TVA fined $606K, two executives reprimanded over actions against former employees
KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission is assessing a penalty of almost $607,000 against TVA and punishing two TVA executives after an investigation found they sought to punish two employees who came forward to express legally protected concerns.
The actions follow an NRC investigation into the conduct of Joseph Shea, identified as vice president of nuclear technology innovation at TVA’s corporate office, and Erin Henderson, then the director of corporate nuclear licensing at TVA. … The NRC found essentially that Henderson and Shea discriminated against the two unnamed employees who raised concerns about a chilled work environment that discouraged them from talking about safety concerns.
According to a public notice Tuesday, the NRC found that Shea and Henderson “engaged in deliberate misconduct.”
“The NRC is prohibiting (Shea) from any involvement in NRC-licensed activities for five years, since he was a decision-maker for the adverse employee actions. The NRC is issuing a Notice of Violation to (Henderson).”
According to NRC records, the case dates back several years ago when a whistleblowing employee at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant operated by TVA in Soddy-Daisy, Tenn., expressed concerns about the regulatory response to violations regarding operations at the plant.
The now former employee was legally protected to speak up to Henderson from a safety context. The employee also filed a complaint alleging Henderson had created “a chilled work environment,” records state.
Ep.41 How do ethnographic interviews work?
Topics:
Explaining Ethnography. Why safety can be politically motivated. Starting your conversations with a personal connection. Why the setting of your conversation matters. How to keep your subjects talking. Setting boundaries. How to react when the interviewee is wrong.
Quotes:
“…Reflect on all these one-on-one conversations that they had everyday in their workplace and how they could utilize these one-on-one engagements to get better insights and better information that they can use to improve the safety of work in their own organization.”
“The second main principle is to get the interviewee talking and to keep them talking.”
“I can’t think of another skill that is more useful, Drew, in your role as a safety professional than knowing how to ask good questions.”
Farm chemical safety starts with the label
The words “read and follow label instructions” can be heard on many if not all of the advertisements for farm or even yard and garden chemicals on radio or television.
Those five words are the key to safety when it comes to chemical applications, according to Julianne Racine, LaMoure County Extension agent for agriculture and natural resources.
“There is a reason why for those instructions,” she said. “The dosage on the label is what has been tested to be the most effective. It’s not good for the environment not to follow those instructions and you should follow for safety reasons. The label specifies certain types of safety practices that should be followed.”
Not following those safety precautions when it comes to wearing personal protective equipment causes the most problems for farmers, said Lukas Wagner, pesticide enforcement supervisor for the North Dakota Department of Agriculture.
“People need to wear the proper safety equipment,” he said. “Some common equipment is gloves, pants, long sleeved shirt but other products might require aprons, goggles and face masks.”
Michigan State’s Dean’s Update | August 21 … Physicians, and I am going to lump in medical students here, need to be leaders in this time, and we need to maintain and promote the standards of our profession. One struggle we have long faced is the need to correct the professionalism of our colleagues. It is not easy, but as a profession, we have to say something when we see something amiss in the behaviors of our fellow physicians and students.
Importantly, we have to remember that we all make mistakes, and reminders about social distancing and mask or shield wearing are about helping each other perform and behave safely. We are never about belittling or scolding each other. Organizations with a real safety culture correct mistakes and only punish recklessness or disregard for the needs of others. And, crucially, getting feedback that we are not in our mask or we are not spatially distancing, or our evening plans are not consistent with public health, should result in thanking the person who reminded us and by making the correction.
“Our commitment to safety and zero harm is ingrained in every part of our organization. ‘Done Safely, Without Compromise’ is not only QM’s health and safety motto, it serves as the foundation for our company culture for our employees, partners, clients and the communities we serve,” according to company president, Harry Kim, P. Eng.
“This has been an incredibly challenging year for safety professionals and for businesses everywhere,” said Canada’s Safest Employers project director Jessica Duce. “The list of finalists represents the best and brightest in workplace health and safety and honours those who have stepped up at a time when it mattered most. It’s our honour to acknowledge and celebrate this deserving group at the virtual awards gala on October 22.”
For the full list of finalists, visit www.safestemployers.com.
About QM Environmental
QM Environmental is a leading environmental and industrial services company with offices and qualified teams strategically located across Canada to provide end-to-end capabilities to the industries and customers it serves. QM Environmental is a customer-driven organization, backed by over 35 years of experience solving the country’s most complex environmental challenges through its strong culture of excellence in health and safety, integrity, and quality. QM’s services include: Environmental Remediation, Demolition and Decommissioning, Hazardous Materials Abatement, Emergency Response and Management, Training, Waste Management and Facilities, and Water Treatment.
Dangers in decommissioning in the oil and gas industry
Decommissioning is a significant phase in the lifecycle of every rig – and one that requires particularly careful management to maintain the hard-won high standards in health and safety that prevail in the oil and gas industry.
This poses challenges for offshore business in the region, but also presents considerable opportunities. There are 600 oil and gas platforms in the North Sea, of which 470 are scheduled to be decommissioned over the next 30 years. The UK will be the largest global decommissioning market over the next decade, with approximately 880,000 tonnes of topside forecast for removal.
Oil & Gas UK estimates that over £15 billion will be spent on decommissioning around the UK in that time – with the result that decommissioning now accounts for 10% of the overall expenditure of the UK industry.
Decommissioning provides a great opportunity to leverage the existing knowledge base within oil and gas, and this should extend to the hard-earned health and safety culture seen within the industry, with self-regulation increasingly becoming the norm.
Ep.40 When should we trust expert opinions about risk?
EPISODE NOTES To frame our conversation, we use one of Drew’s papers to discuss this issue. This paper, Forecasts or Fortune-Telling,was borne out of deep frustration.
Topics:
The two questions the paper sought to answer. What we mean by “expertise”. Forecasting. Determining the value of a given expert. Biases in reporting and researching. Super-forecasting. Wisdom of crowds. Better ways to get better answers. Why mathematical models aren’t as helpful as we think. Practical takeaways.
Quotes:
“Is it best to grab ten oncologists and take the average of their opinions?”
“But there is this possibility that there are some people who are better at managing their own cognitive biases than others. And it’s not to do with domain expertise, it’s to do with a particular set of skills that they call ‘super-forecasting’.”
“As far as I understand it, most organizations do not use complicated ways of combining expert opinions.”
Researchers Say Rural Culture Affects Use Of Seatbelts (And Maybe Masks, Too)
Only about 20% of Americans live in rural areas, but that’s where 30% of driving and 45% of fatal traffic accidents happen. Montana State University recently hosted a webinar to address that issue, welcoming lawmakers and experts from across Montana and the nation. They pointed out challenges ranging from wildlife crossings to distances from hospitals. But they found that personal choices and rural culture play big roles, too. For example, rural drivers are less likely to use a seatbelt.
“In some communities we still have belief systems that make them think it’s not worth wearing a seatbelt,” said Nic Ward, director of MSU’s Center for Health & Safety Culture.
Ward’s center recently surveyed residents in six rural Utah counties, and found that 78% wanted their loved ones to buckle up – even if they didn’t use seatbelts themselves.
“And indeed you could argue that ruralness itself comes with this sense of helping each other and wanting people in your community to be safe,” Ward said.
Identifying that positive aspect of rural culture helped his group form a way to tackle the not-so-helpful lack of seatbelt use there. They created an ad campaign to remind people that they’re someone’s family and part of a community that wants them to get home safe.
No plans so far for local mask bylaw as other Alberta communities approve them: Scott
There are no plans for the Wood Buffalo area to bring in mandatory mask bylaws, similar to those seen in other communities across Alberta.
However, Mayor Don Scott says that could change if COVID-19 cases rise suddenly or if a mandatory order is brought in by the province.
“It’s possible that could happen in the future and council could bring a motion,” he said during a Wednesday interview. “But at this point, because we’ve had modest numbers, we’re just keeping an eye on it.”
At the time of the interview, Fort McMurray had 13 active cases and surrounding rural areas had seven. The region has seen 115 recoveries, with 62 in Fort McMurray. So far, no one has died from the virus.
Scott credited the community’s industrial safety culture for keeping virus numbers low, as well as guidelines adopted by the province, federal government and oilsands companies.
He also praised local initiatives, such as the distribution of 50,000 masks on public transit. Another 300,000 masks have been given out by the provincial government in the area.
“We’re a very safety conscious region and we see that with the sites, which have taken very aggresive steps,” said Scott.
In Fort McMurray, mask regulations have been limited to individual businesses. For instance, masks became mandatory in all Canadian Walmart stores on the same day as Scott’s interview.
Cooking Gas: NALPGAM establishes resource centre to boost capacity, safety … A worried Falusi disclosed that safety remained one of the major concerns agitating the minds of stakeholders in the sector. As such, he said, safety is a number priority in the usage and consumption of LPG which the centre would be focusing on in the months ahead. He said the centre would not shy away from creating further awareness that basic safety culture must be embraced by every user and operator in the industry as it relates to every segment of the entire value chain. The resource centre boss said there was the need for LPG usage in the country to be fully domesticated across the distribution and supply chain network, adding that as a country, we do not have any business importing LPG because we are so much endowed with the natural resource.
Building quality and safety in service delivery
The first article in this series identified the increasing expectations on boards and executive teams of human service organisations for promoting human rights and for improving the quality and safety of services. Last week’s article outlined seven steps that organisations can take. In this article, I want to explore the benefit of organisations adopting a “just culture” approach and identify some soft skills that will assist directors and executives in their boardroom interactions.
Ep.39 Do accident investigations actually find the root causes?
To frame our chat, we reference the papers, Our Current Approach to Root Cause Analysis and What-You-Look-for-is-What-You-Find.
Determining root causes of accidents. Why investigations are social processes. An explainer on editorials. What “process change” really means. Applying the Swiss Cheese Model. Confirmation bias in research. Only finding what you can fix. The difference between internal and external investigations. Practical takeaways from the studies.
Quotes:
“What they suggested was that we should always have a very strong evaluation process around any corrective action to test and check whether it actually addresses the things that we’re trying to address.”
“To really understand how the investigation has happened, you’ve got to talk to the investigators as they’re doing the investigation…”
“I can’t imagine a safety person taking to the board a recommendation that they weren’t sure themselves, they could fix.”
Paper on Maritime Accidents and How They Can Be Prevented Entered Into Congressional Record
Why are regulators not following the guidelines set out for them? Why are inspectors overlooking obvious irregularities? How are maritime companies able to sidestep regulations? These are all questions the authors set out to answer.
“With modern technology, the burden of responsibility can, and must, extend to ship operators, ship owners, classification societies and flag states,” according to the authors.
Further, why are seaman fearful of speaking up, and sailing vessels outside of regulatory compliance?
“It is difficult to establish a shared safety culture between the ship and management when the future of the master and crew may depend on not sharing safety information with management,” the authors write.
All of these complex issues are examined. The authors strongly encourage those interested to review the appendices and imbedded links to get a more poignant overview.
Other Voices: The Link Between Diversity and Aviation Safety
Aviation safety is dependent on synergy, not just in the flight deck, but within the flight department as a whole. The hidden dangers of miscommunication and unconscious bias deteriorate our safety margins, limit our access to new talent, and hinder our operational functionality. It’s time for the third wave of aviation safety, and that must include unconscious bias training.
Following a series of fatal air crashes in the 1970s, the aviation industry became focused on how humans interact and communicate. A common trend of these crashes exposed the toxicity of the singular-captain mentality and revealed the necessity to educate aviators how to operate more collaboratively. New training protocols, known as Crew Resource Management (CRM), rapidly washed over the industry and became the international standard still in practice today. The initiative was so successful that the medical sector adopted its own form of CRM.
The second wave of aviation safety came decades later in the form of Safety Management Systems (SMS). This system is a comprehensive approach to safety which includes human factors training and the measuring of one’s flight department safety culture.
Each wave of safety system amalgamates the importance of human interaction, communication, and collaboration as essential components to aviation safety. Yet both systems overlook the fundamental structure that controls how humans interact and communicate—our unconscious bias.
FAA employees who oversee airplane makers report pressure
Federal employees overseeing Boeing and other aircraft makers say they face pressure from the companies and fear retribution from their own bosses if they raise too many safety concerns, according to a survey of the workers that was delivered to Congress on Friday.
Many of the Federal Aviation Administration employees surveyed said they believe that agency managers are too concerned with the industry’s objectives and aren’t held accountable for decisions about safety.
One FAA employee said companies will say they will lose money if the FAA doesn’t certify its plane fast enough. Another said the message to FAA workers is, “’Don’t rock the boat’ with Boeing.”
The summary and comments were contained in a private company’s report, dated in February, on the safety culture at the FAA. The FAA faces scrutiny from Congress over its approval of the Boeing 737 Max, which remains grounded after two deadly crashes less than five months apart.
The report reflects “a disturbing pattern of senior officials at a Federal agency rolling over for industry,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation Committee. “That’s especially disturbing to see when it comes to Boeing, which, as we know now, pushed a plane through a broken regulatory process that resulted in the deaths of 346 innocent people.”
FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson said the report shows “that we have work to do to address problems” in the safety culture within the agency’s aviation safety organization. “It is completely unacceptable that there are employees who lack confidence that their safety concerns are taken seriously.”
EU plans to include food safety culture in regulation
The European Commission has published draft legislation that includes food safety culture.
A revision of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on food hygiene also covers allergen management, and redistribution of food.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission is expected to adopt a revision of its standard on General Principles of Food Hygiene in the next few months. This update introduces the food safety culture concept as a general principle. Food safety culture’s aim is to increase awareness and improve the behavior of employees in establishments.
Considering the change of this standard and expectations of consumers and trade partners that food produced in the EU complies with such a standard, it is necessary to include general requirements on food safety culture in EU regulation, according to the EU Commission.
The draft introduces requirements on good hygiene practices to prevent or limit the presence of substances causing allergies or intolerances in equipment, conveyances, and/or containers used for harvesting, transport, or storage of foodstuffs.
Part of the new legislation asks management and all employees of businesses to commit to an appropriate food safety culture which includes a clear distribution of responsibilities, appropriate training, and supervision, and verifying controls are performed timely and efficiently and documentation is up to date.
The risk assessment trap: Are risk assessments encouraging unsafe behaviours?
Working with SHE professionals, almost daily I meet people who are frustrated with other people’s behaviour, especially when it comes to safety. They feel that they have done everything to keep people safe and that ‘they’ won’t follow basic instructions and stop taking risks.
There are many reasons that people take risk at work, I want to explore one that is not often discussed.
The idea for this article came from a recent discussion on LinkedIn about risk and risk assessment. As with many things in safety, risk assessment is a logical process that is then applied by less than completely logical people.
Are risk assessments encouraging unsafe behaviours? One of the ways in which risk assessments break down is when it comes to human behaviour and people taking greater risks because a risk assessment has been completed.
This sounds like an oxymoron. People take more risks because we’ve done risk assessments!
Yes, unfortunately this is true. The answer isn’t to not do risk assessments, but to understand why they are taking the risk.
`Before You Get Out of Your Car, Put on Your Mask’
As students prepare to return to Embry-Riddle’s residential campuses in Prescott, Arizona, and Daytona Beach, Florida for face-to-face fall 2020 classes, university leadership reaffirmed its rules for wearing face coverings at all times.
Face coverings are mandatory in all common areas on Embry-Riddle’s campuses, both indoors and outdoors, in classrooms, laboratories, residence halls and other facilities. In addition, EagleCards must be visible at all times, either on a lanyard or clipped to an article of clothing, and daily wellness checks are mandatory.
Wearing face coverings, in keeping with U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention guidelines, reflects Embry-Riddle’s strong safety culture and Eagle commitment to caring for others. Embry-Riddle’sfall 2020 Path Forward plan emphasizes the importance of taking personal responsibility.
“We’re working hard to provide a safe environment, but it’s up to all of us to make it work,” Embry-Riddle President P. Barry Butler said at a recent virtual town hall event organized by Student Government Association leaders. “When we look back on this time as history, how you as individuals reacted will say a lot about you as a person. It will go with you throughout life and in your careers – how you behaved, how flexible you were in adapting to a new situation and the choices you made.”
In 2018, GFSI released a position paper “A Culture of Food Safety,” which defined five dimensions of the food safety culture: Vision and Mission, People, Consistency, Adaptability, Hazard and Risk Awareness. When we look to GFSI’s five dimensions of food safety culture, we can identify several ways that The Why of Food Safety – Become the SLO initiative can have a positive impact, particularly on the first two.
Vision and mission addresses business reasons to exist. I am sure that no organization’s mission or vision in this sector include harming consumers, as people are the critical component of food safety and the recipients of The Why of Food Safety – Become the SLO initiative. The document also defines food safety culture as shared values, beliefs, and norms that affect mindset and behavior toward food safety in, across and throughout an organization.
Can you see how aligned The Why of Food Safety – Become the SLO initiative is with GFSI’s food safety culture definition? People must understand and believe that what they do (norms) matter for saving people’s lives. Giving people this higher mission will definitely imprint a new mindset and collaborative behavior in the organization—after all, we are consumers too! One day, our own loved ones may end up in a hospital bed with food poisoning because they ate unsafe food, right?
Creating a recipe with food safety instructions is simple – the first step is always wash your hands.
Consumers are more likely to follow food safety instructions if they are embedded within the recipe, and retailers are uniquely positioned to educate consumers on practicing food safety in their home kitchens.
Unsurprisingly, more families are cooking at home since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and there is a long-lasting opportunity to prioritize food safety each time we step foot in the kitchen. To further promote a strong food safety culture within our homes, the Partnership for Food Safety Education (PFSE) is sponsoring the inaugural 30-Minute Meals Safe Recipe Contest to challenge our industry in creating a delicious, nutritious and safe recipe.
In March 2019, the FMI Foundation and PFSE released the Safe Style Recipe Guide to support all consumers in developing, and inserting, specific food safety text that promotes positive cooking behaviors within recipes. This guide directly addresses four primary areas of concern in the home kitchen: (1) cooking/storage temperatures; (2) handwashing; (3) cross-contamination; and (4) produce handling.
Ep.38 Can we get ready for automation by studying non-automated systems?
Topics:
The small ferry referenced in the paper and the plans to replace it with an automated craft. Why commercial vessels get priority in the water. Incorporating human factors into the study of boats. What you lose by automating this particular ferry. Strategizing the right of way in the water. Interpreting Norwegian navigation rules. Why replacing the captain with an autonomous system could prove disastrous.
Safety Barriers Address Vulnerabilities in Recovery
How can an individual in recovery stay sober when the areas of his or her brain that process decisions aren’t functioning properly, Kevin McCauley, MD, senior fellow with Meadows Behavioral Healthcare, asked NCAD attendees in his Saturday session. In other words: How can a person protect themselves from relapse when their ability to assess relapse is, in itself, impaired?
McCauley, who is in recovery after developing an addiction to prescription painkillers after surgery when he was a flight surgeon for the U.S. Navy in the 1990s, discussed the need for a recovery management plan and developing a safety culture to solve common problems early in recovery.
McCauley drew parallels between aviation safety checklists used during his time in the Navy and recovery plans. Much like no single safety barrier can prevent mishaps, no single element of a recovery plan can entirely prevent a relapse, McCauley said. He made the analogy that the parts of safety checklists and recovery plans are similar to a stack of slices of Swiss cheese—each has holes, but when you put enough together, they form a solid block of cheese, or a safety checklist/recovery plan that accounts for all potential problems.
“If I try to consciously process this risk, I’m going to fail,” he said. “But if I put enough safety barriers in my life, it doesn’t matter if I’m craving. It doesn’t matter if I am offered the chance to get high. Those safety barriers should protect me. … At some point, consciousness will break down. You have to have other factors in place.”
Missouri’s “Buckle Up Phone Down” Safety Initiative Gaining National Attention, Momentum
The Missouri Department of Transportation’s “Buckle Up Phone Down” safety initiative is being recognized nationally for its success in saving lives on Missouri highways.
According to a news release, the National Association of Development Organizations, also known as NADO, gave the “Buckle Up Phone Down” endeavor an Excellence in Regional Transportation Award, which recognizes noteworthy projects and practices that help meet regional needs through various program areas, including safety.
In addition, the “Toward Zero Deaths” consortium selected the Show Me State’s BUPD program as a model case study in improving the state’s safety culture and saving lives.
These recent recognitions help support MoDOT Director Patrick McKenna’s emphasis areas as president of the American Association of State Highways and Transportation Officials: to renew a focus on safety as a national public health crisis and to begin tackling this epidemic by taking Missouri’s successful “Buckle Up Phone Down” safety initiative to the national level.
As a result, three other states – Wisconsin, Nebraska and Kentucky – are actively promoting the BUPD movement, while 11 states have expressed interest in taking up the cause and spreading the BUPD safety message.
Terex Announces Second Quarter 2020 Results
John L. Garrison, Jr., Terex Corporation Chairman and CEO, commented, “We continue to vigilantly follow the necessary COVID-19 safety protocols to protect the health and safety of our team members and their families, while safely serving our customers. Our commitment to a Zero-Harm Safety Culture is resolute and I am proud of our team members’ rigor in following the necessary safety protocols.”
Mr. Garrison continued, “While the COVID-19 pandemic continues, global economic activity has gradually recovered but remains below pre-COVID-19 levels. In response to lower customer demand, we are closely aligning our production plans.”
Wind energy recap, look out for solar
Regarding health and safety, it is imperative to instill a safety culture in every team. Although accidents do happen, the industry has a great track record for safety. Some of the major risks that are faced throughout these projects include:
Electrical shock / arc flash
Materials handling
Working at height