Letter from ASSE President Michael Belcher, CSP to Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary Occupational Safety and Health Administration: The American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) congratulates the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for revising and updating its Safety and Health Program Management Guidelines. ASSE is disappointed that this Administration did not complete rulemaking to consider requiring every employer to adopt a safety and health management program.
OSHA is seeking public comment on an updated version of its voluntary Safety and Health Program Management Guidelines. First published in 1989, the guidelines are being updated to reflect modern technology and practices.
“We were up in a customer focus group in Milwaukee not long ago. We had companies there from Fortune 100 to mom and pops,” said the VP of safety for a major distributor. “I’d say seven out of ten had had recent brushes with OSHA. So OSHA is still a big driver of sales, no doubt about it.”
NIOSH has issued a new Small Business Safety and Health Resource Guide, which is intended to assist small business owners as they seek out training materials, and recommendations for ensuring the safety and health of their workers.
Although they are often described as the backbone of the U.S. economy, small businesses are at a disadvantage when it comes to dealing with worksite safety and health issues: they often do not have staff dedicated to the subject.
In a new national poll commissioned by the American Sustainable Business Council, Main Street Alliance, and Small Business Majority, small business owners named weak customer demand, not standards and safeguards, as the most important problem facing their businesses right now.
