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Occupational Safety Blog

By Fred Rine, CEO of FDRsafety and former long-time Managing Director of Safety and Health at FedEx, Jim Stanley, President of FDRsafety and former No. 2 at OSHA headquarters and Mike Taubitz, Senior Advisor to FDRsafety and former Global Safety Director for General Motors.


Archive for August, 2010

Are we addressing the real safety risks faced by employees?

August 29th, 2010 posted by Mike Taubitz

Mike Taubitz

I just returned from a meeting at National Safety Council, where I had an opportunity to read a recent press release.

The essence of the release is shown below. Discussions with industry colleagues suggest that we spend too much time on risks related to occupational hazards without balancing efforts to address vehicle safety and accidents off the job. This is yet one more area where people must “want to” be safe and take responsibility for their own actions.

The NSC information should be shared with everyone and given consideration for company policies related to cell phone use and texting.

National Safety Council Estimates that At Least 1.6 Million Crashes are Caused Each Year by Drivers Using Cell Phones and Texting

Washington, DC – The National Safety Council announced today that it estimates at least 28% of all traffic crashes – or at least 1.6 million crashes each year – are caused by drivers using cell phones and texting. NSC estimates that 1.4 million crashes each year are caused by drivers using cell phones and a minimum of 200,000 additional crashes each year are caused by drivers who are texting. The announcement came on the one-year anniversary of NSC’s call for a ban on all cell phone use and texting while driving.

“We now know that at least 1.6 million crashes are caused by drivers using cell phones and texting,” said Janet Froetscher, president & CEO of the National Safety Council. “We know that cell phone use is a very risky distraction and texting is even higher risk. We now know that cell phone use causes many more crashes than texting. The main reason is that millions more drivers use cell phones than text,” she said. “That is why we need to address both texting and cell phone use on our roads.”

The estimate of 25% of all crashes — or 1.4 million crashes — caused by cell phone use was derived from NHTSA data showing 11% of drivers at any one time are using cell phones and from peer-reviewed research reporting cell phone use increases crash risk by four times. The estimate of an additional minimum 3% of crashes — or 200,000 crashes — caused by texting was derived by NHTSA data showing 1% of drivers at any one time are manipulating their device in ways that include texting and from research reporting texting increases crash risk by 8 times. Using the highest risk for texting reported by research of 23 times results in a maximum of 1 million crashes due to texting; still less than the 1.4 million crashes caused by other cell phone use.

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A new standard for being socially responsible

August 23rd, 2010 posted by Mike Taubitz

Mike Taubitz

Today’s consumers seek organizations that demonstrate socially responsible business practices. ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, has been working on the issue for many years and has decided to launch an International Standard providing guidelines for social responsibility (SR). It will be available October 15.

ISO notes a need for organizations in both public and private sectors to behave in a socially responsible way is becoming a generalized requirement of society. The stakeholder groups that are participating in the in the development of this standard include industry, government, labor, consumers, nongovernmental organizations and others, in addition to geographical and gender-based balance.

The guidance standard will be published as ISO 26000 and be voluntary to use. It will not include requirements and will thus not be a certification standard. It will focus on seven key aspects of social responsibility: organizational governance, community involvement and development, environment, fair operating practices, consumer issues, labor practices, and human rights.

There is a range of opinions as to the right approach, ranging from strict legislation at one end to complete freedom at the other. ISO says it is looking for a middle road that promotes respect and responsibility based on known reference documents without stifling creativity and development. ISO’s guideline is designed to encourage voluntary commitment to social responsibility that will lead to common guidance on concepts, definitions and methods of evaluation.

The document is 100+ pages (including the annexes). For those who are interested, a website developed by representatives of EU industry can be found here.

The site is designed to help understand ISO 26000 without needing consultancy or other external services. The recommendations are developed from a user perspective, and may be particularly interesting for small and medium organizations.

ASQ, American Society for Quality, notes that increasing consumer demand leaves many asking, “Do we have what it takes?” As part of its growing effort to assume a leadership role locally and internationally in the SR movement, ASQ created the Socially Responsible Organization (SRO). If interested, you can join the community.

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OSHA suspends recordkeeping crackdown, newsletter reports

August 12th, 2010 posted by Jim Stanley

Jim Stanley

An industry newsletter is reporting that OSHA is suspending a pilot program to crackdown on alleged under-reporting of accidents and illnesses because the program has not found significant numbers of violations.

OSHA announced the program last year and said it would concentrate on industries with traditionally high accident rates. Within those industries, companies that have reported low accident rates were to be the most likely to be audited because of suspicions that the low rate might be generated by under-reporting.

But Inside OSHA (subscription required to view) is quoting unidentified sources as saying that “the agency has not found the number or degree of violations it had expected to uncover through the program.”

“A memorandum was issued on July 27 outlining the agency’s plan to halt programmed inspections under the OSHA recordkeeping National Emphasis Program (NEP), according to sources,” the newsletter reported.

Inside OSHA quoted an unidentified OSHA spokesman as saying that agency wanted to take a different approach to the recordkeeping program. “OSHA has several strategies for targeting that it’s planning to work through to determine which gets at its concerns on recordkeeping,” the newsletter quoted the spokesman as saying.

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The ‘new’ OSHA uses an old policy to make an example of employers

August 10th, 2010 posted by Jim Stanley

Jim Stanley

Over past years, in a limited number of cases, OSHA has alleged a separate violation and proposed a separate penalty for each instance of non-compliance with OSHA recordkeeping regulations, safety and health standards and with the general duty clause.

The resulting large aggregate penalties are part of a strategy which OSHA believes improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the agency and conserves its limited resources by making an example of the employers who are cited. In non-egregious cases, OSHA issues one violation for all instances of the same hazard, and as a result the proposed penalties are much smaller than egregious penalties.

OSHA has revived the strategy and is issuing many more so-called “egregious” citations, including two instances last week that resulted in large proposed fines in Connecticut and Wisconsin. The question is whether those violations will hold up if the employers choose to litigate them.

According to OSHA, the violation-by-violation citations are not primarily punitive nor exclusively directed at the individual worksites or workplaces involved. OSHA believes that these citations serve a public policy purpose; namely to increase the impact of OSHA’s limited enforcement resources.

In Middletown, Conn., OSHA cited three construction companies and 14 site contractors for 371 alleged workplace safety violations, and proposed $16.6 million in penalties in connection with an explosion at a power plant construction site that killed six workers and injured 50 others. The accident occurred when natural gas was pumped under high pressure through new fuel gas lines to remove debris.

In the other accident, OSHA said a worker at a grain storage bin was engulfed in soybeans up to his chest and almost died. The agency issued egregious violations and proposed fines of $721,000 against a Burlington farmer cooperative.

In my experience, when OSHA has to litigate the egregious citations, they are required to prove in each instance of violation that if an accident occurred it was substantially probable to cause death or serious physical harm, there was employee exposure to the hazard and that the cited employer knew of the hazard or could have known through the use of reasonable diligence.

In large egregious citation cases that are aggressively litigated by the employers it is very difficult for OSHA to sustain its burden of proof for each and every instance of violation.

To keep up with the steps OSHA is taking to increase enforcement, subscribe to our blog and have it delivered automatically to your mailbox or reader.

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Posted in Enforcement, Legislation, OSHA, Recordkeeping | 1 Comment »





Using standards to identify and mitigate machine hazards (1st in a series on standards)

August 2nd, 2010 posted by Mike Taubitz

Mike Taubitz

Many safety professionals are familiar with the myriad voluntary standards for facilities, machines, robots, risk assessment, management systems, ladders, lasers, etc. The list is staggering but I wish to focus on machine safety standards to help readers understand how they help suppliers and users identify and mitigate hazards.

Machine standards typically employ the concept of “A”, “B” or “C” levels. These designations originally come from Europe and are slowly assimilating into the US standards system. Briefly speaking:

Type-A standards (basis standards) give basic concepts, principles for design, and general aspects that can be applied to machinery;
Type-B standards (generic safety standards) deal with one or more safety aspects or one or more types of safeguards that can be used across a wide range of machinery:
Type-C standards (machinery safety standards) deal with detailed safety requirements for a particular machine or group of machines

“A” standards include
• ISO12100-1&2 Safety of Machinery: Basic Concepts, General Principles for Design
• ISO14121 (EN1050), Safety of Machinery: Risk Assessment.
In the US, we do not currently have “A” level safety standards for machinery and equipment (more on this in future blogs). We could think of applicable provisions of OSHA 29CFR1910 and OSHA 29CFR1910.212 General Requirements for guarding machines as having “A” level scope.

“B” level include standards such as:
• ANSI/NFPA70, National Electrical Code
• ANSI/NFPA70E, Electrical Safety Requirements for Employee Workplaces
• ANSI/NFPA79, Electrical Standard for Industrial Machinery
• ANSI Z244.1, Lockout/Tagout of Energy Sources
• ANSI/ASME B15.1, Mechanical Power Transmission Apparatus
• ANSI B11.19, Safeguarding Machine Tools
• And more…

“C” level includes standards such as:
• ANSI B11.1, Mechanical Power Presses
• ANSI B11.2, Hydraulic Power Presses
• ANSI B11.3, Power Press Brakes
• ANSI/RIA R15.06, Industrial Robots and Robot Systems
• And many, many more….

This is the first in what will be a series of blogs to help readers better understand the complex world of voluntary safety standards. Among other things, I will discuss “how” standards are developed, benefits and some new and exciting things happening in the world of B11 general industry safety standards.

For now, I would like to leave you with several thoughts:

1. Practicing lean and safe in daily work promotes sustainable growth.
2. You cannot be lean let alone safe if you introduce hazards into the workplace concurrent with the installation and use of new machinery, equipment and processes
3. Standards are the accepted “safety tool” to identify and eliminate / reduce hazards before they come into the workplace.

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