OSHA withdraws proposed MSD column on injury/illness logs

"On Jan. 25, OSHA announced that it has temporarily withdrawn its proposal to restore a column for work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) on employer injury and illness logs, citing concerns from small businesses. Some safety stakeholders, however, expressed disappointment over the withdrawal."

Read the full article at:

http://ehstoday.com/standards/osha/osha-withdraws-msd-column-injury-illness-logs-0126/

Do you have a top management which is a safety "wanna-be"?

Are you fighting an unresponsive and only vaguely committed management? Or are you one of the lucky safety managers who can rely on management, has a safety budget, and knows that he will be able to improve safety on a continuous basis?

I assume that most of us have to deal with mediocrity and lip service, with a management that does not walk-the-talk, only “commits” to safety when it is convenient. Whatever you do is either shot down by management or modified so you only achieve part of what actually could be achieved. Have you felt the need to run and scream and curse from the bottom of your heart and never set foot into the company again? Let me tell you – you are not alone. And that’s exactly the reason why I blog. I want to assure whoever reads the blogs that we all – or at least very many – face the same issues. And yes, I was hoping not only for readers but also for comments. Maybe at some time someone will comment. I can only hope.

However, if - with all the trouble you have with management, you have been able to establish a good and trusting relationship with foremen, supervisors and workers, and they will openly talk to you about their issues and what they believe needs to be done or rant about management and tell you how they REALLY feel, you have in fact achieved a lot already. With their help you will be able to achieve more. Although even as a combined force you may not change management, at least you can instill in the field crew and in the plant workers the desire to help you in your efforts. It may be only a small and quiet rebellion against management’s mediocrity, but the workers will feed on your passion and enthusiasm and in turn you will be able to rely on them.

Let’s all keep up the good fight!

Safety Commitees - Blessing or Curse?

Safety Committees can be a great means of getting folks together and discuss issues like near misses, make improvement suggestions etc. Unfortunately, there are numerous occasions where committee members are only reluctantly participating, are looking for excuses to not attend and only sit silently in the meetings, not willing to voice their opinion. This is a problem. A rather big problem.

1.       The committee members are not volunteers but have been selected by management. Can this be resolved? Maybe, maybe not. In a small to medium size company there are not that many employees available and therefore, the selection is limited. But even if they have been selected by management, the chair person can use his or her personality and make the committee meetings more interesting.

2.       Management is part of the safety committee. This can be an issue. Not everybody has the courage to speak up when someone from the corner office is sitting in and listening in or even attends the meeting as a chair person. Management can be part of the committee to show commitment and visibility and interest in safety. However, if the other members are not feeling as equals, get management out of the picture. Politely but determinedly. If they refuse, for whatever reason, select committee members who have a reputation of not being afraid.

3.       Here’s what you can try: Every other month (or more often) have a formal safety committee meeting in the office, for example with General Superintendent, Superintendents, Project Managers and the VP. In addition – as it is quite difficult to get carpenters, laborers and technicians into the office to be part of the committee, bring a similar meeting to the jobsite (and bring donuts or candy ---- guys and chocolate is not necessarily an oxymoron…).

a.       Don’t always facilitate the formal safety committee meetings yourself, have others work as well. Review the most important issues and in the first meeting have the members of the safety committee draw a topic each. He or she will have several weeks to research the issue, discuss with the field or with the office employees and then present possible solutions which are then discussed in the second half of the meeting. Here are some examples of what can be discussed:

                                                              i.      Research and determine why there is reluctance to use authority to enforce OSHA and company specific rules on jobsites. Present examples and solutions.

                                                            ii.      Research and determine how project managers can be more involved in safety. How can we make sure they actually address safety issues? Is it because they may not have the knowledge what hazards may be an issue or what needs to be done to preplan safety? Present solutions.

                                                          iii.      Research and determine JHA/JSA procedure and why the procedure is not followed through. Review why jobs are often started without an initial hazard review and what can be done to change this?

                                                           iv.      Research and determine in how far safety performance of the company and its employees can be used as a marketing tool (not only EMR rate or zero lost time accidents). In how far would a construction company that puts a high value on safe work practices be of advantage to a client?

                                                             v.      Research and determine why the focus is too often on fixing problems instead of preventing them in the first place? Present solutions.

b.      Based on what was discussed in the formal safety committee meeting, discuss the same topic in the field and get their input.

The researched topics will provide a great basis for discussion. Having management (VP) in the meeting may now actually be helpful, because he (or she) will have to research a topic himself, “earn” his safety activity points, and he can also see who was actually visibly interested in safety – it may come as a surprise to some committee members in the annual performance review that the VP wasn’t sitting in just for decoration but that he indeed paid attention to the commitment of the others.

Meike Patten, MPSafetyTraining

The Price of Non-Conformance

We all know that accidents cost a company a lot of money. Direct and indirect costs add up and can result in a  serious financial situation for a company. Accidents and incidents happen because of non-conformance to rules, regulations, laws (including the laws of physics  - like gravity...) and other standards.

But there is also a loss of reputation. After a serious accidents or a fatality happens, the media will spread the word, everybody will know the name of the company (for example BP or Massey Energy) - at least for a while (sometimes I wonder how long we actually WANT to retain the knowledge about the oil spill or the coal mine disaster - it is much more convenient to forget about it, right?). Loss of reputation does, of course, not necessarily mean that a company will be going out of business (after all, BP is still in business and making money (would be interesting to know how much of their profit now goes into improving safety on oil drilling platforms). But potential employees may think twice about getting a job with companies that seem to be only interested in their own profit and deliberately put lives and health of their employees at stake. How about yourself? Would you like to work as a safety professional in such a company?

But there is more to the price of non-conformance. Let's get away from looking at the companies but focus on the employees, the victims, who were exposed to hazardous chemicals, materials, conditions, may have delayed reactions to chemical exposure, let's focus on workers who were told by their supervisor or management to "get the job done" because the schedule is tight, because it would be too time consuming and costly to get the right equiment or PPE (which should have been planned for in the first place).

The victims pay the ultimate price of non-conformance with their illnesses, with their injuries, with their lives. The families of the exposed employees have to pay as well, must make adjustments if the bread winner of the family is permanently disabled, is dependent on spouse and other family members, have to deal with medical cost, or ------ grief.

No, it is not always the company who is solely to blame, whose non-conformance is the reason for safety and health issues. We cannot relieve the individual employee from his responsibility to work safely, to apply his/her knowledge and skills to follow established rules and apply common sense (although one person's common sense is not necessarily anther person's common sense).

Meike Patten, MPSafetyTraining

Comments and posts welcome

If you would like to voice your opinions, want to contribute with news, video clips or other safety related comments, please send me an email (safetyreflections@gmail.com). I will post your contributions and add you to the blogger's list.

Meike Patten, MPSafetyTraining

COSH Names Top 10 Workplace Tragedies for 2010

By Laura Walter

The year 2010 was a bad one for workers: An explosion on a an off-shore drilling rig killed 11 workers and triggered the worst oil spill in U.S. history; a catastrophic mine disaster killed 29 coal miners; and an oil refinery explosion caused multiple fatalities – and those were just the incidents you heard about.

“In 2010, we saw some of the deadliest workplace disasters in recent history,” said Tom O’Connor, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH), “but the sad fact is, thousands of Americans were killed on the job in accidents that got very little, if any, attention at all. Unfortunately, because Congress failed to act this year on legislation that would have protected American workers, we can expect more of the same next year.”

Nearly 5,000 workers died on the job in 2010. Despite their diverse nature, the vast majority of these accidents – including the incidents that made the top 10, O’Connor said – were easily preventable.

“In most cases, workers at these sites where people were killed were aware that there was something wrong in their workplace,” O’Connor said. “But workers on these and far too many other worksites feared for their jobs if they talked too openly about safety hazards on the job. This year, if we learned nothing else, we learned that when workers lack the security and confidence to speak up about life-threatening hazards on the job, catastrophic incidents are inevitable.”

Unfortunately, O’Connor said, while cases like the Gulf of Mexico explosion and resulting oil spill and the West Virginia mining disaster grabbed the headlines, a quiet epidemic of job fatalities continued throughout the country. Few people heard about the thousands of deaths from falls from roofs, trench cave-ins and other “routine” incidents on jobsites throughout the year.

“The solution to the problem of worker safety in our country is not complex,” O’Connor said. “Fines for serious hazards, currently averaging only about $400, need to be greatly strengthened. Workers who fear for their safety on the job need to be given real ‘whistleblower’ protections, so that they can warn others about serious hazards without losing their jobs. OSHA needs far more resources in order to be able to inspect workplaces more than once every half-century or so on average, and employers who knowingly and recklessly place their workers’ lives in danger should face more than misdemeanor charges with a maximum sentence of 6 months in jail that current law provides for.”

 

Top 10 Deadliest Workplace Tragedies

According to COSH, the following workplace tragedies made the top 10 list for 2010:

 

1. April 20, 2010 – Deepwater Horizon explosion. An explosion at the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers, injured 17 others and resulted in the largest oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. Media reports indicate that management knew key safety equipment had been compromised in earlier incidents, but chose to ignore the significance and continue operations.

 

2. April 5, 2010 – Upper Big Branch mine explosion, Montcoal, W.Va. An explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in Raleigh County, W.Va., killed 29 workers. The accident represents the worst mining disaster in the U.S. since 1970. Public documents show that the mine’s owner, Massey Energy, has a long record of safety violations at the Upper Big Branch mine.

 

3. Feb. 7, 2010 – Kleen Energy Power Plant, Middletown, Conn. Contract workers at the Kleen Energy plant were performing a “gas blow,” a procedure that uses natural gas at very high pressure to clean pipes of debris. During the process, the gas encountered an ignition source resulting in a massive explosion, killing six workers and injuring 30 others. Following its in-depth investigation, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) called natural gas blows “inherently unsafe practices” and called for the immediate ban on the procedure.

 

4. April 2, 2010 – Tesoro Refining & Marketing Company, Anacortes, Wash. A ruptured heat exchanger at the Tesoro Refinery caused an enormous explosion that rocked the plant and killed seven workers. A 6-month long investigation by Washington state OSHA personnel determined that the explosion could have been prevented if the company had carried out proper testing and maintenance of the equipment.

 

5. Dec. 9, 2010 – AL Solutions Plant, New Cumberland, W.Va. An explosion of undetermined origin killed two brothers working at the plant and injured a third worker. According to media accounts, the AL Solutions plant has earned a reputation as a “dangerous place to work” and the deaths of the two brothers represent the third and fourth deaths, respectively, at the plant in the last 15 years.

 

6. March 2, 2010 – Northwest Insulation, Artesia, N.M. Four contractors were installing insulation on top of a new crude storage tank. Workers were welding when a fire ignited. Two workers were injured when they fell while a third remained on top of the tank and was fatally burned. A fourth worker was confirmed dead more than a week later. An OSHA investigation into the cause of the accident is ongoing.

 

7. May 5, 2010 – Amtec Corporation, Huntsville, Ala. Two workers were killed in a violent explosion at a plant that manufactures rocket fuel. Federal investigators later cited the plant’s owners for six serious violations and willfully exposing workers to fire and explosive hazards without proper protection.

 

8. June 12, 2010 – Top Notch Cleaners, LLC, Valley, Ala. Two employees were buffing floors during the night at a mental health outpatient facility with machines that use propane gas. An employee of the outpatient facility discovered both men dead the next morning. Both the employee and the police who responded to the incident smelled gas when they entered the building where the men were working. Investigators believe carbon monoxide poisoning and inadequate ventilation contributed to the deaths.

 

9. July 22, 2010 – Horsehead Corp., Monaca, Pa. An explosion at the Horsehead zinc refinery, a facility with a long history of safety violations and OSHA citations, killed a pair of workers and injured two others. Although investigators have still not determined the cause of the blast, the company has a long history of safety violations.

 

10. July 23, 2010 – Northeast Energy Management Inc., Cheswick, Pa. Two workers engaged in arc welding were burned to death when the tank they were working on exploded, throwing their bodies approximately 60 feet away from the site of the ignition. The explosion and fire that killed the workers was the third involving Northeast Energy Management since September 2007, when one employee was severely burned in an explosion at a gas and oil well.

 

O’Connor stressed that national political leadership needs to recognize that, after 40 years, the outdated Occupational Safety and Health Act needs a major overhaul. Only then, he said, can the families of the nearly 5,000 workplace victims in 2010 feel that their loved ones did not die in vain.

 

Augie Rincon, ConocoPhillips

Pipe Cutting Failure

Augie Rincon, ConocoPhilips

What are the biggest problems you are faced with in your company?

- Lack of management commitment
- Lack of enforcement of rules and regulation
- Lack of buy-in from employees
- Lack of budget

Most of the problems encountered in a company boil down to lack of management commitment. If management is not totally committed to safety, the grassroots appproach will only take you so far. A lack of budget may indicate that in this economy your company may be short on cash and is focussed on keeping the company afloat, but if there is no safety budget it may also be because management has not deemed safety important enough to plan ahead for any possible safety expenses that may arise (new equipment, cost for training, etc). Although the cost for safety is substantially lower than the cost for a lost time accident or a fatality (which could actually put a smaller company out of business), cost still has to be planned into the project. If management thinks they can do without any safety budget, it only shows that they do not understand the cost of working unsafe.

Lack of enforcement of rules and regulations: Have you ever worked in a company where there seem to be several standards for different employees, that the employee who has been with the company for 25+ years can get away with more than the employee who just started? Maybe you have realized that certain sections of the Safety & Health program collect dust because not even verbal warnings are issued? Workers will realize very quickly that there are different standards and that enforcement is only lip service.

If employees don't buy into safety, it is mostly because they see that management does not buy into safety either or that management does not walk the talk. Can we change that? Hopefully by being knowledgeable, persistant and passionate about your job.

Meike Patten, MPSafety Training

Vapor Cloud Explosions

The Beacon

http://www.aiche.org/CCPS/Publications/Beacon/index.aspx

A vapor cloud explosion occurs when a sufficient amount of flammable or combustible material is released, mixes with air, and is ignited. Some causes of the release of the vapor or gas fuel include:

• Loss of process containment from failure of a pipe, reactor, storage tank, or other process vessel  
  containing flammable or combustible liquid, or a flammable gas.

• Rapid discharge of flammable vapor to the atmosphere through a pressure relief system.

• Release of flammable liquid stored under pressure – for example, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). The
  discharged liquid will rapidly boil at atmospheric pressure, forming a flammable vapor cloud.

If the flammable vapor cloud is ignited, it can explode, producing a blast wave which can cause major destruction at a large distance. This is particularly true for releases in congested or confined areas,

for vapor clouds that have drifted into such areas, and for reactive materials. In addition, heat from the fireball can cause significant injury or damage. Some of the worst disasters in the history of the process industries have been vapor cloud explosions. Some examples include:

• June 1974, Flixborough, England (28 fatalities)

• October 1989, Houston, Texas (23 fatalities)

• March 2005, Texas City, Texas (15 fatalities)

• December 2005, Buncefield, England (no fatalities but 43 injuries

and major damage)

• October 2009, Jaipur, India (12 fatalities)

What can you do?

Make sure that piping and equipment inspections and preventive maintenance tasks are completed as

required to ensure mechanical integrity of process equipment. Containment of fuel is the best way to prevent

vapor cloud explosions. Ignition sources for flammable vapor clouds – for example, heaters, vehicles,

unclassified electrical areas, hot work, static discharge – are difficult to control.

Ensure that safe work practices are followed, including hot work procedures in areas near flammable
inventories.

If you detect any leak, no matter how small, on equipment containing flammable or combustible liquid or
flammable vapor, report it immediately and know how to initiate emergency procedures.

If your plant contains flammable or combustible materials, you should have written emergency procedures

for a leak. Review and understand these procedures, participate in drills, and know what you must do to

protect yourself and others in case of a leak. Know when and how to use appropriate personal protective

equipment (for example, flame resistant clothing) and leak detection equipment such as portable flammable

material detectors.

Augie Rincon, ConocoPhilipps