All business leaders inherently want to do “the right thing” for their businesses, employees and customers and for the communities in which they operate. When it comes to safety and health matters, however, some of the best business leaders define “the right thing” differently.To many, the safety and health of their corporate employees has a value that holds a prominent place in their companies’ values structure.

Priorities usually relate to important measures of performance, such as earnings, output, quality and service. These priorities may change from time to time, and usually have a specific numerical value assigned.

Values are different. Values are absolute. Values represent what are truly important to a company and speak to expectations about how the company and its employees should behave. An organization’s values are a key element of its ‘culture’. When safety is part of an organization’s culture, safety and health takes on a far more meaningful position than merely a priority or a program of improvement and injury reduction. The people —and especially the CEO’s— of these organizations take each injury to an associate personally, whether they occur on or off the job.

When companies make safety a value, they strive for perfection, set their goals to zero injuries and manage accordingly. Managing for zero injuries often means that safety and health issues hold a more prominent position in decision making in matters such as capital and manpower commitments, organizational structure and employee empowerment.

One of the very first goals we at NETC try to encourage our clients to do is to strive for establishing that corporate ‘culture of safety’. We strongly encourage the CEO, comptroller, and any other upper management personnel to attend initial meetings, and to “Kick Off” the first training session with their opening remarks of how this is important to them, so it should be important to everyone else. Without this, it is often a more difficult road to accomplish compliance.

Even when, and especially when, you’re considering re-organizational processes in your company, you need to consider safety. Remember the old saying, for every action, there’s a reaction. This often leads to set backs in plans and cost over-runs due to the growing associated costs of injuries and illnesses, replacement costs, etc.

For assistance in establishing this ‘culture of safety’ within your organization, give one of our Safety Specialists a call today.

As you may have surmised, fall protection issues are addressed in multiple Standards, present with technical difficulties to establish fall protection systems, require training, and inspection programs. Although compliance with OSHA is required, protection for employees is paramount. OSHA sets minimal Standards, a facility may choose to be more restrictive and many do.

Silica is a naturally occurring mineral on earth. Crystalline silica is the name given to variety forms of silica in the crystal form. There are varieties of crystalline silica, the most common is quartz. People who work with crystalline silica, also know as quartz, may be at risk for developing a debilitating, non-reversible lung disease called silicosis. This can happen if the individual works with crystalline silica that may become airborne, such as in a foundry or on a construction demolition site. The particles are the perfect size making them respirable, and the individual inhales the particle, and they go deep into the lungs. This disease is preventable if the appropriate steps are taken to minimize an employee’s exposure to crystalline silica, quartz.

What is so bad about silicosis?? Silicosis is a disease of the lungs that is avoidable. When a person breathes in the tiny respirable size silica particles, they go deep into the lungs forming scar tissue or fibrosis of the lungs. This scar tissue damages the lungs by decreasing the lungs capacity to extract oxygen from the air. Silica exposure leading to Silicosis may also increase the risk to other diseases and infection such as Tuberculosis and lung cancer.

How is an employee exposed to silica? Silica exposure is a hazard when the particles are airborne and are inhaled. This may occur during such operations as abrasive sand blasting, asphalt pavement manufacturing, cement manufacturing, concrete mixing, construction using cement and concrete, demolition, and jack hammering. Foundry industry operations such as grinding, molding and shake out, and the manufacturing of abrasives, paints, soaps, and glass, produce airborne silica. The repair or replacement of linings in rotary kilns and cupola furnaces or the setting, laying, and repairing railroad track, steelwork, stone brick, and concrete block cutting, blasting, chipping, grinding and sawing, or the electronics industry are just a few operation that may expose employees to silica.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, has established Permissible Exposure Limit, PEL, for crystalline silica and in 1996 implemented a Special Emphasis Program, SEP, to reduce and eliminate the incidence of silicosis in the workplace. The OSHA SEP data has identified that of the total US deaths, 13,744,

between 1968—1990, identified silicosis on the death certificate, of this 6,322 listed silicosis as the cause of death. Ten percent of the silica related deaths are in the construction industry.

What can an employer do to protect its employees from silica exposure? If it has been determined that the employees are at risk for silicosis by exposure to crystalline silica, an exposure plan must be implemented. Some of the elements of a plan include the following:

• Substitution of a less hazardous material such as in abrasive blasting operations, such as using aluminum oxide, poly carbonate, silicon carbide, emery, glass beads, or walnut shells.

• Use engineering controls to minimize the airborne concentration of crystalline silica. Engineering controls are mechanical processes to eliminate exposure such as using wet methods at the point of dust generation, installation of local exhaust ventilation, and enclosure or dust collection systems on the machines that generate the silica dust. Once engineering controls are installed, they must be operated and maintained.

• Perform industrial hygiene monitoring to identify the potential for airborne silica exposure. Monitoring will identify high exposure areas and evaluate the effectiveness of engineering controls and work practices.

• Identify the location and work areas where respirable crystalline silica is present through appropriate signage.

• Provide silica awareness training for employees so that they are more likely to follow the good work practices and will understand the hazards associated with eating, drinking, smoking, or applying cosmetics in the areas where crystalline silica dust exposure is possible and the importance of good housekeeping. If possible, provide disposable work clothes at the worksite.

• Provide smoking cessation programs and emphasize the hazards of smoking and working with silica.

• Provide the appropriate respiratory protection for the employee based on the exposure assessment from the industrial hygiene monitoring. Establish a respiratory protection program and all the elements of the program including the proper selection and use of respirators, medical clearances, fit testing and training.

• Supply vacuums with High Efficiency Particulate Air, HEPA, filters to minimize exposure to airborne concentrations.

• If crystalline silica is present in your workplace and you would like assistance in developing a program to address this exposure, please give the office a call and you can speak with our Industrial Hygienist.

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