Last month I scrutinized the apparent focus on positive reinforcement in behavior-based safety (BBS). I specified critical distinctions between positive reinforcers and rewards, and pointed out flaws in the standard training protocol for teaching employees how to give interpersonal recognition.
The president and CEO of International Coal emphasized this point this past January when he said the owners and management of Sago Mine “...will report all findings in the hope that lessons learned here may help prevent similar problems at other mines.â€
Previewing the Professional Development Conference of the American Society of Safety Engineers
The Safety 2006 program offers in-depth material covering the breadth of the SH&E Profession. General Session speakers Stan Slap and Steve Farber promise to be dynamic and thought-provoking, and Wednesday’s Luncheon Program, “A Fish Story†with John Yokoyama and Fishmongers from the Pike Place Fish Market, will be a lot of fun.
Bi-metal blades offer a safe utility knife solution
If you don’t think utility knives and blades make a major impact on your plant’s productivity and safety record, think again. According to statistics from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, 39 percent of the 330,000 medically treated injuries attributed to manual workshop tools in the United States involved knives and retractable blades.
Designed to help reduce roadway crashes and the high costs associated with them, the new ANSI Z15.1 Safe Practices for Motor Vehicle Operations was approved in February by the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), secretariat of the Z15 Accredited Standards Committee.
Workers’ compensation fraud has grown to become a multi-billion dollar a year problem, according to a report on MaineToday.com. According to the report, the American Insurance Association estimates workers' comp fraud losses at $3 billion a year, while industry watchdog the National Insurance Crime Bureau puts it at $5 billion.
Since farming literally all takes place in the “field,†preparations for safe operations and responding to an emergency are doubly challenging. Remote operations force farm managers to sacrifice much of the control that is available in stationary plant operations, where water and light availability are not issues and where wind and other environmental elements can be controlled. The lack of control makes planning for emergency response more difficult, because it carries an entirely new realm of “what if’s†to consider.
Confined space training: Follow these 17 key steps
Training is critical to safe confined space entry operations. A well-trained crew can, to an extent, compensate for inadequacies in other areas of your confined space process. The reverse is not true — a poorly trained crew is in constant danger during entries even if the other components of your process are adequate.
What an employee, supervisor or manager does — for safety or anything else — is determined by his or her perception of “what’s in it for me?â€
Even with lower limits, welders need to use caution
For workers in the welding industry, the new lower OSHA permissible exposure limit (PEL) for hexavalent chromium should be good news. “Hex chrome,†a known human carcinogen, can be produced when welding on stainless steel or some painted surfaces. OSHA’s new standard, published Feb. 28 as a result of a court order, reduces the PEL tenfold, from 52 to five micrograms of chromium per cubic meter of air as an eight-hour time-weighted average. The rule becomes effective on May 30.
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