Let's Talk Safety

Customer feedback:

letstalksafety — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:48:31 +0000

Well!!! Steve, you told us you guys were good but you didn’t tell us Brian was THAT good!!

Have heard nothing but great comments and compliments on this week’s training. I’m a pretty tough critic and I must say, Brian was wonderful!! We were pleased to see so many people thanking him and shaking his hand – our leads love him and want all further training to be done by him so congratulations on a great job Brian!

Again, thanks for 3 great training sessions and for the opportunity to get to you know you better Brian. We very much appreciate your knowledge and delivery…and especially your unique way of ‘slamming the board’!!

Syl

Customer feedback:

letstalksafety — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:44:59 +0000

Good Morning Steve;

Feedback from candidates from both courses very good. I was also very pleased with the training.

Brian is an engaging instructor with an exceptional knowledge of the material and great classroom style. The course was well organized, well run and met all of my needs and expectations.

I am meeting today on the fall prevention and protection issue with another group and hope to be able to book another two or three sessions before end of fiscal.

Craig

OWWCO approved course

letstalksafety — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:47:32 +0000

We are pleased to announce that we have received OWWCO approval for our Confined Space Entry course (0.7 CE Value)

Canada Corporation fined

letstalksafety — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:36:52 +0000

Ministry of Labour Court Bulletin – Guess? $50,000 after worker seriously injured TORONTO, May 15 /CNW/ – Guess? Canada Corporation, a national clothing and accessories retailer, was fined $50,000 on May 14, 2009, for a violation under the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) after a worker was seriously injured. On October 7, 2007, at the company’s Bloor St. W. location, a worker was standing on an eight-foot, A-frame ladder in the storage room, attempting to return a box to the top shelf. The ladder gave way and the worker fell to the floor, losing consciousness and sustaining back injuries. A Ministry of Labour investigation found that the ladder was too wide for the storage room. This meant the worker could not fully open the ladder and lock it into place to prevent it from collapsing. Guess? Canada Corporation pleaded guilty under the OHSA to failing, as an employer, to ensure that the worker could carry, move and lift store merchandise safely. The fine was imposed by Justice of the Peace Mary Anne Ross Hendriks. In addition to the fine, the court also imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge on the total, as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.

“Education without application is just entertainment” Wayne Ens

letstalksafety — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:13:15 +0000

Court Bulletin – Domtar Inc. fined $87,000 after worker injured

letstalksafety — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:56:39 +0000

    WAWA, ON, April 20 /CNW/ – Domtar Inc., a Montreal, Quebec company that makes pulp, paper, and wood products at facilities across Canada and the United States, was fined $87,000 on April 16, 2009, for a violation under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, after a worker was injured.
    On March 20, 2007, at the company’s facility in White River, an
electrician was doing maintenance work on a machine in the plant. While the worker was testing the voltage inside an electrical panel on the machine, an arc flash, or electrical blast, burned the worker’s hand and face.
    A Ministry of Labour investigation found that the worker was not wearing rubber gloves or wearing a shield.
    Domtar Inc. pleaded guilty to failing, as an employer, to ensure the worker used protective equipment and procedures adequate for protection against electrical shock and burns.
    The fine was imposed by Justice of the Peace Pierre Leclerc. In addition to the fine, the court also imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge on the total, as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.

Recommended for all Electrical Workers and Maintenance Supervisors

letstalksafety — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:34:37 +0000

The need for an effective electrical safety program is a given.

NFPA 70E and other legal requirements need to form a major part of your electrical safety policy and program.

In addition humanitarian, moral and the ever-present economic issues make proper electrical safety in your workplace a vital element of your corporate safety structure and culture.

STACS Inc. provides many training programs that will help to keep your employees safe. (www.STACS.com or STACS@rogers.com)

Program Content

• Introduction and Overview

• Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Regulations

• Arc Flash Protection Boundaries

• Arc Flash Calculation

• Hazard / Risk Categories

• Responsibilities

• Graphic Representation

• Applying the Hazard/Risk Category Tables

• Question and Answers

OSHA Fines Food Packager After Worker Injured By Machinery

letstalksafety — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:11:42 +0000

OSHA has cited a Weymouth, Massachusetts, food packaging company for alleged willful, repeat, and serious violations of safety and health standards. The company faces $66,500 in proposed fines, following a November 14 accident in which an employee was caught in a labeling machine while cleaning it.

OSHA’s inspection found that the machine’s moving parts were not guarded against employee contact, and the machine’s power source had not been shut down and locked out prior to the cleaning. As a result, OSHA has issued the company one willful citation, with a proposed fine of $56,000, for not guarding the machine against employee contact and one repeat citation, with a $3,000 fine, for not shutting down and locking out the machine.

“This is the second accident in 3 years at this plant involving machinery that wasn’t properly guarded or locked out,” said Brenda Gordon, OSHA’s area director for Boston and southeastern Massachusetts. “This employer must take prompt, effective, and ongoing action to correct these hazards and prevent future injuries.”

OSHA also has issued the company four serious citations, with $7,500 in proposed fines, for lack of lockout/tagout training and hardware, no annual inspection of the plant’s hazardous energy control procedures and use of an unapproved forklift in an area where flammable cocoa dust was present.

The repeat citation stemmed from a similar lockout/tagout hazard cited in October 2006 after an employee lost parts of two fingers in an accident from a month earlier.

Historical Safety Trivia

letstalksafety — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:19:49 +0000

1842 Mines Act (British), Limited conditions and hours of work for children 12 years of age. Before this act, children as young as 7 years were harnessed with chains to haul heavy coal trucks in low and narrow passages.

1911 – Triangle ShirtwaistFire in the upper floors of this New York City “sweatshop” caused the death of 146 workers. Most were young, immigrant women. Many jumped to their deaths.

If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at red lights.

Some people are like Slinkies… not really good for anything, but you still can’t help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.

How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
Raw cashews are poisonous and must be roasted before they can be eaten (this is probably one reason that you can’t buy cashews in the shell)

The first electric Christmas lights were created by a telephone company PBX installer. Back in the old days, candles were used to decorate Christmas trees. This was obviously very dangerous. Telephone employees are trained to be safety concious. This installer took the lights from an old switchboard, connected them together, strung them on the tree, and hooked them to a battery.

The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later they were both eaten by a killer whale.

A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen, shaking frantically with what looked like a wire running from his waist towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current she whacked him with a handy plank of wood by the back door, breaking his arm in two places. Till that moment he had been happily listening to his Walkman.

Did you know that you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider?

The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.

The nursery rhyme Ring Around the Rosey is a rhyme about the plague. Infected people with the plague would get red circular sores (“Ring around the rosey…”), these sores would smell very badly and common folks would put flowers on their bodies somewhere (inconspicuously), so that it would cover the smell of the sores (“…a pocket full of posies…”), People who died from the plague would be burned so as to reduce the possible spread of the disease (“…ashes, ashes, we all fall down).

By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can’t sink in quicksand.

In the 1500’s those with money had plates made of pewter. Unknowingly at the time, food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

In the 1500’s lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along roadside would often take them for dead, and prepare them for burial. The “deceased” were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days, and families would gather around, and eat, drink and wait to see if the person would wake up, thus began the custom of holding a “wake.”

One of the many Tarzans, Karmuela Searlel, was mauled to death on the set by a raging elephant.

A family of six died in Oregon during WWII as a result of a Japanese balloon bomb.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds recieved in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realise what is occuring, relax and correct itself. At about that height it hits maximum speed and when it hits the ground it’s rib cage absorbs most of the impact.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

Abe Lincoln’s mother died when the family dairy cow ate poisonous mushrooms and Ms. Lincoln drank the milk.

In Kenya they don’t drive on the right or left side of the street in particular, just on whichever side is smoother.

Drinking two glasses of Gatorade can relieve headache pain almost immediately – without the unpleasant side effects caused by traditional “pain relievers.”

Did you know that Colgate toothpaste makes an excellent salve for burns.

Before you head to the drugstore for a high-priced inhaler filled with mysterious chemicals, try chewing on a couple of curiously strong Altoids peppermints. They’ll clear up your stuffed nose.

Achy muscles from a bout of the flu? Mix 1 Tablespoon of horseradish in 1 cup of olive oil. Let the mixture sit for 30 minutes, then apply it as a massage oil, for instant relief for aching muscles.

Sore throat? Just mix 1/4 cup of vinegar with 1/4 cup of honey and take 1 tablespoon six times a day. The vinegar kills the bacteria.

Cure urinary tract infections with Alka-Seltzer. Just dissolve two tablets in a glass of water and drink it at the onset of the symptoms. Alka-Seltzer begins eliminating urinary tract infections almost instantly even though the product was never been advertised for this use.

Two companies, two supervisors fined a total of $297,000 after the death of a young worker

letstalksafety — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:57:46 +0000

TORONTO, April 28 /CNW/ – Brook Restoration Ltd., a Toronto construction company, was fined $150,000 on April 22, 2009, completing a case that saw another company and two individuals also convicted for violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA), after a young worker was killed on the job.
On January 17, 2007, a young worker employed by Ontario Roofing & General Contracting Services Ltd., fell over 42 metres (140 feet) from a roof canopy at 5900 Yonge Street in Toronto, sustaining fatal injuries. Ontario Roofing & General Contracting Services was subcontracted by Brook Restoration Ltd. to perform work on this project.
A Ministry of Labour investigation found that the worker for Ontario
Roofing & General Contracting Services Ltd. fell while clearing snow and ice
from roof canopies that were being restored. The investigation concluded that the worker, although wearing a full body harness, was not connected to any anchor or fixed support at the time of the incident.
Brook Restoration Ltd. pleaded guilty to failing, as a constructor, to
ensure that every employer and every worker on the project at 5900 Yonge Street complied with the fall protection measures set out in Ontario
Regulation 213/91. This was an offence under the section of the OHSA that sets out the duties of constructors. In this case, the conviction was for failing to ensure that Ontario Roofing & General Contracting Services Ltd. ensured that every worker was adequately protected by a method of fall protection.
In earlier proceedings, Ontario Roofing & General Contracting Services,
supervisors Luis Gomes and Carlos Laranjeira pleaded guilty and were fined
$115,000, $20,000 and $12,000 respectively for violating the fall protection requirement.
Ontario Roofing & General Contracting Services Ltd. pleaded guilty on
October 3, 2008, to failing, as an employer, to ensure that a worker was
adequately protected by a method of fall protection. This was contrary to the duties of employers as set out in the OHSA.
Also on October 3, 2008, Luis Gomes pleaded guilty to failing, as a
supervisor, to ensure that a worker was adequately protected by a method of fall protection, contrary to the duties of supervisors as set out in the OHSA.
Another supervisor, Carlos Laranjeira pleaded guilty to the same charge on
October 28, 2008.
The fines were imposed by Justice R. Bigelow. In addition to the fines,
the court also imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.