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Read the latest articles and insight from Safe Supervisor US
Beware of Lulls in Your Alertness Levels
WHAT’S AT STAKE If there are certain times of day when you are fighting the urge to sleep, you aren’t imagining things. Any night shift worker will tell you that the urge to sleep is strong between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. What you might not know is that another lull occurs in the early-to-mid afternoon. Lulls in circadian rhythms occur in people who have had sufficient sleep before coming to work. Obviously, someone who is sleep-deprived has an even greater chance of falling into an unintended sleep. WHAT’S THE DANGER The desire to sleep can...
read moreRacking Errors Can Rain Disaster on Workers
WHAT’S AT STAKE Most people don’t pay a lot of attention to racking systems until something goes wrong with one and thousands of pounds of supplies or products come crashing down onto workers below. Even if workers escape injury, a major rack failure and the spillage of materials or goods can put a workplace out of commission for days. WHAT’S THE DANGER There are several causes of racking system incidents, but one of the most common ones involves a forklift striking shelving. When this happens, materials on the rack may dislodge and fall...
read moreFamiliarize Yourself with Formaldehyde
WHAT’S AT STAKE Think “formaldehyde” and very likely images of laboratories, hospitals or funeral parlors come to mind. But formaldehyde’s uses go beyond that of specimen preservation and embalming fluid. It’s one of the most commonly used and encountered chemicals in industry today. You might find formaldehyde in home insulation and in the glue that holds together plywood and particle board. It’s used in the textile industry where it helps prevent your clothes from wrinkling. Low concentrations of formaldehyde can be found in the...
read moreConstruction Superintendent Misled Investigators
A construction site superintendent from South Dakota has been sentenced to six months’ house detention with electronic monitoring for violating an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulation with regard to the death of one of his workers.The 29-year-old victim, Carl Beck, fell 42 feet (nearly 13 meters) while helping install a motel roof in the Pittsburgh, PA, area in 2009. Superintendent Robert Christopher Kennedy, 60, pleaded guilty to a charge of failure to protect employees with anchored safety lines ...
read moreCal/OSHA Issues Confined Space Hazard Alert
California’s Department of Industrial Relations’ Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has issued a confined space hazard alert as part of a year-long statewide special emphasis initiative to focus attention on preventing worker deaths and injuries in confined spaces. The hazard alert is designed to help employers and workers identify confined space situations and take immediate steps to protect workers. Since confined spaces may be encountered in virtually any industry, Cal/OSHA says their identification is the first step...
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