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IN THIS ISSUE:
· Spring Into Emergency Training
· Deflecting Ice Missiles: Snow-Removal Safety
· Scott's Corner
· Coastal's March Madness Special Ending Soon!
· Temp Workers Get A Raw Deal?
· 10 Steps to Pro-Active Safety


March 18, 2008
Volume 6, Number 6
Spring Into Emergency Training
The American Public Health Association launches spring training campaign

Spring is almost here! It's a time to celebrate, but it's also a time to be prepared. Spring is not just about the start of the green season, but also about the need to have an emergency preparedness kit.

Many emergencies can happen - floods, storms, earthquakes or even disease outbreaks - and all their attendant setbacks: power failures, water shortage, and phone disconnections.

Every family must be able cope with these emergencies, and it's in this light that the American Public Health Association (APHA) launched its Get Ready: Set Your Clocks, Check Your Stocks campaign.

An emergency stockpile contains food, water, flashlights, can openers, radio, batteries, important documents, medical supplies, pet food, diapers and contact lens solutions. It's literally a lifeline during times of crisis, big or small.

But having an emergency stockpile is not a simple stuff-the-supplies operation. There are certain guidelines to follow - such as nutrition considerations, quality of the stock, suggested recipes, a grocery shopping list, etc. All these and more are laid out in a colorful pdf document available at the following link.

Check it out here for more information on the APHA's campaign.



Deflecting Ice Missiles: Snow-Removal Safety
The country's leading trucking industry group steps up to deal with the issue

It turns out that snow on the road is just one problem for drivers to deal with. There are ice missiles too - chunks of snow that fly off from atop big commercial vehicles and slam into windshields, causing accidents and property damage.

The problem seems easily preventable, but it's not. Shoveling snow off the roofs of trucks and tractor trailers is not as easy as shoveling a walk or driveway. The roofs are made of lightweight material and get very slippery. Moreover, they may also buckle under heavy loads and compromise worker safety.

The American Trucking Association (ATA) has already expressed its concerns to a very concerned Connecticut governor. It has also asked the American Transportation Research Institute to help resolve the issue.

There is still a long way to go, however. Only two states have laws regarding truck-rooftop snow. Connecticut is following suit. It has recently drafted a bill that will penalize truck drivers/companies who neglect to clean their vehicles' rooftops and cause ice-missile damage. The bill, if approved, will take effect on June 1, 2009.

In the meantime, several companies are already on top of things, quite literally. They remove snow and ice with a scraper, which has two vertical beams linked in the middle by a rubberized blade and is adjustable with an electric hoist. The trucks then inch past under it, scraping away snow and ice.

It is hoped that the preventive technology will eventually catch on. In the meantime, drivers should be wary and take the precautions to dodge ice-missiles on the road.

Click here for the full story.

SCOTT'S CORNER
Positive enrichment

There is a way to enrich your culture through adversity. I know the safety director of a construction company where a worker was killed on the job.
She is determined to gain safety-related improvements from this accidental death. How? She is attemping to make every conversation about the awful event, even those with OSHA inspectors, include something constructive that could be done to prevent another fatality or serious injury at the variety of construction sites managed by her company. The fatality increased management and workers' commitment to safety. Now she is focused on increasing the competence of the company at remaining injury-free –
one day at a time.

Bottom line: destructive events can increase motivation to improve from everyone involved. This is a prime time to learn how to prevent related mishaps and implement preventitive intervention. Avoid the cultural impetus to use nonproductive and quick-fix punishment, and eventually you might see a beneficial change in your culture. As a safety leader, you know your example can make a difference.

From the book, Leading People-Based Safety: Enriching Your Culture.


Click here or call
888-201-1150 to learn more about the next evolution in safety... People-Based Safety™.

Click here to visit the People-Based Safety™ blog!
Coastal's March Madness Special* Ending Soon!
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Temp Workers Get A Raw Deal?
Part-time work is more dangerous, says one study

 Part-time, temporary or contract workers are more likely to meet an accident or get ill on the job than their full-time, non-contractual counterparts.

This is according to a study by the researchers from the NOISH published in the journal of the American Medical Association. The highlights include:

  • Occupational fatalities are twice that among the self-employed

  • 19 percent of day laborers reported work-related injuries, compared with less than 5 percent of workers in all private industries.

  • Contract coal miners with at least 15 years of tenure had more evidence of black lung than noncontract coal mine workers.


The study speculates why this has been the case, pointing out two reasons:

  • Shifting schedules lead to poor diet and lack of exercise

  • Lower incomes and fewer benefits


Click here to purchase entire text at The Journal of American Medicine

10 Steps to Pro-Active Safety
The Next Level of Safety Management

 At a conference organized by the American Society of Safety Engineers and four other institutions, more than 600 safety professionals discussed 10 steps to implement leading or pro-active safety measures at work. To summarize:

    STEP 1: Look for trends in injuries and accidents. Point out when and where they happen. Watch for severe or unusual events, because they can indicate wider gaps in your safety system.
    STEP 2: Know the organizational level to measure: upper management, supervisor or rank and file. Keep in mind, however, workers understand better the reality behind the stats. They see first-hand the efficiency of a safety system.
    STEP 3: Assess the value hazard controls and check impediments to improvement. Don't implement a minimal control just because it's required. Check if it enhances safety initiatives. Moreover, "identify safety system and cultural blocks." For instance, see if workers are actually wearing goggles. If they are not, ask them why. Also, to see if putting them on is really effective, don't rely on injury stats. Workers should wear them regardless of the numbers.
    STEP 4: Implement measures for your activities. For instance, meetings. Do they start on time? How many attend? Are the participants paying attention? Do you keep on meeting about the same thing?
    STEP 5: Assess employee participation in meetings, fairs, safety events, and team and compliance activities.
    STEP 6: Set up safety measurement methods & tools: checklists, observation procedures, investigative procedures, surveys, inspection SOPs, scorecards, etc.
    STEP 7: Create delivery strategies for your measures (procedures, methods, etc). How often are they conducted? Who is conducting them?
    STEP 8: Set up goals. As always, they should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely)
    STEP 9: Monitor the progress of your measures. For instance, compare the nature of your safety management system BEFORE and AFTER you set up measures, procedures, etc. You can also check the correlation between training measures and injury stats.
    STEP 10: Adjust your measures according to the feedback.
This article is based on the following link. Visit here for further clarification and more detailed information.

Volume 6, Number 6 | © 2008 Coastal Training Technologies Corp.
500 Studio Drive | Virginia Beach, VA 23452 | 888-574-8531 | www.coastal.com

For FREE online previews visit www.coastal.com. To have your FREE 7-day previews shipped directly to your facility, simply call 888-574-8531 or email sales@coastal.com. Please be sure to give your name, facility name, address and phone number.

Please note: Safety Currents Express is a complimentary bimonthly newsletter updating you on the latest trends, news and information. All issues may be forwarded in their entirety via e-mail. Materials in this issue may only be reprinted with permission.

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