At Boak & Sons, Inc., safety is the number one rule. Every year, the entire company attends the Annual Safety Day meeting to receive updated training on safety requirements, company updates and other important developments in both residential and commercial contracting fields. This meeting is a requirement for all Boak & Sons employees, from field crew members to office staff. This year, Sam Boak, president and founder of Boak & Sons, Inc., held the meeting Friday, December 3rd. “We always look forward the Annual Safety Day Meeting here at Boak & Sons,” says Sam. “This is an important opportunity to continue to build on our safety culture. It also gives us a chance to show our appreciation to our employees for their hard work.” Exterior contracting is a growing vocation, and with that comes frequent changes. While the company’s project managers regularly update their crews throughout the year, Safety Day is important to bring the entire team together, so nobody misses crucial information and training. On top of the safety information, employees also get thorough training on benefits offered by Boak & Sons. The day consisted of several briefings from lead employees at Boak & Sons, such as Chief Financial Officer, Pat Finn. In addition, Sam Boak invited Brian Gang, the area’s OSHA inspector, to present on OSHA’s safety expectations for companies like Boak & Sons. The Salvation Army also attended to thank Boak & Sons for their continuous generosity.
Every day presents hazards and circumstances that can increase the chances of a mishap. For Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni those hazards are most prevalent around the airfield and harbor. Long working hours, night shifts, and heavy machinery all contribute to increasing the chances of a mishap occurring in the work center.
On Nov. 29, 2021, MCAS Iwakuni’s station safety center kicked off its first local Ground Safety for Marines course.
The two-week, Training and Education Command (TECOM) driven course, increases safety by providing Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) training to military and civilian personnel assigned to full-time or collateral duties in ground safety. “This course is the first step to enhancing a stronger safety culture at MCAS Iwakuni,” said Dennis Gamad, the course facilitator for the air station. “Leaders, from noncommissioned officers to officers, set the tone for safety in their respective organizations and emphasize its importance.”
www.hazardexonthenet.net/article/1…
When I wrote this article, the UN Climate Conference (COP26) in Glasgow was in its decisive stage. A day before came the exciting news that two of the countries emitting the largest amount of CO2, China and the US, agreed to cooperate in their efforts towards climate neutrality. One of the central statements of the participating parties was their commitment to extend the share of clean energies significantly during the coming decade.
Because of the well-known volatility of some of these clean energies, efficient energy storage and carrier technologies will be the key to ensuring a stable and reliable energy supply in the post-fossil fuel period. Therefore, hydrogen will play a very important role for that. In contrast to the existing production facilities for hydrogen, we have to be aware of a new safety-related situation. Unlike chemical and petrochemical plants where there is restricted public access and operations are controlled by specialists and skilled people, the new “hydrogen economy” will be widely distributed with a lot of potential public contact points and respective hazards. Therefore, there is a need for new safety concepts and special education programs for people who encounter hydrogen applications. Conformity Assessment can help to establish such elements of a new safety culture quickly and efficiently.
In this week’s episode, we tackle an interesting conundrum in safety through a paper written by René Amalberti. The idea he poses is that aiming for zero errors in the workplace should not be the goal - in fact, some errors should be encouraged to ensure learning. The author also challenges the idea of continuously improving the safety of systems - stating that this could actually become detrimental to the overall safety of a workplace.
SPEARFISH — Spearfish city employees participated in their first ever citywide Safety Stand-Down Day on Nov. 17. As part of the city’s new safety culture program, staff from all departments took part in a daylong training, which included general workplace safety talks and demonstrations.
“Since implementing the program in 2019, the city has seen a reduction in worker’s compensation claims resulting in a savings of over $78,000 in workers’ compensation premiums,” said Tyler Ehnes, safety coordinator for the city.
Ehnes also said that the city has seen a significant decrease in its loss ratio.
“Loss ratio is a ratio of work comp premiums paid versus claims paid out,” he explained. “An acceptable loss ratio is 60% as recommended by the South Dakota Municipal League Workers’ Composition Fund. In 2019 and 2020 the city’s loss ratio was 9% and 4% respectively. 2021 is currently 18%.”
How can health organizations establish a “culture” of safety? When safety is part of the corporate culture, each member of the organization takes personal responsibility for their actions and recognizes that they will be held accountable if they choose not to comply. Security works better when it’s collaborative; Employees should have insight into a company’s processes and the knowledge and skills to make smart decisions.
The following steps are a good place to start when developing a safety culture:
The Emergency Services Academy, Rescue 1122 trained 27 officials of Unilever Pakistan to enhance the professional skills of Unilever staff regarding emergency response and safety skills.
The training course on internationally recognized Community Action for Disaster Response (CADRE) Course organized by Safety Wing of Academy on the request of Unilever Pakistan Lahore.
The three-day course concluded at Manager Training Center of Emergency Services Academy here on Wednesday.
While addressing the participants Dr. Rizwan Naseer said, that only well-sensitized and professionally trained community member can play their effective role to save lives in case of any emergency or disaster.
Unilever in collaboration with Rescue Service shall promote safety culture in industries and all trained members shall further develop their teams for saving lives and promoting safety.
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The principal expert researcher of Nuclear Energy Research Organization, the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Djarot S. Wisnubroto, explained that the main challenge of constructing a nuclear power plant in Indonesia is not the lack of technology but rather the lack of political willingness.
“The challenge actually lies in the socio-political aspect, when the decision to build the nuclear power plant is made and when we would ‘go nuclear’,” said the professor in an online discussion on nuclear and net zero emission on November 16.
According to Djarot, who led the National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN) from 2012-2018, the use of nuclear energy has always been a controversial topic and not exclusive to Indonesia’s political discourse. He believes scientists need to be prepared to provide evidence-based answers to explain the safety and benefit of nuclear energy.
“Perceptions will indeed vary, that is the fact, but the perception that nuclear is the safest energy will be hard to accept. There is a cultural and social problem, because the audience can be very diverse,” the professor added.
Other challenging aspects for the use of nuclear energy are the lengthy and costly construction process, preparations for the worst case scenario, and managing the radioactive waste. “Can we manage high-risk technology while we as a society have a low safety culture,” he said.
MIDLAND The Midland College Petroleum Professional Development Center (PPDC) is now accredited by the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) to conduct RigPass and Basin United safety classes.
Several months ago managers from Pioneer Natural Resources approached PPDC Director Erin Van Evera-Welch about providing IADC safety training. Pioneer is a member of the Executive Committee of Basin United, a collaboration of Permian Basin petroleum operators with the goal of eliminating serious oilfield injuries and fatalities. Other members of Basin United include Chevron, Cimarex Energy, ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy, Diamondback Energy, Endeavor Energy Resources, ExxonMobil and its subsidiary XTO Energy, Halliburton, Marathon Oil, Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), Parsley Energy, Patterson Drilling, Plains All American Pipeline, Schlumberger and Shell Energy.
Since 2015, there have been 342 fatalities in the U.S. oil and gas industry, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics fatality data for oil and gas. This includes 63 deaths in 2016, 81 in 2017, 94 in 2018 and 104 in 2019. The statistics are getting worse, not better.
“It is important that the Basin be a safe place to work, and it is our mission to upskill and train oilfield professionals in all aspects of their jobs, including safety,” Van Evera-Welch said. “The training is for anyone who does business in the energy sector, such as electrical contractors, oilfield service companies, sand transportation companies, etc. As an IADC accredited provider, staff at the PPDC will keep track of student enrollment and distribute certification cards to those who successfully complete each class.”
Van Evera-Welch explained that IADC curriculum consists of an engaging approach to safety training—not just a series of PowerPoint slides. The Basin United classes are composed of two 8-hour training seminars that use virtual reality, videos and interactive sessions to explore lifesaving actions, safety responsibilities and processes for building and sustaining a healthy safety culture at worksites.
The regulation, which amends an existing regulation, requires businesses to provide evidence of an appropriate culture by satisfying a number of requirements set out in the regulation.
The event will provide participants insights into the role of and consequences of food-safety culture for three distinct groups in the food system cycle:
The safety of all of us as consumers; Industry practitioners engaged in providing food for consumers worldwide; Regulators seeking to increase both public health and increased trade. These topics, and more, will be expanded on during the panel debate which will be chaired by Suzanne Campbell, author and journalist.
SPEARFISH — The city of Spearfish is taking an extra step towards its increasing safety culture by hosting a Safety Stand Down Day for its employees on Wednesday.
“The premise of a stand down day is to stand down all operations as much as feasible to allow employees to focus on professional development when it comes to safety,” explained Tyler Ehnes, safety coordinator for the city. “As a municipal government in South Dakota, OSHA has no authority over us as far as inspections and fines go, so we have no safety oversight. We’re choosing to do this as a community and as a staff on our own accord to keep people safe.”
City offices at the Restricted Use Site, Rec and Aquatic Center, and City Hall will all be closed on Wednesday for staff to attend safety-training seminars at the W. S. Tretheway Pavilion at the city park.
The issue of nautical safety in the BVI may require closer attention given some challenges in the recent past.
This is according to the Director of the Virgin Islands Shipping Registry, John Samuel. The entity has oversight for maritime administration issues in the BVI, including the responsibility to conduct marine accident investigations where ever marine accidents may take place.
While appearing as a guest on the Honestly Speaking radio show, Samuel said the issue of marine accidents is one the Registry has struggled with in recent years.
One of the challenges that boaters in the BVI struggle with is that they know the waters mentally, Samuel said.
“When you operate knowing an area mentally, you operate very differently than if you had to actually practice navigation to operate safely. So you become more relaxed—your attention, you’re not as focused,“ Samuel said.
“Because we know the area so well and we can navigate it almost blindly, we perhaps tend maybe to not pay as much attention as we should when we are operating out on the water,” he further explained.
As a mitigation measure, Samuel suggested that safety campaigns needed to be improved and said the safety culture on the water also needed to be changed to give people a greater appreciation of the need to operate safely while on the water.
Improve Safety Safety is one of the top points of how to be a strong construction site manager. You can’t effectively lead a crew if there are unsafe work conditions present. One way to avoid this issue is to implement safety training programs. By doing this, you avoid OSHA violations, keep your experience modifier ratio low, and develop safety-conscious employees—a must in construction. Improved safety not only makes for more effective teams but also ensures the well-being of every worker. The last thing any site manager wants to see is someone become injured or worse. Avoid these risks as much as possible with proper safety training plans in the workspace.
The University of Nevada Las Vegas and the Southern Nevada Health District have partnered together to better understand the culture of food safety in food establishments. This research study is designed to get anonymous feedback from the restaurant community and use it to create educational resources. If you are an adult who has worked in food and beverage, come share your experience working in restaurants, what you think helps build good food safety culture, and what leads to bad food safety culture in the kitchen. Focus groups will be offered in English, Spanish, and Mandarin. Pick your language and reserve your spot by CLICKING HERE.
rapidcityjournal.com/community…
As part of its focus on maintaining a safety culture, the city of Spearfish is hosting a Safety Stand-Down Day for its employees on Nov. 17, during which municipal offices will be closed.
“Safety is a priority for the city,” Tyler Ehnes, safety coordinator, said. “Our employees are our greatest asset, and we want to provide the training, tools, and culture to ensure their health, safety, and well-being.”
According to a news release, the Safety Stand-Down Day will include regional speakers providing workshops on a variety of safety topics to reinforce the importance of daily, safe operations and every employee’s participation in the city of Spearfish’s safety culture. The event is part of the overall safety program that applies to all personnel and resources employed by the city, as well as volunteers.
The program has been implemented using a six-pronged approach: safety training, safety inspections, safety committee, risk mitigation, accident/incident reporting, and safety rewards. The specifics of the program may be found on the city of Spearfish’s website.
www.channel3000.com/madisons-…
MADISON, Wis. — Madison’s Vision Zero traffic safety program has another eight years to reach its goal of no traffic deaths by 2030, but so far the city said it’s already having an impact.
The city’s traffic engineer gave an update on the effort during Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway’s news conference on Thursday, saying the number of cars going more than 40 miles per hour within city limits dropped by 30% to 90% depending on the road and time of day.
City crews have also placed speed trailers on various streets and reduced speed limits on more than 24 miles of roads.
“We need to each play a role in resetting our safety culture here in Madison and being mindful of the other folks in our community and using our sidewalks, our streets, our bike paths when we go out and travel around,” Rhodes-Conway said.
The traffic division is close to finishing a comprehensive road safety plan.
The American Club has recently launched an important new loss prevention initiative entitled Good Catch. As it gains increasing momentum, five safety advisories having been issued in the two months since the campaign was launched, Good Catch is aimed directly at seafarers themselves. It combines alerts and animations on safety-related issues in a focused format. Good Catch is currently available for download in English and in both new and traditional Mandarin.
Good Catch recognizes that, although there may be differences in detail between individual safety management systems, they all have a common purpose in ensuring seafarers’ situational awareness and their personal responsibility for their own safety, that of their shipmates, the marine environment, and the many other interests involved in their service at sea. The initiative emphasizes the importance of a strong safety culture which identifies, assesses and reports unsafe conditions, unsafe acts and near misses using case study examples.
Elements of the campaign already released include: reduction of CO2 emissions; dangers of over reliance on ECDIS²; engine room egress in case of fire and questionable risk assessments of various situations. A number more are planned over the coming months.
For food research, control, and production, valid and trustworthy analytical data are important. Our practical chemical food safety course for engineers therefore uses real-life studies for the ease of understanding the concept and the needed requirements for high analytical quality in relation to enabling correct evaluation of chemical food safety. Concepts of chromatography and mass spectrometry were applied and left open for inquiry-based learning and students’ search for information for their actual case study during this 3 week practical course. Three case studies, with three different analytical chemistry challenges, were addressed, namely, iodine, ethyl carbamate, and N-nitrosamine determination by ICP-MS, GC–MS, and LC–MS/MS, respectively. Each group of students successfully concluded one case study by integration of method validation and other appropriate analytical quality concepts with practical conduction of the analysis. The assignment included obtaining their own results, and evaluation of the results in the context of a food safety assessment. Successful vocabulary attainment and learning of quality assurance, analytical concepts, and data evaluation were communicated in report writing as well as oral presentations in front of the other students (in groups) and at the final examination (individually).
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Renewable sources of energy—wind, water, solar, geothermal—are widely viewed as the engines that will power the world one day, and companies specialising in renewables are already making headway toward that goal. But no matter how innovative or new, every industry has to consider safety, and the renewables sector is no exception. Fortunately, the basic tenets are somewhat universal, and are reflected in a ‘culture of care’ approach that informs every aspect of an organisation.
Culture of care through three lenses
Offshore Wind Turbines At SunsetIt’s helpful to think about how a culture of care can be expressed in three critical areas: people; processes and systems; and equipment. Caring for people means seeing and valuing them as human beings. This is evident in how leaders interact with their teams, for example, acknowledging their successes, motivating them to do better, allowing them to use their strengths and encouraging them to understand their weaknesses. At the organisational level, it might be codified in company policies that support a work-life balance or promote employee health.
https://www.uwagec.org/ruralfamilyventures/2007_08_RiskPoster_AAEA.pdf
We know a great deal about the role of risks and uncertainty in agriculture in the West and other regions. Much less is known about producers’ perceived importance and causes of various farm risks in the U.S. Patrick et al. (1985) indicated that perceptions of sources of and responses to risk varied across geographic regions and by farm type. Boggess et al. (1985) and Wilson et al. (1988) found that perceptions varied so much among individuals that a risk classification based on socioeconomic variables was not possible. Patrick and Musser (1997) concluded that, besides geographic location and farm type, institutional structures and other factors affecting the operating environ- ment of producers were also likely to influence farmers’ perceptions of sources of and responses to risk.
Outdoors, in the fire extinguisher training station, incoming graduate students hoisted red canisters of carbon dioxide to snuff out flames in a burn pan. Inside, in the pyrophoric reagents station, they witnessed a safe transfer of a highly flammable chemical from one flask to another via a Iuer-syringe and balloons. And at the gas cylinder station, they watched gas escape from a pressure vessel – a potential hazard for fires, explosions, poisoning, and cold or chemical burns.
Dangerous scenarios were staged across the six teaching labs and courtyard of the Sterling Chemistry Laboratory (SCL) on Aug. 30 for the 7th annual Safety Day, emphasizing an eye-opening reality: chemists must practice safety precautions vigilantly when conducting hazardous research.
“Safety Day is an annual event put on by the Yale Chemistry Joint Safety Team (JST) and Yale Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) to promote safety culture through resources, demos, and trainings,” said Jessica Freeze. “For the incoming graduate students, it is their first exposure to safety in the department and serves to set the standard they should expect throughout their time here.”
www.neimagazine.com/features/…
A nuclear safety culture
It is vital that the entire supply chain demonstrates a sound safety culture. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations states that: “Nuclear safety is a collective responsibility. No one in the organisation is exempt from the obligation to ensure safety first.” It defines a safety culture as: “An organisation’s values and behaviours — modelled by its leaders and internalised by its members — that serve to make nuclear safety the overriding priority.” ISO 19443’s primary purposes are to increase the safety culture within the nuclear industry and harmonise supplier assessments, such as auditing processes. The standard will improve suppliers’ understanding of quality requirements needed by nuclear, standardise these requirements across the world and facilitate their acceptance by regulatory bodies. This will help to create long-term, sustainable relationships between licensees and their suppliers.
www.foodsafetynews.com/2021/10/r…
There is a need for a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of food safety skills and education programs, according to a report published by Lloyd’s Register Foundation.
The report identified food safety training programs globally, whether they have an impact on reducing foodborne illnesses and deaths, and their use in different cultures and social settings. The study was funded by the foundation and authored by Alex Caveen, Michaela Archer and Mike Platt of RS Standards, a consultancy firm.
Current metrics tend to be developed for specific initiatives or locations. Recommendations to create a universal framework include identifying informal publications from food safety evaluation programs and drawing on existing knowledge to create guidance to monitor and evaluate food safety training. Before designing a training program, one of the first steps is to understand the specific risks through benchmarking, according to the report.
The high flammability of hydrogen – a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas – has prompted EU lawmakers to ensure that potential safety issues do not stymie the market uptake of this rather novel energy carrier.
The European Commission sees clean hydrogen as “a vital missing piece of the puzzle” to decarbonise heavy industries like steelmaking and help the EU meet its 2050 climate neutrality objective.
One key issue though is safety: the gas is highly flammable meaning transport and use must follow strict protocols.
“For the successful development of an EU hydrogen economy, high safety standards must be established,” says Angelika Niebler, a German lawmaker from the European People’s Party (EPP), the centre-right political group in the European Parliament.
Technologies must first be safe if they are to be trusted, she told EURACTIV.
Niebler is one of the lawmakers behind an EU parliament report on the European Commission’s proposed hydrogen strategy tabled in July last year.
The European Parliament is “strongly convinced that public acceptance is key to the successful creation of a hydrogen economy,” the report states, calling for measures to promote a strong safety culture in the hydrogen value chain.
www.foodsafetynews.com/2021/09/f…
Statistics never account for the trauma or years of suffering that follow foodborne illnesses. While here, at Food Safety News, we try to keep you informed of the numbers, the recalls, and the science, we also recognize that the most important aspect of food safety is protecting lives.
How do we grab people’s attention and make them invest in learning and understanding food safety? By showing them the personal stories of those who have been affected.
“You feel the impact when you talk to someone about these stories, you feel the hurt and pain,” 2019-2021 Dave Theno Fellow Jaime Ragos told Food Safety News. “I know for me, the biggest one is whenever I hear about a mother miscarrying a child from Listeria. It could have happened 20 years ago, and they still feel the pain of losing that child.”