Occupational Safety

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Working at heights carries risk. About five American construction workers are killed every week by falls from heights, 251 of them in 2011 alone. New data from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) show you don’t have to fall very far for the fall to be deadly.

A Nevada-OSHA investigation is underway into the death of a Cirque du Soleil performer Saturday in Las Vegas. Inspectors are at the MGM Grand, where the accident occurred, conducting interviews and inspecting equipment.

Environmental Enterprises Inc. has been cited with 22 safety and health violations by OSHA stemming from a fire and explosion at the company’s Cincinnati waste treatment facility on Dec. 28 that killed one worker and left another with severe burns.

Residents of Arizona are reeling from the deaths of nineteen firefighters yesterday -- members of an elite firefighting team who perished while battling a fast-moving wildfire.

The increase in grain bin deaths – despite a corresponding increase in official efforts to stop them – shows an “unconscionable” failure on the part of employers, according to the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH), a coalition dedicated to safe work conditions.

It’s 4:18 a.m. and the strip mall is deserted. But tucked in back, next to a closed-down video store, an employment agency is already filling up. Rosa Ramirez walks in, as she has done nearly every morning for the past six months. She signs in and sits down in one of the 100 or so blue plastic chairs that fill the office.

A report released by the the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (OGP) shows that the number of fatalities per 100 million hours worked -- the Fatal Accident Rate -- has fallen in the last ten years.

The American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) has launched a new Risk Assessment Institute to facilitate occupational safety, health and environmental (SH&E) risk assessment's inclusion into the organizational risk management process, allowing businesses to "proactively prioritize, resource, and mitigate risk in advance of injuries or catastrophe."

The rap against setting a goal of zero injuries is that workers know it is an impossibility, and will tune out further safety messages. Three different safety experts at ASSE’s Safety 2013 gave us almost identical definitions: First, you start by asking employees, “Can you go a day without an injury?” Well, yeah, probably.” So the day does go by without an injury.” Next you ask:

Many safety pros are exasperated by their senior leadership’s slavish devotion to tracking OSHA recordables, lost-time incidents, severity rates and fatalities. In a way, you can’t blame them when their pay bonuses are based on these numbers, and the numbers represent pretty much all senior leaders know about safety.