Tag Archives: employers responsibility

Eye Protection, Fall Safety, General Safety Issues, Hand Protection, Head Protection, Hearing Protection

WORK RELATED SAFETY – A KEY CONCERN FOR COMPANIES (GUEST POST)

You’re running a company, earning heavy profits. Apart from aiming on the profits, how much concerned your company is for those who are the unsung heroes of your company’s success. It’s the time you, as a company, did something for their safety as their lives have no substitute. 

Read on to know the safety guidelines your company can adhere to raise the productivity of both, the employees and the company as whole.

1). Working Environment

It’s extremely vital for a company to get its employees an environment they feel good working in. These seemingly trivial, but important things are:

  • Floors need to be spick and span
  • Machineries should be rust and dust free.
  • A hygienic canteen is crucial since unhealthy food makes employees prone to the various diseases.
  • Friendly relations among the employees, HR manager and the boss. 

2) Protection at work area

Operating machinery, make sure, if your employee is familiar with the basics of the machine operation. Ignoring this thing can pose a threat, both to the employee and machinery.

Maintain decorum, making it mandatory for every employee to be fully equipped while working. Be it, gloves, goggles, vest, hard hats or any other safety gears required to be put on, the workers be told to comply with that regulation.

Imposing fines on the violators will certainly keep a check on the indiscipline. Tell the employees about the consequences of drinking alcohol at work that impairs the safe operation of the machineries and makes the employees susceptible to injuries.

Safety at work also needs clarifying about the kind of tasks an employee is supposed to do. He should be detailed about the manuals of the machines and all the possible dos and don’ts. Most accidental cases have also revealed; the employees are often made to work on a machine without thorough detailing that makes a way for such accidents to happen.

Interactive sessions and meeting should be held before you call it a day. As a company’s leader, you’re expected to interact with the rest of the team, acquiring the knowledge about how the things are going on. A few minutes of get-together will undeniably help the employees raise safety issues they’ve been facing for long periods of time.

3) Safety programs:

What kind of safety program your company follows and what the guidelines are that have been included in it, are the critical issues. Arrange a meeting after a few months or so with the employees and HR manager, keeping all of them updated about the safety guidelines. Conducting a safety drill in the company will certainly clear out the things as, then, the employees will get to know what exactly they need to do in urgency. Asking the employees about the guidelines mentioned in the safety program will show how much they know what to do on the practical grounds. It includes:

In case of emergency, how to get an ambulance at the earliest and which hospital in the locale they would rush.

Specify about the load’s maximum limit the employee can carry since the most accidents occur while carrying overloads at the back.

Detailing them when to use a wheelbarrow, conveyor belt, forklifts and other machines will certainly curtail the risk getting your employees injured.

The company needs to bring some positive alterations, revising the safety programs, especially according to the suggestions made by those employees, who often come face-to-face with the hazardous situations.

In a nutshell, a company strikes pay dirt and remains in the pink of health, only if its employees feel healthy and safe. 

 

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Fall Safety, General Safety Issues, Head Protection, Protective Clothing

SAFETY OF MARITIME WORKERS: DO YOU KNOW YOUR RIGHTS? (GUEST POST)

Written by Saam Banai.

Every industry has workplace hazards, although some industries are more hazardous than others. Maritime occupations such as crab fishing rank as some of the most dangerous in existence. This is due to the unique variety of threats faced at sea and limited medical facilities. To exacerbate matters, receiving compensation for an injury at sea can be difficult.

Common Threats at Sea

Maritime workers face a variety of threats at sea, the least of which are the mundane threats faced by workers in any industry. Slip and fall accidents, injuries from overexertion, and even intentional acts caused by coworkers are all hazards while at sea. Due to the physically intensive nature of work at sea and the presence of excessive moisture, these ordinary threats become magnified for sailors.

Work at sea also entails threats unique to the ocean. The ship itself is one potential threat. Moving nets can snag workers, causing falls, muscle strains, broken bones, or even ejection over the side of the ship. Other moving equipment can cause blunt force trauma of any severity, including death. Unlike most working environments, ships are also at risk of sinking, thereby exposing workers to frigid waters and potentially harsh waves.

Exposure to severe weather is another hazard at sea. Severe winds can send equipment flying into workers or even send the workers overboard. Large waves can destabilize the employee’s footing, causing falls. In freezing temperatures, accumulated ice that becomes dislodged from the ship can also become a flying weapon.

Employer Duties and Employee Recourse for Injuries at Sea

The nature of an employer’s duty to its employees varies depending upon the nature of the vessel. The United States Coast Guard regulates fishing vessels while the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, otherwise known as OSHA, regulates the remainder of the industry and shipyards.  Employers regulated by OSHA are expected to provide employees with certain equipment, such as helmets and fall restraints, otherwise, our maritime injury lawyer tells us, they might be liable for negligence. Employers not regulated by OSHA will have less restrictive requirements.

The United States has a sophisticated workers’ compensation and tort system that will remedy most complaints. The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 extended this system to sailors, permitting them to bring actions for negligence and other traditional torts against the owner of the ship, the captain, or other individuals who committed the tortious acts. The action may be filed in state or federal court like any other tort action.

Actions for negligence require a showing that the actor breached a duty of care. The standard duty of care is to act reasonably. If the injured party is injured as a result of another party failing to act reasonably, then the injured party may recover for damages like any other plaintiff. Failing to comply with regulations may also constitute a breach of the duty. The defense will also contest the other elements of negligence, such as causation and injury.

In practice, recovering for injuries suffered at work while at sea can be more complicated. Vessels are routinely registered out of different countries and assigned for different purposes. There are also certain limitations as to what constitutes a sailor under the Merchant Marine Act. Anyone injured at sea should contact an attorney specializing in admiralty law. An attorney can give legal advice to injured plaintiffs and help them understand their options for recovery, if any. 

Saam Banai is a freelance writer, editor, and certified sailor.  He contributes this article for Doyle Raizner LLP, trial lawyers experienced in maritime law. Having a maritime injury lawyer on your side in the event of a work accident at sea might mean the difference between receiving compensation or not receiving compensation.

Thank you, Saam, for another informative article. I didn’t know that fishing vessels were regulated by the U.S. Coast Guard rather than OSHA.  It would seem that these industries would provide the proper safety supplies for their workers, because it is such a dangerous occupation.

Eye Protection, General Safety Issues, Protective Clothing

LAW REQUIRING PPE PROVISIONS ISN’T ENFORCED BY EMPLOYERS (GUEST POST)

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is defined as personal and protective specifically against the hazard or hazards that have been identified. PPE must be compatible and work effectively with other equipment. Correct PPE equipment is required to ensure that employees are protected from injury or disease through their work and provides a last line of defence when other risk management strategies have failed in some way. 

PPE is legally the responsibility of employers within the UK. The law currently emphasizes that employers must provide their staff with free of charge PPE. However, a recent TUC article has highlighted that over one in five workers are being forced into providing or replacing PPE equipment that they needed for their work. This is relevant particularly across the electrician and construction industries. 

Notably out of these, the survey highlighted that 11.6% of workers were required to use safety equipment at work and yet it was not provided or paid for by their employer. An additional 8.9% were responsible for any damage or replacements for employer provided PPE. 

An example would be the need to invest in good quality Arc Flash Hood in a usable and working condition as is essential for many electricians; the expense of which should be footed entirely by employers as dictated by the law. 

Compounding the poor levels of PPE provision there are two further factors to consider: 

  • Employers, where they do offer PPE, often buy low quality PPE of a standard size in an attempt to maximise profit through minimising costs. Employees therefore find that they are limited to uncomfortable, incorrectly sized PPE which is not effective against hazards and therefore often buy their own equipment. 
  • Within the current market place many workers within the construction or electrical engineering sector are now termed as self-employed, or are working through an agency. This enables employers to shirk around the law regarding satisfactory PPE and increasingly opens the doors to the requirement of self-funding for PPE provision. 

Interestingly, the law also goes as far as to state that every employer should ensure that all PPE provided is fully maintained (including replaced or cleaned where appropriate). This means kept in good repair and in efficient working order. With this in mind it’s also perhaps surprising to learn that a staggering 60% of those with employer provided PPE that requires regular cleaning are held responsible for the task. Their employers made no investment or provision for cleaning of PPE equipment. 

Unfairly, it seems that it’s most often than not workers from lower paid roles that are held responsible for the costs, and disproportionately it is female employees that are required to provide their own attire. This means there are many newly qualified electricians having to spend money they can least afford gaining test and commission, cherry-picking other types of certificates as well as investing in or maintaining their  Electrical PPE in order to make themselves more employable. 

Naturally the electrical companies currently benefit a lot from the individuals’ efforts to land work and are happy with the current situation. Until the law is backed up through pressure on companies, including those in the construction industry, to employ on a PAYE basis things look set to remain problematic. There is already little enforcement of the existing law and as a result many are forced to pay from their own pocket or go without, which is unthinkable within the construction industry. The government’s future plans to reduce the number of workplace inspections are set to increase the chance of the situation getting worse for the little guy before there’s any improvement.

Sent to us by Pete Clydesdale, of Clydesdale.net.  Pete, thanks so much for pointing out that many contractors do not furnish the correct ppe for the employees, or none at all.  In the U.S., OSHA has very much the same regulations, and through inspections they have penalized many companies for these violations.  It is lawful that every person have the right to safe working places and the correct protection. 

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