Occupational Safety

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Accuform Signs, North America’s leading manufacturer of facility identification solutions, announced today their version of the mobile welding screen, the One-Way™ Printed Welding Screen. Accuform’s unique ONE-WAY™ printing method allows welders to see through the screen, while simultaneously protecting and informing employees on the other side.

OSHA has cited plastic pipe manufacturer Endot Industries Inc. for 18 health and safety violations found at the company's facility in Rockaway, NJ. OSHA's inspection began in July based on a referral and as part of the agency's Site-Specific Targeting Program, which directs enforcement resources to high-hazard workplaces with the highest rates of injuries and illnesses.

For the record, I’m against euphemisms; I believe masking the inadequacies or social stigma of one state by calling it something else is wrong-headed and pathetic. I’ve been called a lot of things, but politically correct isn’t one of them.

When you think of electrical burns, you often think about injuries that come from direct contact with current – shocking experiences. Keep in mind electrical burn injuries are often compounded by thermal or heat burns from blasts or “arc flashes.”

OSHA has cited Aldridge Electric Inc. for a serious safety violation after a 36-year-old worker died from heat stroke on his first day on the job at the company's Chicago job site. The company was installing electrical conduit in an uncovered trench on the Chicago Transit Authority's Dan Ryan Red Line project.

Central Ready Mix LLC has been cited for 10 serious safety violations by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration after a 39-year-old plant operator was fatally engulfed in a fly-ash storage silo on Aug. 6 at the Middletown gravel company.

The owner of a New England munitions manufacturing company is heading to prison after being convicted on two counts of manslaughter in the deaths of two of his employees. Craig Sanborn was sentenced in Coös County Court in New Hampshire to five to ten years in prison in the May, 2010 explosion at his Black Mag LLC plant.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article pertains to any workplace where risks demand mindfulness, alertness and all-around situational awareness, though the author specifically addresses fire fighters and other first responders.

Adapting to the safe work practices of NFPA 70E likely means some major changes in how your electrical workers have done things in the past. Your electrical workers likely didn’t think twice about opening an energized 480 volt electrical panel. Now with standards in place, they must first determine arc flash hazard levels, PPE, safety boundaries and fill out an energized work permit.

The short answer is, yes. OSHA requires industrial plants to adhere to the arc flash standards set forth by the National Fire Protection Association in the publication known as NFPA 70E.