Author Archive of
From Our Webinar Series- Surviving the Pandemic
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, more and more workers find themselves working from home, many for the first time.
PPE Hazard Assessments – Are you meeting all of the requirements?
An Amazon Fulfillment Center is contesting an Other-than-Serious (OTS) citation with a $1,000 penalty for not meeting all of the requirements in the personal protective equipment (PPE) hazard assessment regulation – specifically 29 CFR 1910.132(d)(2). Ask almost any EHS professional and they will say, of course we know PPE hazard assessments are required. What may be forgotten, however, is the level of documentation that is also required.
Sidney Dekker’s Presentation: a few Highlights
We were fortunate to hear Sidney Dekker speak at our Asia Pacific Forum meeting in Sydney, Australia on March 14. He focused on rules and regulations and their relationship to injury experience. I had heard references to this work in presentations by other speakers, but hearing from Sidney helped me to understand what he was really getting at.
Missile Alert Gone Awry: Disciplinary Action and Learning – does “ready, fire, aim” really get us to good corrective actions?
Recently we read about the incident where a Hawaii civil defense employee sent an Emergency Alert that a ballistic missile threat was headed for Hawaii, and that residents should seek shelter. It was a mistake, a human error, and it took 38 minutes to get it corrected. We all heard about the panic that resulted, and the predictable questions started to be asked about who should be disciplined for messing up. But we have not heard much about the questions that should have been asked.
The Radium Girls — What Has Really Changed?
Every industrial hygienist (IH) knows this story. In the early 1920s, young women working at several U.S. Radium Corp. (USRC) plants across the U.S. and Canada painting glow-in-the-dark radium clock dials were becoming sick, some with grisly symptoms such as disintegrating jaws, horrible pain in their bones, and death from hemorrhages. Many developed massive sarcomas that riddled their bodies.
ORC HSE Viewpoint: Here We Are Again
A June 5 New York Times article illustrated the Trump Administration’s attitude toward occupational health and safety regulation.