Safety Training & Incentives

RSS

Honeywell First Responder Products and DuPont Safety & Construction (DuPont) have awarded 20 first responders with all-expenses paid scholarships to attend the Fire Department Instructors Conference (FDIC) in Indianapolis, April 8-13. The firefighting industry’s premier training event and technology showcase, FDIC teaches firefighters the latest tools, techniques and technology for succeeding on the fireground, with a special emphasis on personal development and team safety practices.

OSHA has cited Hilti Inc. – a hardware merchant wholesaler – for exposing employees to struck-by hazards after an employee was injured while operating a forklift at a distribution center in Atlanta, Georgia. The Plano, Texas-based company faces penalties of $164,802.

No, OSHA has not banned safety incentive programs. In fact, on October 11, 2018, agency regional administrators received a memo from Kim Stille, acting director of enforcement programs, which walks back the Obama administration OSHA’s more hard line stance on safety incentive programs. Even under former agency head Dr. David Michaels, OSHA never out-and-out “banned” incentive / reward programs. Michaels and his leadership team took a tougher line on incentive / reward programs that retaliated against or punished workers for reporting work-related injuries or illness.

A certified OSHA trainer who plead guilty to selling fake OSHA training cards faces up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. According to the Department of Justice, training agent Mark Dropal sold more than 100 fraudulent training cards for about $200 each to carpenters in New York and New Jersey between Feb. 21 and March 11, 2018.

A 54-year-old worker died after he fell into a vat of sulfuric acid at a South Lyon-based steel manufacturing firm (Michigan) in what is being described as a "serious industrial accident." The man was fully submerged in the 10 percent to 12 percent sulfuric acid solution as his Michigan Seamless Tube co-workers worked desperately to pull him from the industrial container, burning themselves from the at least 160-degree chemical solution, Fire Chief Robert Vogel said.