In general industry today, employees are occasionally required to work in confined spaces not designed for normal occupancy. Examples of these types of places include, but are not limited to, storage tanks, sewers, underground vaults, silos, and pipelines. These types of confined spaces involve the dangers of entrapment, engulfment, and hazardous atmospheric conditions. Due to these hazards, it is the responsibility of employers to identify confined space requirements and to mitigate the dangers to the lowest possible level. This is typically accomplished via training and a written program that meets the requirements set forth in federal regulations. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) sets the standards for permit-required confined spaces with 29CFR 1910.146, which applies to all general industry. This standard was introduced on January 14, 1993 and became effective on April 15, 1993. However, the proposal for this standard began many years earlier after the review of accident data revealed a need for regulation. OSHA released a Notice of Proposed Rule-making (54 FR 24080) in June of 1989, after determining that asphyxiation was the leading cause of death in confined spaces. An OSHA review of accident data also found cases of victims being burned, coming in contact with moving augers, and being crushed by rotating parts inside machinery. OSHA believes that, as noted in the NPRM (54 FR 24098), the failure to take proper precautions for permit space entry operations has resulted in fatalities, as opposed to injuries, more frequently than would be predicted using the applicable Bureau of Labor Statistics models (www.OSHA.gov). While determining what the rulemaking should consist of, OSHA studied information already gathered by the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH), American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and the
26 United States Department of Labor, "OSHA’s Mission."Last modified March 25, 2011. Accessed March 27, 2014.www.osha.gov/about.html.
Western Australian Department of Education. (2010). Occupational Safety and Health. WA: Department of Education. Retrieved from http://www.det.wa.edu.au/policies/detcms/policy-planning-and-accountability/policies-framework/policies/occupational-safety-and-health.en?bbp.s=9&bbp.e=select&bbp.v=4&bbp.i=d0.1&bbp.8.policyID=10918572&g11n.enc=UTF-8&bbp.9.pane=0
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was formed as an agency of the federal government that is charged with protecting workers from recognized safety hazards within the workplace. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was created as a result of passage of the “Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 in response to dangerous working conditions across the nation and as a culmination of decades of reform” (Walter, 2011, para. 5). President Richard Nixon signed the act into law on December 29, 1970 and The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was officially established on April 28, 1971 (Walter, 2011). During the 41 years on the job, The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has identified and addressed numerous work hazards, as well as provided solutions to mitigate and/or avoid placing workers in unnecessary danger. OSHA regulates as enforces regulations throughout the country, however the agency does declare that “states can run their own safety and health programs as long as those programs are at least as effective as the federal program” (http://www.dol.gov/compliance/laws/comp-osha.htm). The states that choose to implement their own version of the occupational safety and health plan are referred to as OSHA states, whereas those who implement no plan are required to follow the federal regulations, as set forth by OSHA. OSHA effects all workers and employers in the United States, as the desired effect of the Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act is “to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful working conditions and to preserve our human resources” (Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act, 1970). OS...
The OSH Act gave OSHA the authority to come into work places and inspect facilities for health and safety risks. Due to shortages in personnel, OSHA inspects accidents and safety complaints that are filed, and those facilities that have a high volume of accident rates. If an individual state has an approved safety and health enforcement plan, than they may be exempt from yearly inspections by OSHA and have their own state personnel conduct the inspections. The Act sets a maximum penalty for safety and health violations, but OSHA has the authority to calculate fines. If an industry objects to the citation or fines, they can go before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. OSHA has been criticized on both ends, by industries for being too strict, and by unions for not being strict enough. In the 1980s, OSHA had instituted a policy that would exempt some workplaces from a complete inspection if they had a lower than average injury rate. However, that policy was abandoned when an employee died from a workplace that OSHA had not fully inspected. OSHA has implemented new procedures that have set higher penalties and increased the maximum fine for all types of infractions.
When it comes to safety most people think they are safe, and they have a true understanding on how to work safe. Human nature prevents us from harming ourselves. Our instincts help protect us from harm. Yet everyday there are injuries and deaths across the world due to being unsafe. What causes people to work unsafe is one of the main challenges that face all Safety Managers across the world.
United States Department of Labor (2004) Occupational Safety & Health Administration. In Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Health Care & Social Service Workers. Retrieved from http://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3148/osha3148.html
Reese, C.D. and Eidson, J.V. (1999). Handbook of OSHA construction safety and health. Boca Raton, FL. CRC Press
This law is for everybody. This is a written law that must be followed by everyone. If someone breaks these laws then they will face charges. This law ensures that health and safety is done properly.
Hazardous materials can be important in everyday life when properly handled. However, when improperly handled, they can result in injury, death, and destruction as well as have lingering effects that may last for years to come. To address the risk of an uncontrolled hazardous materials release, there must be a coordinated effort to identify, locate, and quantify the hazardous materials in a particular location (Drexel University Safety & Health, 2001). Typically, industry and government agree that a hazardous materials incident is one where
The Occupational Safety and Health Act’s mission is to assure the safety and health of America's workers by setting and enforcing standards; providing training, and education; and encouraging continual improvement in workplace safety and health (OSHA.org). OSHA covers an extremely wide array of workers, from construction workers to office workers. However when the act was first passed it was not heavily enforced and lacked inspectors. In 1970 because there were three times as many fish and game wardens than there were OSHA inspectors, people said that the trout and quail were more protected than Americas working men and women (Bennett, Alexander, & Hartman, 2003). Though today OSHA has approximately 2100 inspectors, plus complaint discrimination investigators, engineers, physicians, educators, standards writers, and other technical and support pers...
In the early 1900s industrial accidents were commonplace in this country; for example, in 1907 over 3,200 people were killed in mining accidents. At this time legislation and public opinion all favored management. There were few protections for the worker's safety. Today's industrial employees are better off than their colleagues in the past. Their chances of being killed in an industrial accident are less than half of that of their predecessors of 60 years ago. According to National safety Council (NSC), the current death rate from work-related injuries is approximately 4 per 100,000, or less than a third of the rate of 50 years ago. Improvements in safety up to now have been the result of pressure for legislation to promote health and safety, the steadily increasing cost associated with accidents and injuries, and the professionalization of safety as an occupation. When the industrial sector began to grow in the United States, hazardous working conditions were commonplace. Following the Civil War, the seeds of the safety movement were sown in this country. Factory inspection was introduced in Massachusetts in 1867. In 1868 the first barrier safeguard was patented. In 1869 the Pennsylvania legislature passed a mine safety law requiring two exits from all mines. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was established in 1869 to study industrial accidents and report pertinent information about hose accidents. The following decade saw little progress in the safety movement until 1877, when the Massachusetts legislature passed a law requiring safeguards for hazardous machinery. In 1877 the Employers' Liability Law was passed. In 1892, the first safety program was established in a steel plant in Illinois, in response to the explosion of a flywheel in that company.
Regulation compliance, employee safety, fire safety, ergonomics, industrial hygiene, hazardous waste removal, training procedures, and management relations are samples of features taken into consideration during a Safety Major’s day. Though there are numerous specializations safety professions can choose, a base knowledge in all fields is essential for a successful career. Therefore, I intend to pursue a continuation of safety certifications that will demonstrate a persistent ability to learn about my career. For the initial duration of my profession, I hope to obtain an Environmental Health and Safety specialist entry level position for an established organization. If the opportunity arises, I will promote within the same organization until
Hazardous material accidents are common in warehouses and industries, the employ should provide a safe place to store the hazardous material, and the workers should have a good knowledge about how to response with that accidents and how to use the correct PPE and what control measures should be taken in that kind of accidents.
A hazard is a potential damage, adverse health or harm that may effects something or someone at any conditions. Other than that, the risk may be high or low, that somebody could be harmed depending on the hazards. Risk assessment is a practice that helps to improve higher quality of the develop process and manufacturing process. It is also a step to examine the failure modes of the product in order to achieve higher standard of safety and product reliability. Unfortunately, it is common that a product safety risk assessments are not undertaken, or not carried out effectively by manufacturer. Mostly an unsafe and unreliable product was produced and launched on to the market. Thus, the safety problems are mostly identified after an accident happened or after manufacturing problems arisen. In order to prevent risk, a person should take enough precautions or should do more to prevent them because as a user should be protected from harm that usually caused by a failure for whom did not take reasonable control measures.
A hazard is defined as an activity or object that has the potential to cause harm if contact is made with the person, object or activity (MHS, 1996; Harmse, 2007; HSE, 2006). These hazards in a work place need to be identified and dealt with accordingly to prevent any harm to employees or any individual acquainted to a certain activity or establishment. The key roles and principles of occupational hygiene are Anticipation, Identification, Evaluation and Control (Schoeman and van den Heever, 2014; Harmse, 2008; SAMTRAC, 2012). To practise in accordance to the above principle; a hazard identification and risk assessment needs to be conducted. Anticipation is the foreseeing of the activity