The Safety Chat 3-8-21

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The Safety Chat helps small business owners, and safety professionals, keep up to date on all EHS related news with a weekly curated newsletter.

OSHA Information

Don’t Forget To Promptly – And Correctly – Pay OSHA Penalties
Promptly paying your OSHA penalties is beneficial, and can often get you a discount, but a lot of companies don’t pay the correct amount.

Is an airborne pathogens standard on OSHA’s horizon? NIOSH director sees the potential
As the time for OSHA to issue an Emergemcy Temporary Standard for pandemic response, it is also worth consideration for a full airborne pathogens standard, making it standardized across industries.

DOL OIG report on OSHA: More complaints, fewer inspections during COVID-19 pandemic
As was known, during the pandemic OSHA received more complaints, but conducted fewer overall inspections. Which is a difficult struggle, as they have to go onsite sometimes as part of an investigation, but during the pandemic they stayed out of workplaces for their own safety.

OSHA cites BEF Foods Inc.'s Lima facility after production worker suffers partial arm amputation from cleaning auger
lock out, tag out! This was 100% avoidable, and I can imagine no company wants to be in a headline like this, or ever have an injury like this.

Control of Hazardous Energy Procedures and Policy
This article and some of the linked pieces in the article will help you build a basic lock out/tag out program.

Continued Uptick in OSHA Requests for Information to Nursing Homes
OSHA is continuing to investigate around COVID hazards in the workplace. Be aware, just because you haven’t yet gotten a fine, doesn’t mean OSHA can’t come back in a bit due to a complaint or a poor response.

Environmental/EPA Information

Wildfire Smoke Much More Harmful Than Other Air Pollution
This study into the air pollution from wildfires shows the hazards to our environment by all these regular wildfires.

Court Decision Shows How Pollution Exceptions Impact Insurance Claims
This case is important to watch, as insurance companies seek to use a pollution exception to not cover a company for claims. Citing their negligent actions as an excuse to not pay claims.

General Safety Information

1% Safer through Nudge Theory: Getting Desired Outcomes
Nudge theory is an exceptional concept, that advertisers have been doing for years. It is all about creating a message that can nudge a behavior, such as using a color to symbolize a hazard, or a color to calm people. Check it out and see if it is of interest.

What State Plan States Require AEDs in the Workplace?
Are you required to have an AED in your workplace by your state OSHA plan? Just because Federal OSHA doesn’t require it in all workplaces, doesn’t mean you’re exempt.

Going Virtual: Best Practices for Incorporating Virtual Audits into Your Compliance Management Strategy

This is a free e-book on how to implement virtual audits, and best practices in implementing them.

How to Be Sure Your Face Mask Isn’t a Counterfeit
There have been multiple instances of counterfeit masks being purchased, know what you’re looking for to ensure any masks you get are legitimate.

First Aid Kit Requirements
Do you regularly review your first aid kits for compliance and proper addressing of workplace hazards? Make sure you know what kit requirements your workplace has, and any training you may be required to have.

Training Management for EHS Professionals

This article really delves into training standards for workplace safety standards, and how it helps build a culture of safety.Great article to read if you're involved in safety training, or trying to build a safety culture.

Highlighted Article

OSHA Proposes Revisions To Hazard Communications Standard

This is the first update to OSHA's HAZCOM standards since 2012, at which point it was aligned to GHS 3rd version, this proposal will align with the 7th version published in 2017.
The international GHS standard is constantly evolving, so this helps the US come into alignment with the rest of the international community, which is the purpose of the HAZCOM GHS standard.
Some of the key modifications:

Additional flexibility for labeling bulk shipments of hazardous chemicals, including allowing labels to be placed on the immediate container or transmitted with shipping papers.
Alternative labeling options where it can be demonstrated that it is not feasible to use traditional pull-out labels, fold-back labels, or tags.
New requirements to update labels on containers that have been released for shipment, but not distributed yet.

Make sure you stay up to date on the proposed updates.

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