The leaves are changing color, there’s a nip in the air, football is in full swing and fall is knocking at the door.  It’s a wonderful time of the year and also a great time to check and make sure your drivers and facility is ready for the change in season and prepared for bad weather and related emergencies. Creating a master checklist makes this task easy to do each year as there never seems to be an end to list of things to do in the warehouse.  However, one thing we’re not short on though is Companies Behaving Badly.

OSHA cites Packaging Corporation of America for safety violations – PREVENTABLE – One would think that after 5 fatalities in four years you would take a serious look at your safety program and procedures.  However after another employee was badly burned OSHA came in again and found an additional 30 violations during their investigation.  Apparently the paper industry has historically favored what’s known as behavior-based safety as opposed to concentrating on processes and hazards that might lead to workplace injuries. Guess what, it’s not working.

OSHA fines aerosol paint manufacturer $262k after explosion – PREVENTABLE – Nothing like having an emergency evacuation at the workplace and then finding the emergency exits blocked. That’s what they did at Fox Valley Systems, Inc.  Due to this three employees couldn’t get out fast enough after the explosion and were seriously injured. This act of ignorance has earned them a spot on the Severe Violator Enforcement Program. When you go to work, like on an airplane look where the emergency exits are located and if you see them blocked be proactive and handle it and then report it to management.  Your life may depend on it.

Cal/OSHA Cites Henkel over $200,000 Following Death of TemporaryWorker – PREVENTABLE –  A 26 year old temporary worker was killed when he was pulled in by an exposed rotating shaft while doing his job.  This accident never should have occurred but Henkel thought it wasn’t important enough to maintain the guards on the equipment to protect their workers or even bother to follow their own safety program that identifies these issues.  I’m also willing to bet no one pointed the danger out to the temporary worker.  In my opinion I don’t think $200,000 is enough of a penalty when someone is killed by a companies stupidity, people need to start going to jail.

OSHA cites company, proposes $63,490 in fines – PREVENTABLE – I am constantly amazed at how many companies lack a Lock Out Tag Out program and E.L. Mustee & Sons not only doesn’t have a program to train their employees but they were dinged a year earlier for the same exact thing and still couldn’t be bothered! Protecting your workers should be the number one goal especially when it’s so easy to do.  In fact E.L Mustee & Sons contact me, I’ll write the LOTO program for you, at a discounted price.  You spend money to train, maintain and produce a product, why do you want OSHA in your place checking every little thing when you could have rectified this issue a year ago?

OSHA Fines Company After Florissant Man’s Death, 26 Violations Discovered – PREVENTABLE – A worker was found dead from accidental electrocution.  Upon their inspection after the accident OSHA found 19 further violations including, wait for it, lack of machine-specific lockout procedures, no annual inspection of the lockout program, missing lockout devices, multiple instances of locks not being placed on machines to prevent unintentional energization and lack of machine guarding.  The most scary part of this is how many times have they done this and got away with it that it makes it worth while to continue this dangerous behavior before luck ran out.  

OSHA cites McDonough medical business – PREVENTABLE – Atlanta Health Careers Institute, LLC was cited for failure to correct it’s training practices and training workers in the bloodborne pathogen program.  That would be the equivalent of not having your chefs and wait staff wash their hands after using the restroom.   Again, like not having a LOTO program in place there is NO excuse for this and so easy to prevent.  Don’t wait for government inspectors to find your lapses, do a quarterly or annual review of your facility and update any procedures when installing new equipment.

OSHA launches video series to educate young workers Humor and song raise awareness about hazards – INFORMATION – Yes, those crazy kids at OSHA have produced a new video to reach out to the young workers on hazards.  Hopefully they’ll stop texting long enough to watch it.

2012 Fatal Occupational Injuries in California – INFORMATION – Latest statistics for fatal injuries in California in 2012.

Serpent Safety Helmet Wins New Product of the Year Award – PPE – New helmet to check out.

OSHA Inspections – Part 1: What to Expect During the Visit – HELPFUL INFO – You should know your rights and how to handle it when a OSHA inspector shows up at the door.  Great info and a must read for any warehouse manager.

Please, don’t ever put yourself in a position of possible injury just because you’re told to do so.  If you get injured when not following procedure no one in management will protect you by saying, oh he was doing me a favor.  They’ll throw you to the wolves.  You should expect to go home the way you arrived at work, in one piece.  Keeping quiet about safety violations may cause a lifetime of guilt.  Are you ready for that?  Remember be a safety advocate.  Until the next episode of Companies Behaving Badly take care and work safe.

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