Among the articles in the June 2019 issue of ISHN Magazine, we have expert insight on the world of worker and workplace safety, the latest innovations in safety equipment, and much more.
It’s long overdue, according to Dr. Sidney Dekker, who in 2014 wrote an essay on “The ‘Failed State’ of Safety.” Yes, says Corrie Pitzer, who is giving a talk, “Safety at a Dead End” at the American Society of Safety Professionals’ annual conference this June.
“We invented nothing ourselves but incorporated learnings”
June 13, 2019
Allergan plc, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is a global pharmaceutical company. ISHN asked David Eherts, PhD, CIH, Vice President Global EHS, based in Madison, NJ, to explain how the company is implementing the “New View” of safety.
The New View is fundamentally the application of systems thinking to workplace health and safety. It considers safety an emergent property of the system. So what does that jargon mean? Instead of focusing on an individual thing, the organization steps back and takes a broader view.
We do what we do to obtain, avoid, or escape certain consequences. Consequences we work to obtain are termed "positive reinforcers." Consequences we attempt to avoid are "negative reinforcers."
The use of prepaid reward cards to recognize employees is a growing trend. According to one study, 87 percent of U.S. firms that use non-cash rewards are now using gift cards, spending more than $24 billion annually on those cards.
As the Safety Services Manager for a safety supply company, I am commonly asked by customers to help determine which chemical resistant gloves are appropriate for a given work application.
Stars in the rapidly evolving field of wearable technology, “smart” glasses allow wearers to perform a myriad of functions while keeping their hands free. Wearers can view information, watch and record videos, summon up GPS directions, make phone calls and send texts – all by using gestures, head motions and voice commands.
The International Safety Equipment Association (ISEA) produces the American National Standard for Emergency Eyewash and Shower Equipment, ANSI Z358.1, to establish uniform minimum performance and use requirements.
Industrial work environments are not ideal for comfort. They are often hot, stuffy, and stifling. Factor in the appropriate PPE that many workers are required to wear, and regulating body temperature can become extremely difficult, if not impossible. Without preventative measures, the results can be fatal.
It’s 2019 and the robots haven’t taken over...yet. Despite wild internet theories and predictions that robotics and automation would take jobs away from Americans, especially in the labor and trades, the United States is actually looking at a large skills gap in the trades and an even larger number of unfilled jobs.
Excessive noise is prevalent across industries. From manufacturing to construction, agriculture to oil and gas, more than 22 million U.S. workers are exposed to hazardous noise each year.1 Wherever unsafe levels of noise exist, employers are responsible for providing hearing protection devices (HPDs).
When employees perform maintenance on machinery or equipment, you must ensure that they know how to protect themselves from the release of hazardous energy. OSHA’s control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout) standard at 1910.147 requires you to create procedures for employee protection.
Workers who are required to do their jobs in extremely hot environments — from construction sites to chemical plants and offshore oil rigs — can be at risk of serious heat-related injuries and illnesses.
Why my role exists, to me, is that it is simply for the people. The people I get to work with and for each day. When it’s about names, not numbers, there is a True North that continues to direct my vision of what World Class truly looks like.
Trucking can be a hazardous profession for drivers – and that’s before the driver has even set foot in the cab or put the vehicle in gear. For good reason -- fleets focus much of their attention on minimizing risks on the road, but there are also risks when a driver is on his or her feet as well, due to the risk of a fall.
In OSHA’s 48-year-old history, the agency has experienced desperate hours on a regular schedule. The agency opened its door in 1971. Before the decade was out a “STOP OSHA” lobbying movement was underway. In 1979, Republican Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania proposed an “OSHA Improvements Act” which would have exempted from inspections all employers, large or small, regardless of industry, with good safety records. It was defeated in 1980.
Driving while fatigued can be a common occurrence for long-haul truck drivers, and studies have shown it can be as problematic as driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Yet almost a third of people in a AAA survey said at least once in the prior month they had driven while so tired that they could barely keep their eyes open.
Hearing loss isn’t the first injury that comes to mind when an arc fault occurs. The light and heat emitted by the massive electrical explosion – the arc flash – can cause life-threatening and life-altering burns to the skin, compression injuries and loss of limbs if workers are left unprotected.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane… no, it’s a Squishy Robot, dropped from a helicopter or a drone to transmit crucial environmental data to emergency responders at disaster scenes.
It wasn’t until recently that we started understanding that people with different personalities tend to naturally pay more attention to safety attributes like work environment, people, equipment, processes, etc. based on their personality tendencies.