Criminal charges have been dropped against Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA), according to Quebec’s Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP), for causing the deaths of 47 people when 73 cars of highly combustible crude oil derailed in the small Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic in 2013 turning the downtown into a raging inferno.
On January 22, 2018, a rig explosion near Quinton, Oklahoma claimed the lives of five workers, marking the deadliest incident in the U.S. oil and gas industry since the Deepwater Horizon disaster. These incidents, and many others, are tragic reminders of the need for innovation in safety systems.
In our previous two columns on this subject, developing an actionable safety plan is covered in three parts. First Actions was explained in Part One (October 2017 ISHN) and Core Actions detailed in Part Two (January 2018 ISHN). The rest of this column focuses on Sustaining Actions.
Why are we still talking and writing about confined space training a quarter century after OSHA issued its confined space standard for general industry in 1993?
OSHA has added a searchable list of authorized Outreach trainers to its website make it easier for you to find authorized instructors for the 10- and 30-hour Outreach classes. The list provides trainer names and contact information, and indicates which course the trainer is authorized to teach (construction, general industry, maritime, or disaster site worker classes).
Internal audits are a fact of life for many environment, health and safety professionals -- especially those working for large companies. I recently had a discussion with a long-time Phylmar client about internal safety audits. There is a lot of guidance and advice available on how to prepare for such audits and how to create corrective action plans to respond to audit findings.
Recently, I did some health and safety “due diligence” consulting work for a client who wanted to acquire a small, 65-employee business. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting with supervisors and employees and touring the facility and was struck by two important findings: this small company didn’t have much by way of written programs that supported health and safety regulatory compliance AND it had a remarkably good safety record -- one that much larger companies would envy.
Expectations drive both the leader and follower. Various forms of research suggest that when leaders have higher types of expectations for their followers, those followers often live up to the expectations.
Although some incidents cannot be avoided, many can easily be prevented with proper and continuous training. Here are five important traits of an effective employee safety training program.
New York City is considering a law that would require businesses with at least 15 employees to conduct training aimed at preventing sexual harassment. Company owners would have to provide interactive training - either in person, with audiovisual material or some other form approved by the city’s Human Rights Commission - and maintain records of compliance. Failing to do so could earn companies penalties of up to $500 for their first violation, and up to $2,000 for each one after.
RSS
