The article below focuses on the dangers of working with ammonia and gives some helpful tips to remember to stay as safe as possible.

Ammonia can be found in two different forms: ammonium hydroxide or pressurized gas. Most are familiar with the soluble one, ammonium hydroxide, as that is the liquid one. Exposure to ammonia is even more alarming when it is frequent because most people will become desensitized. The chemical is corrosive to the skin, eyes, and lungs, which can cause harm from eye and respiratory irritation to swelling and accumulation of fluid in the lungs.

Here are the tips listed in the article to be aware of:

• Train employees to work safely with ammonia by following these general precautions and the safe work practices that apply in this facility:
• Wear personal protective equipment. To work with liquid ammonia, you may need eye, face, and skin protection. To work with liquid or gaseous ammonia, you may require respiratory protection.
• Take hot work permitting precautions whenever hot work will be performed in areas where ammonia is present. If piping, vessels, or containers that have held ammonia will be welded, soldered, drilled, or cut, purge all ammonia first.
• Use proper ventilation. Never work with ammonia in an unventilated area. Always ensure that you have adequate ventilation, and make sure that ventilation is nonsparking or explosion-proof.
• Store ammonia separately from incompatible chemicals, away from heat and ignition sources.
• Know what to do in case of a spill or leak. When you work with ammonia, know where the emergency escape respirators are located. If ammonia leaks or is spilled, put on a respirator, and leave the area immediately. Report the spill or leak so it can be appropriately controlled.
• Know how to respond to splashes. Liquid ammonia can burn your eyes. Know where the emergency eyewash is stored in your work area and how to use it.

Why It Matters

On November 1, 2011, a hazardous materials release occurred at the San Onofre nuclear power plant, just south of San Clemente, California, prompting the immediate evacuation of the plant's personnel—but it wasn't a radiation release. The chemical that posed an immediate hazard to the health and safety of workers at the plant was ammonia. You can avoid this kind of incident in your workplace by training your workers on how to work safely around ammonia.

To view the original article, visit http://safetydailyadvisor.blr.com/archive/2012/08/03/training_safety_ammonia_hazardous_materials.aspx?Source=SDF&effort=19.

To learn more about Hazard Communication and working safety with chemicals, visit https://safetylinks.net/index.php/training/safety-courses-for-all-industries/hazcom or call us at 407-303-8165 to schedule an onsite class for your employees.

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In construction there are many contractors who then subcontract the work to other parties, who further subcontract the work… and so forth. Although your customers expect the job to be completed safely, the focus is typically lost within the tiers of contractors. In other words your safety program doesn’t help the people who are actually doing the work for your company.

Why do you conduct periodic quality inspections, post-job inspections, product standards training for your installers, etc.? The answer is to manage your quality. You manage your quality because you know that if your subcontractor’s quality is not adequate your company’s reputation is on the line.

What you might not understand is that if you hire a subcontractor and they create unsafe conditions, your company’s reputation, plus a whole lot of liability is also on the line.

So here are a few of misconceptions that are important for you to know:

• I am not responsible because they are not my employee.

If you hire them as a sub-contractor you are always responsible no matter how many tiers! “In no case shall the prime contractor be relieved of overall responsibility for compliance with the requirements of this part for all work to be performed under the contract…the prime contractor assumes all obligations prescribed as employer obligations under the standards contained in this part, whether or not he subcontracts any part of the work. Ref. OSHA regulation 1926.16

FYI: OSHA and other regulators can and will fine you, the injury could be placed on your workers compensation plan if the subcontractor is uninsured, you can be sued if your subcontractor has an incident, or if you contractor creates a situation that results in an incident involving another company, or a member of the public.

• I am protected because my sub-contractor agreement says they must follow OSHA regulations.

With respect to subcontracted work, the prime contractor and any subcontractor or subcontractors shall be deemed to have joint responsibility. Ref. 1926.16(c)

Where joint responsibility exists, both the prime contractor and his subcontractor or subcontractors, regardless of tier, shall be considered subject to the enforcement provisions of the Act. Ref. 1926.16(d)

• I cannot communicate with my sub-contractors because they don’t speak English.

Some contractors have attempted to justify this by stating employee turnover, inexperienced workers, and language barriers make it nearly impossible to manage safety. These contractors however have failed to realize that if it is possible to train inexperienced non-English speaking workers to build walls, shingle roofs, or any other task for that matter, then it is possible to have them do those tasks safely.

The fact that these companies can produce a high quality job in an efficient manner proves that if held accountable, an inexperienced and non-English speaking workforce will perform a quality job safely and efficiently.

So what do you have to do to better manage your sub-contractors?

Here are some ideas to further manage you contractors:

Evaluation (Pre-hire Qualification). You could complete a pre-qualification safety evaluation of the company. This could include having them submit a copy of their written programs, inspection results, training records, etc.

Pre-qualification based on a numerical experience system. You can have them provide you with their incidence rates (based on their OSHA recordable cases) so that you could compare them against their industry average found on the Bureau of Labor Statistics webpage. This can tell you if they are having more incidents then should be expected for their type of work.

You can look at their workers compensation “Experience Modifier Rate”. This modifier can tell you how many workers compensation claims they have in relation to others in their line of work.  A modifier of 1.0 means that they are average in their industry. A modifier less than 1.0 means that they are better then average in their industry. A modifier greater than 1.0 means that they are worse than average.

Evaluation of Contractor Safety (After Hired)

Conduct pre-job briefing prior to site entry and at other times, as necessary, to ensure that employees are aware of site hazards.

You can have them provide you with ongoing documentation to prove their program is operation including: Recordable cases (Lost time, Restricted cases, etc), OSHA citations, Inspection results, incident reports, safety meeting summaries, responses to Corrective Action Reports, etc...

This will help you answer these crucial questions:

• Is senior management committed to safety?
• Is safety an integral part of project management?
• Are safety and training improvement programs in place.

Conduct periodic safety inspections to show your commitment, and to hold your contractors accountable.

Training

Contractors have the responsibility to ensure that all employees and sub-contractors are properly trained. To do this you can:

Provide a safety orientation for new contractors so they can pass the information to their employees. This should include a review of:

• Physical and chemicals hazards on site such as fire, explosion, falls, health (i.e. Silica), etc.
• General safety rules and regulations.
• Emergency reporting and response procedures.
• Other day-to-day issues.
• Involve your contractors in your weekly, monthly quarterly or periodic training sessions.

Continual Improvement

Guidelines must be created for contractors.

This could include company policies and standards, contractor safety rules and procedures. Then each contractor must be trained on it and they must pass the information down to their employees. (Hint: You may want documentation from them proving that they have actually provided the training to their employees).

You must learn from any mistakes or near misses. As such sub-contractors must report incidents and near misses so you can investigate them.

Most importantly like anything else safety must be measured and monitored. If you don’t do this you have lost accountability!

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In the following New York Times article, writer Cara Buckley takes a look at hazardous noise levels in NYC public places, the risks of exposure for their employees and the overall lack of enforcement. In it, it also states how even though most venues such as restaurants and bars in the city are obviously operating their businesses with employees exposed to noise levels that would easily require them to wear noise protection, complaints from workers are pretty much nonexistent. She does make it a point that part of the problem is a lack of awareness, not surprisingly. New York City is notorious for its loud noise level almost anywhere you go.

However, as an employer or employee, one should be well aware of the dangers that come with being exposed to long hours of noise in a long-term effect. Not only can it be annoying, but stress, communication interference, or even hearing loss can occur if safety measures never are taken. No matter the location, industry, or size of a business, all employers have an obligation to protect their workers from any of these possible debilitating hazards.

To view the article, visit http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/nyregion/us-standards-on-workplace-noise-trail-those-of-other-countries.html.

To inquire about noise testing and safety, visit us at https://safetylinks.net/index.php/industrial-hygiene/noise or call us at 407-760-6170.

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This morning, I stumbled upon a great online photo display on a specific photographer's work, Earl Dotter, who spent most of his life documenting the work lives of Americans for more than 30 years now.

The image shown here represents what most of his work's focus has been, which is rigorous hazardous work. He started his career in the late 1960’s, when many miner regulations were not in place, as they are today. He gained more interest in coal miners and their work lives during an assignment to the Cumberland Plateau Region of Tennessee.

In 1972, he was later offered to work for the United Mine Workers in America Journal, where he focused on capturing many coal miners' struggles, from dangerous daily tasks to their struggle with “black lung” cases and workers' rights.

One of his most impacting and praised works, THE QUIET SICKNESS: A Photographic Chronicle of Hazardous Work in America, is a collection of vivid portraits and images of coal miners that does an excellent job at capturing an honest look at the hard work and dangers involved. He later on branched out and began to document other occupational subjects, as well.

One thing is for sure. Viewing Dotter’s images can definitely leave an impacting reminder to all safety leaders of their purpose: to protect all workers from health and safety hazards. If you'd like to see more of his work, take 5 minutes to view Dotter’s work through his website at http://earldotter.com/portfolio/stock/.

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A common question we often receive from our safety partners is: When and where is foot protection required?

The OSHA standards for foot protection are performance-based. In other words they do not specifically explain when foot protection is required they only state that "each affected employee shall wear protective footwear when working in areas where there is a danger of foot injuries due to falling or rolling objects, or objects piercing the sole…”  For that reason it is important to review the type of hazards your employees face in addition to the policies of your customers.

In any case, all safety foot wear must have the proper approval. OSHA originally referred to the ANSI Z41 standard however in 2005, the ANSI Z41 standard was withdrawn and replaced by two new American Society of Testing Material (ASTM) International Standards. The new ASTM standards are F2412-05 Standard Test Methods for Foot Protection and F2413-05 Standard Specification for Performance Requirements for Foot Protection.

So you are probably still wondering when and where is foot protection required...

Typically safety footwear with impact protection would be required for:

Carrying or handling materials such as packages, objects, parts, or heavy tools that could be dropped; and, for other activities where objects might fall onto the feet.

Similarly safety footwear with puncture protection would be required:

Where sharp objects such as nails, wire, tacks, screws, large staples, scrap metal, etc., could be stepped on by employees, causing a foot injury.

Some occupations (not a complete list) for which foot protection should be routinely considered are:

Shipping and receiving clerks, carpenters, electricians, mechanics and repairers, plumbers, drywall installers and lathers, welders, laborers, landscapers, window installers, timber cutting and logging, stock handlers, and warehouse laborers.

Keep in mind that OSHA does not state that approved foot protection is required for these areas/activities; rather, they give you the responsibility for determining what foot protection is necessary and when it is necessary!

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