leitmotif
Member
Based on 20 years experience in safety and health work:
1. there were myriad rules and regulations and guidelines before OSHA came into effect in 1970. Some included ANSI, SAE, ACGIH, ASSE, etc etc etc.
2. MAny employers did not even know what they were much less follow them
3. OSHA was not pushed in by safety companies but was pushed in by labor.
4. New OSHA rules are not pushed by the safety equipment companies. As examples Mine Safety Appliance and Scott (maker of SCBA) were in business long before OSHA and still do not need OSHA to stay in business. A fair amount of their business is the fire departments who switched to SCBA in 1955 to 1960 era.
5. New OSHA rules are heavily fought by industry. Example the ergonomic standard - I gave up on keeping track of that.
6. Most OSHA inspectors know very little about electricity - same for state program inspectors. That was teh way it was in 1980 - I did most of the electrical fatalities in Portland OR and yes I checked recently here in Washington.
7. I completely agree with Lancie that compliance with OSHA results in mostly a paper tiger. the empahsis is on record keeping which is easy to inspect and easy to verify compliance. Besides the inspectors dont have to go out there in teh heat dust and dirt.
8. Employers squak about penalties. Here at a marina a guy got a leg burned off when contact 13,000. Penalty was 1000 for that and 9 thou for completely unrelated items. 10 thou for a leg?? I agree with my Dad they should have the doors nailed shut for 30 days and top management continues payroll out of their pockets. You would see safer work places if a few more Cxx's and Prez did some jail time for killing and maiming employees.
9. Yes employees do stupid things even when they know better. Lady I know chopped off a hand in a saw and still does not know why she did it after 5 years on those machines.
Yes I went to clear the exhaust chute on a running lawn mower - only felt the wind of the blade. Decided to shut it down and continue drinking my beer.
10. Having people come to work on crutches is in many ways a good thing - keeps insurance cost down, some really do want to work, and does keep them active and reduces depression. With good competent physicians writing good work releases overall it is a good thing but for sure can be abused by both employer and employee.
11. We had a safety awards program at Boeing but found after a year or so employees were not declaring injuries because crew would lose their safety prizes. So they stopped it only because the criteria of an injury when you get down to it was just a piece of paper and basically a worthless one at that.
I let a nurse write up one when I went to see a Boeing doc to get a fiberglass sliver from my boat pulled out of a finger - non work related I thought - there was hell to pay when the form hit our outfit probably because they could not figure out how to classify it oh Lawzy the consternation and confusion I caused.
12. E stops should be designed to protect the machine and to shut it down to reduce injury. Machine should slow and shut down as quick as possible and IF POSSIBLE AND SAFEST place all moving parts in zero energy state (bleed compressed air, put rams on bottom of stroke etc etc). E stops should dump all main power and interrupt outputs on PLCs where they can. Lock out tagout TESTOUT will prevent many injuries but not all. 13. Navy electrician school 1968 taught us to NEVER trust controls - tag it out ALWAYS.
Dan Bentler
