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

Supervisors handshaking in warehouse

Safety Culture 2018: Are You Onboarding for Safety Culture Success?

From an employee’s acceptance of a job through the prehire process and into day 1 at the organization, your company’s onboarding practices set the tone for the success—or failure—to come. Is your onboarding program boosting your safety culture, or is it hindering it? Read on for some safety culture onboarding best practices in a Q&A […]

Railroad Crane Construction

Crane and Derrick Exemptions for Railway Work Proposed by OSHA

Nearly 8 years after the Association of American Railroads (AAR) challenged provisions of OSHA’s Cranes and Derricks in Construction rule (August 9, 2010, Federal Register (FR)), the Agency has issued a formal proposal to address the AAR’s concerns. (The AAR’s petition remains with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but the two […]

forklift in warehouse

Forklifts and Carbon Monoxide Hazards

Carbon monoxide (CO) in quantities that exceed OSHA’s permissible exposure limit (PEL) of 50 parts per million (ppm) as an 8-hour time-weighted average (29 CFR 1910.1000 Table Z-1) can occur in indoor work areas where fuel with a carbon content (e.g., natural gas, gasoline, kerosene, oil, propane, coal, wood, or plastic) is incompletely combusted. One […]

Lead Exposure

OSHA’s 40-Year-Old Lead Standard Is Far Short of Protective

Worker safety advocates, scientists, and some state OSHA authorities have been contending for years that OSHA’s permissible exposure levels (PELs) for lead in the workplace are inadequate to protect workers from the multiple adverse health effects associated with the metal.

Industrial fire training for refinery or chemical plant fire brigade or fireman

Start-Up/Shutdown Incidents Can Be Prevented, Says CSB

Explosions and fires at oil refineries and chemical facilities are far more likely to occur during equipment start-ups and shutdowns, notes the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) in a recent Safety Digest. Workers are typically the first line of victims when such incidents occur. In the Digest, the CSB describes three start-up/shutdown […]

logger, lumberjack, logging

A Look at the Most Dangerous Jobs in the U.S.

Workplace safety is an important goal in any industry, but as every EHS pro knows, promoting and achieving safety is more challenging in some industries than in others. What are the most dangerous jobs in the United States?

The EHS Decisions of Brett Kavanaugh

Brett Kavanaugh has been announced as President Donald Trump’s choice to replace Anthony Kennedy on the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court. Here’s a brief summary of the judicial nominee’s decisions, rulings, and court opinions on various EHS-related cases in recent years on the D.C. Circuit.