For nearly five years, Darrell Whitman was a federal investigator who probed whistleblowers’ complaints about being fired or otherwise punished for exposing alleged corporate misconduct.
In 2014, ASSE’s House of Delegates (HOD) approved a governance restructure for the first time in 20 years. The vote culminated a process that began in 2010 with the formation of the Board Advisory Task Force that was charged with helping ASSE become more strategic and effective.
Arc Eye, Burns, and Manganism (Welders’ Parkinson’s Disease)
April 13, 2016
Welding is one of the most hazardous occupations in construction. Traditionally, welders had to fear workplace injury from burns, electricity, and “welder’s flash” (blinding and diminished vision, see below).
It was a typical Thursday afternoon for Moffat County, Colorado, resident Daina Wagner, but a sudden explosion and what followed had her wondering if her life and the lives of her loved ones were about to change forever.
A Middletown, Pennsylvania contractor has been cited for multiple violations and fined $41,000 after a trench cave-in sent one of its workers to the hospital.
Darkness had enveloped the Newell Recycling yard by the time Erik Hilario climbed into a front-end loader on a cold evening in January 2011. Just 19 years old, Hilario, an undocumented immigrant, had followed his father from Mexico to an industrial park in East Point, Ga., near Atlanta, where they worked as low-skilled laborers amid jagged piles of scrap metal bound for the smelter.
Human nature involves risk taking; every human takes calculated risks on a daily basis. Safety is about removing risks, and thus competes with human nature. We can address this by trying to change human nature or by increasing the capacity to calculate risks more accurately.
HVAC installer Timothy O’Neal Gearing and a co-worker were trying to unjam a saw stuck in a metal roof when the saw jerked loose, causing Gearing to lose his balance and fall through an unguarded skylight. The 39-year-old plunged to the concrete ground 15 feet below died from his injuries after being transported to a hospital.
A maintenance technician at a Georgia auto parts manufacturing company was engulfed in flames when the dust collector he was operating caused an explosion. The 33-year-old worker is still recovering from the third-degree burns on his upper body he received during the September 23, 2015 incident at Nakanishi Manufacturing Corp. in Winterville, Ga.
Working in the logistics industry presents a number of risks to employees; while these depend entirely on what specific sector within the industry you’re working in, the transport of sometimes dangerous loads, the manual handling and the use of potentially dangerous equipment/machinery all require careful consideration to ensure safety and management of risks.