I've been following this thread with interest, but I've been out of the country, and doing a lot of traveling in the US, and I haven't really had the time to contribute until now. I'm the safety and health director of the union that represents the majority of unionized North American workers in the chemical, oil, rubber, metals, paper, non-coal mining, and general manufacturing industries. We also represent the staff at a number of Canadian universities. The department I head has a staff of 26. My own training was in engineering and industrial hygiene. Our staff and I investigate about 70 serious accidents a year. A number of those involve chemical hazards, including a refinery fire a year ago that killed 7, and fatalities over the past three years that involved HF, H2S, mixed aromatics and liquid wastes from pulping operations. We've sometimes had the opportunity to go into high school, university and, of course, industrial labs. In the past we provided internships, and gotten a few interns from university chemistry programs. I've been dismayed by how little they've been taught about safety. That also goes for the chemical engineers hired into industry. We've had to educate grad students on things like the toxicity of benzene, combustible dust hazards, vapor cloud explosions and how to use protective equipment. And some of what we've seen in labs is pretty bad. Safety requires a number of simultaneous approaches. First, there has to be rigorous education -- not just a set of rules, but a broad understanding of the reasons for the rules. We've had people killed who followed rules they did not fully understand in situations where they didn't apply. Second, safety culture means a focus on hazard identification and risk assessment, first using formal tools, but also through a constant situational awareness. The way to build the latter is to involve students and lab workers -- the people most exposed to the risk -- in that formal process of finding the hazards and assessing and addressing the risk. That's also the best method of education. Third, safety culture also means that reporting and addressing a hazard gets rewarded, not punished. I was amused by the comment that industry has an advantage because they can fire people at will. It's a good thing they can't do that in union workplaces without proving it's justified, because too many employers try to get rid of people who complain about safety, rather than those who take shortcuts to get the job done. Getting the job done is what frontline management wants. Finally, there needs to be some independent oversight that can overrule or at least impede a decision to charge ahead on a potentially unsafe task in order to beat the competition, whether the competition is commercial or academic. ("Publish or perish" can sometimes be literal.) I think the union can fill that role to a large degree. OSHA and MSHA do. A strong, well-resourced university safety office with the power to shut down dangerous situations can also do that, of course. One suggestion: my favorite book on safety culture is "Safety, Culture and Risk," by Andrew Hopkins, published by CCH Australia. In fact, if you Google Hopkins, you can find a lot of excellent stuff on process and organizational safety. Mike Wright Michael J. Wright Director of Health, Safety and Environment United Steelworkers (412) 562-2580 work (412) 370-0105 cell (412) 562-2584 fax mwright**At_Symbol_Here**usw.org -----Original Message----- From: DCHAS-L Discussion List [mailto:DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Ralph Stuart Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 12:25 PM To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: [DCHAS-L] 2 Re: [DCHAS-L] Nature News Article: Fatality adds further momentum to calls fo Just for the list's information, I'm agglomerating posts to the list in order to keep the discussion going while staying within the 15 message/day limit. Unfortunately, I'm getting used to a new computer at the same time, so my process is not as elegant as I'd like, particularly when it comes to subject lines. Thanks for your patience. - Ralph From:scrooks**At_Symbol_Here**ppeppro.com Re: [DCHAS-L] Nature News Article: Fatality adds further momentum to calls fo. Of course there wasn't "any single individual finding of fault!" (emphasis added) Heinrich would be okay with the report I guess and while I hesitate bringing Dan Petersen up again after the last round of crickets, Dan is up there looking down and wondering, "why still so many lost souls?" From: ACTSNYC**At_Symbol_Here**cs.com Re: [DCHAS-L] Nature News Article: Fatality adds further momentum to calls fo. Amen. My cork is throughly charred by this as well. Monona
Previous post | Top of Page | Next post