete, and even wrongheaded advice, and the news is full of dire predictions that the world is getting hotter and heat illness is getting more frequent. So what’s a concerned safety manager to do?