Occupational Safety

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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.

At ASSE’s Safety 2013 I was asked by an author writing an upcoming article for ISHN magazine: “Should I title it, ‘The Demise of BBS,’ or the ‘Evolution of BBS’?” To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of BBS’s death are greatly exaggerated. It’s been employed by safety pros for more than 30 years now, since Proctor & Gamble Safety Manager Gene Ernst started industry’s first BBS program in the 1970s.

In an exclusive with ISHN magazine, outgoing ASSE President Rick Pollock explains the profession’s expanding focus on risk and myths about human performance, as well as other issues. “ASSE now has, and will into the future, have a much greater focus on risk. Clearly, any true business leader understands the concept of risk as it applies to investment and decision making. Business is about understanding enterprise risk and how investment is always at risk of loss or under performance."

A session at ASSE’s Safety 2013 focused on, “Integrating Risk Management and Prevention Through Design Standards,” and ASSE has been beating the drum in support of what’s known as PtD. Presenters were Georgi I. Popov, PhD., QEP, University of Central Missouri, Overland Park, KS; and John N. Zey, Ed.D., CIH, University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, MO.

A highlight at ASSE’s annual professional development conference, this year titled Safety 2013, is the Executive Summit Panel Discussion. This year’s featured panelists:  Robert Zaist, President of Energy and Construction, URS Corporation; Rafael Moure-Eraso, Chair, U.S. Chemical Safety Board; Lester Grey, Sr. Vice President of Operations, Perdue Farms; Stephanie Buchanan, Vice President of Operations, United Airlines, Houston Hub; and Virginia Valentine, Nevada Resort Association.

The average person’s reaction time is half a second. In that time you fall 4 feet. As you fall, gravity pulls you down and your speed quickly increases. That means your impact force increases too. And, once you start falling, you will stop only when you hit a lower surface. Still think you can catch yourself?

The amount of coverage given to safety-related risk issues at ASSE’s Safety 2013 made us think of how the European Union (EU) is actually ahead of the U.S. safety profession when it comes to embracing risk. The past year saw the completion of EU-OSHA’s flagship Foresight project, which anticipates longer-term workplace risks (initially in relation to ‘green’ jobs), to stimulate debate, and make clear to decision-makers the implications of particular courses of action.

OSHA has cited Gulf Coast Utility Contractors LLC with two willful and two serious safety violations with proposed penalties totaling $106,400 for exposing workers to a cave-in and other hazards while they were installing underground utilities at a job site in Panama City Beach.

It takes only five seconds for a worker who is walking on moving grain to become engulfed in it to the extent that he is unable to extricate himself. It only takes 60 seconds for him to become completely submerged.

In recent months, we have received many reports of temporary workers suffering fatal injuries — some during their first days on the job. One of our most recent high-profile enforcement cases was with Bacardi Bottling Corp. following the death of a 21-year-old temporary worker. LAWRENCE DAQUAN "DAY" DAVIS was crushed to death on his very first day at work while he was cleaning up glass inside a palletizer at the Florida bottling facility.