Category: Special Topics in Safety Management

Safety is a process, and as such, needs to be managed. This section offers resources to create a viable safety program, sell it to senior management, train supervisors and employees in using it, and then track and report your progress. Look also for ways to advance your own skills in these areas, both for your current job, and those that follow.

Free Special Report: 50 Tips for More Effective Safety Training

Vaping, e-cigarettes

Vape Shop Investigation Reports Employee Chemical Exposures

The use of e-cigarettes, commonly called vaping, has been promoted by manufacturers and retailers as a safe alternative to smoking tobacco smoke. The chemical evidence backs up this claim, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but there’s more to the picture.

Toilet flush

Hazard/Recall Alert: Beware Exploding Toilets!

The headline may make you laugh, but it’s no joke. Flushmate, a developer and manufacturer of “Pressure-Assisted” flushing devices for toilets has issued a massive, voluntary recall for approximately 1.4 million of its Flushmate II 501-B systems. Read on for the risks and recall details, then head to the restroom to ensure your employees aren’t […]

2018 DuPont™ Kevlar® Innovation Awards

Recognizing the latest advancements in protective gloves and sleeves. For over 50 years, Kevlar® has collaborated with manufacturers to continuously improve the protection, durability, and comfort of protective gloves and sleeves. The DuPont™ Kevlar® Innovation Awards provides official licensees of the Kevlar® brand an opportunity to incorporate Kevlar® into their designs of protective gloves and […]

Fixed ladder

Fixed Ladders: Standards Change This November

November 19, 2018, is a key date for employers with existing outdoor fixed ladders that extend more than 24 feet (ft) above a lower level. Ladders that were erected before that date must be equipped with at least one type of device that protects workers from falling. Ladders erected after November 19, 2018, must meet […]

Digging trench

Watch OSHA’s Video Before Digging Your Next Trench

Protecting workers from the hazards of trenches has lately been front and center in OSHA’s outreach to employers. One critical step in ensuring that you are meeting your obligations to protect employees who dig and work in trenches is to have a solid knowledge of how to classify soils. The Agency has produced an 11-minute […]

Hazard analysis

Former Head of OSHA Researching Link between Safety, Operations

At the 2018 National Safety Council (NSC) Congress & Expo, Dr. David Michaels, the former head of OSHA and a professor of environmental and occupational health at the George Washington University School of Public Health, copresented a session with Colin Duncan, CEO of Soteris Group, in which the pair highlighted the need for empirical research […]

Mechanical power press

OSHA May Move to Revise Antiquated Power Press Standard

In pre-rule notice in its Fall 2018 Unified Agenda , OSHA indicates that it would like to update the public record on a 2007 advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) to revise its existing (1971) standard governing mechanical power presses (29 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 1910.217). OSHA notes in the Agenda that the current […]

NSC 2018: OSHA Top 10 Violations Announced

At the 2018 National Safety Council Congress & Expo in Houston, Texas, Patrick Kapust, deputy director of OSHA’s Directorate of Enforcement Programs, presented the agency’s top 10 violations for fiscal year (FY) 2018 to a standing-room-only crowd of safety professionals. While the list—particularly its top half—is largely familiar from previous years, one standard made an […]

Lockout Tagout sign

Lockout/Tagout Citations: A Regular on OSHA’s Top 10

Failure by employers to develop and use hazardous energy control procedures as required by OSHA’s lockout/tagout standard (29 CFR 1910.147) is one of the Agency’s annual top 10 most frequently cited workplace safety violations. Perhaps the most demanding compliance obligation is establishment of a written energy control program.