Burning dust in a sugar plant

Just as you can start a fire by tossing a handful of flour or powdered sugar into the air followed by a burning match, the ignition of dust particles can cause huge fires and resulting damage.

On February 8, northeast of Savannah, Georgia, the deaths of 13 workers and severe burn injuries by other employees followed an explosion and raging fires at the Imperial Sugar Refinery. Apparently sugar dust in a silo ignited like so much dynamite. Here’s an aerial view of the plant from the Savannah Morning news:

Now questions are exploding in Congress and in the streets of Washington DC about what OSHA is doing to prevent such tragedies. At one end of the blame spectrum, American Rights at Work declares that Elaine Chou, the Secretary of Labor, has been less than forthright in pushing for stronger regulation of workplaces in danger of dust-caused explosions. After an investigation, OSHA cited the company’s refinery in Louisiana for violations of safety standards and assessed a $36,000 fine. The company has 15 days to protest, according to the Savannah Morning News.

Blame issues aside, the reality is that many manufacturing companies carry a risk of explosion of fine particles. A description of the major areas of concern for “dust hazards” is provided by OSHA, and businesses noted for a high risk can take advantage of this and other information to make their workplaces less susceptible to explosive dust.

Industries most at risk, according to OSHA:

Food (candy, starch, flour, feed)
Plastics
Wood
Rubber
Furniture
Textiles
Pesticides
Pharmaceuticals
Dyes
Coal
Metals (aluminum, chromium, iron, magnesium, zinc)
Fossil fuel power generation

Most natural and synthetic organic materials, as well as some metals, can form combustible dust.

by Griffith Publishing

Snags in promoting good health to your workers

A study released in April of this year by Hewitt Associates found that 88 percent of the employers surveyed plan to spend money and other resources to improve their workers’ health and productivity. That is up from 66 percent the previous year.

Ambitious plans for health improvement hit a snag, according to the study, because employees don’t like their bosses telling them how to make healthful choices to be more valuable at work. Only 12 percent of  employees in the study said they felt it was appropriate for their employers to play a health promoting role.

“Employees trust their doctors and view them as the sole people who own their health,” says Jim Winkler,  leader of Hewitt’s health management consulting practice.

Occupational medicine services should be based on the premise that doctors in private practice are best positioned to advocate healthful principles at work and in personal life. It’s known as the doctor-patient relationship. “The trust that builds between a patient and doctor is one of the strongest bonds that exists,” one doctor commented.

That doesn’t leave employers out of the loop. Winkler suggests making it easier for employees to find the information they need about specific health issues and not requiring them to sign in to find out phone numbers and contact information for specific health services or clinics.

Another approach not mentioned by Winkler is to build on the strong doctor-patient relationship by involving primary care and occupational medicine physicians in your company’s wellness programs.

(This blog is brought to you by HealthWorks and Griffith Publishing.)

Construction guide now available

The 4th edition of the Construction Chart Book is now available free online.

This comprehensive book deals with all aspects of the construction industry, including the health and safety of construction workers. It is published by The Center for Construction Research and Training through a grant from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Safety isn’t funny

You’re standing in front of twenty employees about to give a safety speech. Your notes are on cards. The projector is ready to show your PowerPoint slides.

But first you’re going to tell a little joke you heard about a safety inspector, an insurance sales rep and a turtle.

If you haven’t caught on yet, that joke, however it may go, can bring you far more trouble than it’s worth.
It may be hilarious to your audience to run an imaginary conversation with the company’s owner as a below-average person who can’t understand a simple safety rule. Setting your company’s safety manual to music may enliven the meeting. Portraying an on-stage inspection that ends with the supervisor being hauled off the set by the inspector could be taken in a good spirit by all concerned and drive a vital safety point home.

The problem is that safety is not funny. When you make jokes about rules that involve the health and safety of your workers, you are demeaning their importance.

Worse, you may anger people who have been made the subject of your humor. Most people don’t like to have others laughing at them.

Smiles and even an occasional comment that draws a laugh may be appropriate as a way to “bring it home” to your workers. A cheerful attitude is refreshing and inspiring. Just be cautious about what you’re laughing at.

Safety isn’t funny.

Safety citations up, injuries down

The more safety violations we experience in the workplace, the fewer injuries and illnesses we have.

Or, stated with more logic, as more inspections are made and more citations for violations of safety rules are issued, the safer the workplace becomes.

Safety seems to be a byproduct of oversight, perhaps because businesses pay more attention to safety after they or other companies in the same industry are caught in a major violation and pay a penalty.

The statistics seem to support this because the injury and illness rate for 2006, the most recent year with available statistics, reached an all-time low of 4.4 per one hundred employees. This continues a five-year trend that has resulted in a total decline in workplace injuries and illness of 17 percent. Meanwhile the number of citations for repeat and serious violations increased over the same period by 26.4 percent.

The trouble with logic is that it’s easy to carry it too far. In this case, logic would suggest you should welcome and encourage safety violations.

Do violations increase safety? Hardly.

Obviously, there’s more in the safety equation than enforcement.

At the same time that targeted inspections and penalties have increased, safety programs unrelated to inspections may have become more effective and industry-specific. OSHA also gives credit to some whistle blowers whose complaints about unsafe working conditions resulted in the investigation of specific cases.

Other factors are involved as well.

Still, it’s hard to refute the idea that when high-risk industries and businesses that have been cited for previous violations are targeted for inspections, safety rules are followed more rigorously.

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How to treat an OSHA inspector

Yes, we have OSHA inspectors in Idaho and, yes, they like to check up on businesses in high-risk industries or with a record of past violations, especially serious ones.

When the OSHA inspector’s office calls to make an appointment for a worksite “walkaround” or general inspection, here are some suggestions to make the event as pain-free as possible. You might learn more than it costs you in penalties and fines.

Remember that the OSHA inspector may or may not have reason to suspect safety violations, but the primary purpose of a walkaround is to look for possible violations. It’s part of the agency’s official inspection of your business.

As with any legal investigation, don’t show more than you have to. Ask the inspector what areas of your business she is most interested in and don’t offer to take her anywhere else.

* Don’t volunteer information that isn’t requested by the inspector. This is not the time to demonstrate your newest equipment or explain how your assembly line works.

* Assign another management-level person besides yourself to accompany the inspector on the tour.

* Take notes and photos. If the inspector takes a picture, you are within your rights to take some as well. If measurements are made, follow through with your own. Some businesses have been successful in challenging a citation because they took the effort to duplicate measurements made in the workplace.

* Allow employee access. The OSHA inspector does not have the authority to disrupt the operation of equipment or processes that would interfere with workflow. The inspector does have the right to talk to employees, who, in turn, have the right to refuse to talk. If they agree to carry on a dialog with the inspector, you may ask them later what was discussed.

* And finally, a good rule for all discussions: if you’re uncomfortable dealing with a specific issue, it’s almost always better to say nothing than to keep talking.

You can also use the tour as a way to identify potential trouble spots in your business. A cooperative attitude will help you understand safety situations in your workplace and may help reduce penalties if any are levied for failure to comply with OSHA regulations.

Dealing with stress on the job

All of us feel stress creeping from our brains down our spinal columns at times. Your employees are no exception.

Here are some suggestions to share with them for dealing with stress.

• Make the most of every workday break. Even ten minutes of “personal time” will refresh your mental outlook and give you a boost for the rest of the day.
• Don’t spend your whole work day rejuvenating yourself, but take a minute or two now and then, especially during your break or lunch hour, to take a brief walk, chat with a co-worker about a non-job topic, or simply sit quietly with your eyes closed and breathe.
• If you feel angry for any reason at work, walk away from the situation. Slowly count to ten and let yourself regroup. Then look at the situation again, with fresh eyes
• Walking and other physical activities can help you work off steam.
• Don’t expect yourself to evolve immediately into a calm and peaceful person. Talk to your boss about your job description if there’s any possibility that your responsibilities and the way your are judged for fulfilling them are not matched well to your capabilities.
• You will find changes that need to be made. Instead of making all the decisions yourself, work with other employees to identify and suggest ways for coping with work challenges. This will make you feel less responsible for everything that goes wrong and will boost productivity as more employees feel they are important to the organization.

Source: American Psychological  Association

Signs can improve safety, if…

How prominent and clear are the safety signs are your business or working area?

Did you know…

• Using color increases message retention by 82 percent
• Yellow-on-black is the most readable color combination
• Parallel signs are easier to miss than vertical ones
• A border on the sign increases readability by about 32 percent

A great piece on safety signage at work comes to us from Drue Townsend and the online Occupational Health and Safety Magazine for December, 2007. Check it out!