OSHA Hosts Informal Public Hearing on PPE Design Standards
     OSHA is inviting the public to participate in an informal public hearing on the agency's plan to update its personal protective equipment (PPE) design standards. The hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Dec. 4, 2007, at the U.S. Department of Labor's Frances Perkins Building in Washington. OSHA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the May 17 Federal Register to revise the PPE sections of its general industry, shipyard employment, longshoring and marine terminals standards regarding the use of eye, face, head, and foot protection.

Click here for more information.
 

Drug-Free Work Week Co-Sponsored by U.S. Department of Labor
Drug-Free Work Week will be held Oct. 14-20, and employers and employees across the country are encouraged to take part. The effort is being coordinated by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and members of its Drug-Free Workplace Alliance, a cooperative agreement focused on improving safety and health in the construction industry through drug-free workplace programs. However, employers and employees in all industries may implement Drug-Free Work Week activities. Working drug free is key to workplace safety; employees with alcohol or drug problems should be encouraged to seek help.

Click here to learn more about the Drug-Free Workplace Alliance.

Click here for more information on the Drug-Free Work Week Program.
 

OSHA Focus on Plastic Thermoforming Machines
     Employers and employees in the plastics manufacturing industry stand to benefit from the launch of a new Thermoforming Module for the Plastics Machinery portion of OSHA's interactive, Web-based Machine Guarding eTool. The module and eTool are products of the agency's alliance with the Society of the Plastics Industry. The module identifies potential hazards and possible solutions to reduce injuries from thermoforming, a manufacturing process using a thermoplastic sheet or film that is fed into an oven and then heated, formed and trimmed.

Click here for more information.
 

Teen Workers in the Restaurant Industry
     Although summer employment for some teens has come to an end, other teens may be continuing to work while back at school, especially in the food service industry. That is why OSHA is reminding employers that it is important for all teenagers working in restaurants to follow safe, healthful work practices while cooking, serving and cleaning up. Here is some advice "served up" by OSHA to benefit teens and other restaurant employees.

• Use caution when working around deep fat fryers, and take care not to overfill or pour excessive amounts of frozen fries into them at one time. Overfilling causes excessive splashing and bubbling over of hot oil.

• Wear appropriate clothing-avoid open-toed shoes and loose-fitting shirts, pants or jewelry.

• Avoid static postures by continually changing your position. Use a foot rest bar or a low stool to help alter your posture by raising one foot and then the other.

• If working at a drive-thru, keep the window closed as much as possible to limit exposure to automobile exhaust.

Click here for OSHA's Teen Worker Safety in Restaurants eTool.

NIOSH Update on Lyme Disease
     Lyme disease is the most commonly reported tick-borne disease in the United States. In 2005, more than 23,000 cases of Lyme disease were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Lyme disease is passed to humans by the bite of black-legged ticks (also known as deer ticks in the eastern United States) and western black-legged ticks infected with the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. The Lyme disease bacterium normally lives in mice, squirrels, and other small mammals.
     Outdoor workers are at risk of Lyme disease if they work at sites with infected ticks. U.S. workers in the northeastern and north-central States are at highest risk of exposure to infected ticks. Ticks may also transmit other tick-borne diseases to workers in these and other regions of the country. Work sites with woods, bushes, high grass, or leaf litter are likely to have more ticks. Outdoor workers should be extra careful to protect themselves in the late spring and summer when young ticks are most active

Click here for more information.

OSHA Solicits Public Input on Comprehensive Emergency Response Standard
     The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has published a Request for Information seeking input from the public to determine what action, if any, the Agency should take to further address emergency response and preparedness. The Request for Information was published in the Federal Register and OSHA is accepting comments from the public until Dec. 10, 2007.
     Current OSHA standards do not reflect all of the major improvements in safety and health practices that have already been accepted by the emergency response community and incorporated into industry consensus standards. This Request for Information is intended to gather information about current thinking and practices relative to emergency responders and skilled support employees.
     The public may submit comments electronically at http://www.regulations.gov, the Federal eRulemaking Portal; or by sending or hand delivering three copies to the OSHA Docket Office, Room N-2625, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20210. Submissions that are less than ten pages may be sent by FAX to (202) 693-1648. Comments must include the Agency name and the docket number for this Request for information, Docket No. S-023B.

Eye Safety Toolbox Talk
     NIOSH has developed this instructor guide to promote discussion of the eye safety issues at your work site. The format is to ask a leading question, then guide the resulting discussion to deliver the training.   It may be supplemented with other materials and samples of the eye protection available at your work site. This discussion is expected to take between 15-30 minutes or more. Involve your workers in the discussion.

Click here for the Eye Safety Toolbox Talk

Thousands of New Products in the New Saf-T-Gard Catalog

Expanded product categories

Now includes electrical safety products and arc flash solutions for electric utilities, electrical contractors, telecom and cable operators, and industrial facilities maintenance.

New Public Safety products for first responders including police, fire and civilian teams as well as municipal public works departments.

Click here to request your free copy of the new Saf-T-Gard catalog and product guide.

News You Can Use

     "Practice Your Escape Plan!" is the theme of Fire Prevention Week 2007. It's not enough to have a home fire escape plan. To escape safely, you've got to make sure that everyone in the home has practiced the plan. According to an NFPA poll (PDF, 759 KB) , the majority of Americans have a fire escape plan, but most haven't practiced it. Take our quiz to test your home escape planning know-how!
     From October 7-13, fire safety advocates will be spreading the word that when it comes to escape plans, practice is key. NFPA has lots of information to help you teach others how to escape safely in the event of a home fire.

Click here for more information.

7 Steps to Safety Incentive Success
     Companies all over the world are being challenged to do more with less, gain a competitive advantage by maximizing the effectiveness of their employees, and boost productivity in their operations--none of which is an easy task to accomplish. Although there's no silver bullet to magically attain these noble goals, there is a proven methodology for achieving just that in your safety incentive programs. For one thing, involve employees in setting goals. If participants are involved in setting their own targets, they'll often set the bar higher than management would.
     Now, more than any other time in recent history, the business world is not only focused on "what have you done for me lately," but on what are you going to do for me tomorrow. Organizations unable to maintain world-class growth rates are finding themselves at the mercy of skittish investors and unforgiving stock markets . . . and YOU don't want to be one of those companies! Fortunately, well-structured incentive and recognition programs are highly effective methods for improving safety and operational performance. We're going to review how you can ensure that your incentive programs are designed for success and driving the goals and results that are the most vital to your organization. Equally important, we'll review how to avoid the pitfalls that can derail your program.

Click here for the full report.

Source: Occupational Health & Safety Magazine

International Chemical Safety Cards Available in 18 Languages
     The ICSCs project is an undertaking of the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) . The project is being developed in the context of the cooperation between the IPCS and the Commission of the European Communities. The IPCS is a joint activity of three cooperating International Organizations: namely the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Labour Office (ILO), and the World Health Organization (WHO). The main objective of the IPCS is to carry out and disseminate evaluations of the hazards posed by chemicals to human health and the environment.
     An ICSC summarizes essential health and safety information on chemicals for their use at the "shop floor" level by workers and employers in factories, agriculture, construction and other work places. ICSCs are not legally binding documents, but consist of a series of standard phrases, mainly summarizing health and safety information collected, verified and peer reviewed by internationally recognized experts, taking into account advice from manufacturers and Poison Control Centres.  The identification of the chemicals on the Cards is based on the UN numbers, the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) number and the Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances (RTECS/NIOSH) numbers. It is thought that the use of those three systems assures the most unambiguous method of identifying the chemical substances concerned, referring as it does to numbering systems that consider transportation matters, chemistry and occupational health.
     The U.S. National version of the ICSCs has been modified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to include the following:

• Occupational Safety and Health Administration Permissible Exposure Limits (OSHA PELs).
• National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Recommended Expoure Limits (NIOSH RELs).
• Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health values (IDLHs)
• Links to the Appendices in the NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards

Click here for the U.S. National version of the ICSC.

Click here to access the 18 international versions of ICSC.

Halloween Safety Tips for Kids
     Anytime a child has an accident, it's tragic. The last thing that you want to happen is for your child to be hurt on a holiday, it would forever live in the minds of the child and the family. There are many ways to keep your child safe at Halloween, when they are more prone to accidents and injuries. The excitement of children and adults at this time of year sometimes makes them forget to be careful. Simple common sense can do a lot to stop any tragedies from happening.

• Help your child pick out or make a costume that will be safe.
• Make sure that if your child is carrying a prop, such as a scythe, butcher knife or a pitchfork, that the tips are smooth and flexible enough to not cause injury if fallen on.
• Kids always want to help with the pumpkin carving. Small children shouldn't be allowed to use a sharp knife to cut the top or the face. There are many kits available that come with tiny saws that work better then knives and are safer, although you can be cut by them as well. It's best to let the kids clean out the pumpkin and draw a face on it, which you can carve for them.
• Treating your kids to a spooky Halloween dinner will make them less likely to eat the candy they collect before you have a chance to check it for them.
• Teaching your kids basic everyday safety such as not getting into cars or talking to strangers, watching both ways before crossing streets and crossing when the lights tell you to, will help make them safer when they are out Trick or Treating.

     Make Halloween a fun, safe and happy time for your kids and they'll carry on the tradition that you taught them to their own families some day!

Source: www.halloween-safety.com

Survey: Half of Americans Have Experienced Workplace Bullying
     More than half of the working American population has suffered or witnessed workplace bullying, including verbal abuse, job sabotage, abuse of authority or destruction of workplace relationships, according to a new Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI)/Zogby Interactive survey. The WBI survey found that an estimated 54 million employees � 37 percent of U.S. workers� have been bullied at some point in their work lives, while millions more have witnessed acts of workplace bullying. Despite this epidemic-level prevalence, 45 percent of respondents said they never have seen or experienced bullying at work. Stress from prolonged exposure to bullying (33 percent suffer for more than 1 year) adversely affects psychological or physical health of 45 percent of targets.
     When bullies are women, they choose other women as their prey in 71 percent of cases, according to the survey. Bullying, or status-blind harassment, is four times more prevalent than illegal civil rights, status-based harassment, and, says Namie, “[Bullying] was legal when we started the movement in 1998 and it still is today.”

Click here for the full report.

Source: Occupational Hazards Magazine 

Focus on Disaster Preparedness including Homeland Security

New Website Focuses on Redefining Readiness
     The Center for the Advancement of Collaborative Strategies in Health at The New York Academy of Medicine, with funding from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, organized Redefining Readiness.  The four Redefining Readiness demonstration sites have developed powerful new community engagement practices to harness the knowledge and experiences of the broad range of people who need to be protected in emergencies. Practical tools based on the combined insights of almost 2,000 diverse community residents in the demonstration sites can help households, work places, schools and early childhood/youth programs, and governments throughout the country prepare to respond more effectively to shelter-in-place emergencies and deadly contagious disease outbreaks. Communities can also use the Redefining Readiness small group discussion process to explore what residents would face in the kinds of emergencies most likely to occur in their locality.

     Included are new practical tools to make protection possible including:

• Preparing to Shelter in Place
• Preparing for Deadly Infectious Disease Outbreaks
• Engaging the Public in Preparing for Other Emergencies

Click here for more information

Key Products You Need Emergency Preparedness First Aid Kit Now Available - Click Here

BE Prepared Informed Safe Visit www.saftgard.com/2besafe

1. CLEAN IT UP - Spill kits contain everything necessary to clean up oil-only spills, general maintenance spills, or hazmat spills.
2. CLEAN IT UP - Body fluid clean up kits are available in a wide range of kit sizes and packaging.
3. CLEAN IT UP - Dirty protective eyewear is unsafe.
4. CLEAN IT UP - Rubber insulating gloves and related protective gear need a specialized detergent to remove grease and grime without harming the dielectric properties of the products.
5. CLEAN IT UP - Keep your hands clean with the brands you recognize and respect - GOJO and Purell - available in industrial dispensers.

Want more information on any of this month's Saf-T-Tips?  E-mail us for a prompt reply.

Hi-Visibility Outerwear Rated ANSI/ISEA-107 Class 3

High-visibility cold weather jacket features yellow waterproof oxford polymer-coated fabric with 4 ounce quilt lining, heavy duty zipper with storm flap, elastic waist and cuffs, and concealed hood.  2 inch wide reflective stripes, 2 horizontal and 6 vertical.  2 hip pockets and 2 inner pockets.  Meets ANSI/ISEA-107 standard for class 3 safety apparel. 

Style RG-8000 - stock sizes M  L  XL  2XL  3XL  4XL