Coal Mine Safety and Health

[Excerpt] Safety in the coal mining industry is much improved compared to the early decades of the twentieth century, a time when hundreds of miners could lose their lives in a single accident and more than 1,000 fatalities could occur in a single year. Fatal injuries associated with coal mine accidents fell almost continually between 1925 and 2005, when they reached an all-time low of 23. As a result of 12 deaths at West Virginia’s Sago mine and fatalities at other coal mines in 2006, however, the number of fatalities more than doubled to 47. Fatalities declined a year later to 33, which is comparable to levels achieved during the late 1990s. In addition to the well above-average fatal injury rates they face, coal miners suffer from occupationally caused diseases. Prime among them is black lung (coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, CWP), which still claims about 1,000 fatalities annually. Although improved dust control requirements have led to a decrease in the prevalence of CWP, there is recent evidence of advanced cases among miners who began their careers after the stronger standards went into effect in the early 1970s. In addition, disagreement persists over the current respirable dust limits and the degree of compliance with them by mine operators. In the wake of the January 2006 Sago mine accident, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) was criticized for its slow pace of rulemaking earlier in the decade. MSHA standard-setting activity quickened starting later that year, however, after enactment in June of the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (MINER, P.L. 109-236). The MINER act, the first major amendment to federal mine safety law since 1977, emphasized factors thought to have played a role in the Sago disaster (e.g., emergency oxygen supplies, post-accident communication and tracking systems, deployment of rescue teams) and imposed several rulemaking deadlines on MSHA. Accordingly, the agency published final regulations on emergency mine evacuation in December 2006, civil penalties in March 2007, and rescue teams as well as asbestos exposure in February 2008. Some policymakers remain dissatisfied with MSHA’s performance. These sentiments most recently led to House passage, in January 2008, of the Supplemental Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (S-MINER, H.R. 2768). It incorporates language from the Miner Health Enhancement Act (H.R. 2769), such as requiring MSHA to adopt as mandatory exposure limits the voluntary limits (to chemical hazards, for example) recommended by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. S-MINER also requires MSHA to more closely review and monitor operator plans that include retreat mining, the practice used at Utah’s Crandall Canyon mine where six miners and three rescuers lost their lives in 2007. The President has said he will veto S-MINER as passed by the House. In light of rulemaking activity required this year by the MINER act and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008 (P.L. 110-161), MSHA asked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for assistance. Congress increased MSHA’s appropriation between FY2007 ($302 million) and FY2008 ($334 million). The Administration’s FY2009 budget request for MSHA is $332 million

The new challenges of the manufacturing industry applying the norm ISO 45001:2018

The present work reflects the impact that the manufacturing industries must solve in the application of the ISO 45001: 2018 Standard on Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems. In such, a globalized market where human and material assets must be preserved for the survival of organizations, management systems based on continuous improvement play an important role in ensuring compliance with applicable legal requirements, risk management and the opportunities, as well as the achievement of the best working conditions. The manufacturing industry has not been alien to this evolution; the nature of the risks present in the different industries, the operations carried out, the machinery, the use of work teams and their processes make this sector a priority and strategic sector that should be at the forefront of new technologies and rules. The implementation of the ISO 45001: 2018 standard in the manufacturing industry is a challenge for the implementation of high-level management systems that guarantee a healthy and safe environment for workers and a strategic and operational decision from the business point of view based on improving the performance of health and safety at work and increasing competitiveness in an increasingly demanding market.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Current Approaches of Occupational and Safety Health Management in Work Environments Containing Nanoparticles

The development of nanotechnology is particularly in recent years very dynamic and is applied in many not only technical branches. This is not possible to say about monitoring of possible health and environmental undesirable influence. The first area of possible risk assessment is work environment because there is a lot of possible ways to exposition. The aim of the paper is to analyze current situation in the field of occupational safety and health management in the workspace with occurrence of nanoparticles not only like the engineered nanomaterials. Because there is a lot of influence which could have the negative impact on the employee's healt

Towards Age-Friendly Work in Europe: A Life-Course Perspective on Work and Ageing from EU Agencies

[Excerpt] The European population is ageing owing to decreasing birth rates and increasing longevity. Population ageing is associated with a decrease in the size and ageing of the workforce. The majority of the EU Member States have reacted to this development by, among other measures, increasing retirement ages and limiting early access to pensions. Nevertheless, a large percentage of workers in the EU do not stay in employment until the official retirement age. The reasons for this are diverse, and will be examined in more detail in this report. Policy-makers are faced with the challenge of addressing this demographic change and its implications for employment, working conditions, living standards and the sustainability of welfare states. The working conditions of older workers and their participation in the labour market are affected by various policy areas (see also Table 1). This report aims to outline various aspects of the working conditions of the ageing workforce and related policies

The analysis safety and health risks of workers in the municipal solid waste landfill in Malaysia

The aim of the paper is to reflect the findings from a case study conducted on the awareness to the operation of the municipal solid waste landfill. The study focused on safety and health risks for workers in the municipal solid waste landfill in Malaysia. Workers involved in and face occupational health and safety hazards which are as diverse as the materials they are handling. The study was conducted to identify the safety and health risks to their workers and implementation of appropriate exposure prevention or control measures. The information analysis throughout the research was gathered from survey conducted on a few key personnel of the company. Finally, the study draws several relationships between operation of municipal solid waste landfill in Malaysia and safety and health risk for workers and reflects several recommendations for further research

Training Competences in Industrial Risk Prevention with Lego® Serious Play®: A Case Study

This paper proposes the use of the Lego® Serious Play® (LSP) methodology as a facilitating tool for the introduction of competences for Industrial Risk Prevention by engineering students from the industrial branch (electrical, electronic, mechanical and technological engineering), presenting the results obtained in the Universities of Cadiz and Seville in the academic years 2017–2019. Current Spanish legislation does not reserve any special legal attribution, nor does it require specific competence in occupational risk prevention for the regulated profession of a technical industrial engineer (Order CIN 351:2009), and only does so in a generic way for that of an industrial engineer (Order CIN 311:2009). However, these universities consider the training in occupational health and safety for these future graduates as an essential objective in order to develop them for their careers in the industry. The approach is based on a series of challenges proposed (risk assessments, safety inspections, accident investigations and fire protection measures, among others), thanks to the use of “gamification” dynamics with Lego® Serious Play®. In order to carry the training out, a set of specific variables (industrial sector, legal and regulatory framework, business organization and production system), and transversal ones (leadership, teamwork, critical thinking and communication), are incorporated. Through group models, it is possible to identify dangerous situations, establish causes, share and discuss alternative proposals and analyze the economic, environmental and organizational impact of the technical solutions studied, as well as take the appropriate decisions, in a creative, stimulating, inclusive and innovative context. In this way, the theoretical knowledge which is acquired is applied to improve safety and health at work and foster the prevention of occupational risks, promoting the commitment, effort, motivation and proactive participation of the student teams.Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities / European Social Fund: Ramón y Cajal contract (RYC-2017-22222

The Psychosocial Work Environment, Employee Mental Health and Organizational Interventions: Improving Research and Practice by Taking a Multilevel Approach

Although there have been several calls for incorporating multiple levels of analysis in employee health and wellbeing research, studies examining the interplay between individual, workgroup, organizational and broader societal factors in relation to employee mental health outcomes remain an exception rather than the norm. At the same time, organizational intervention research and practice also tends to be limited by a single-level focus, omitting potentially important influences at multiple levels of analysis. The aims of this conceptual paper are to help progress our understanding of work-related determinants of employee mental health by: (i) providing a rationale for routine multilevel assessment of the psychosocial work environment; (ii) discussing how a multilevel perspective can improve related organizational interventions and (iii) highlighting key theoretical and methodological considerations relevant to these aims. We present five recommendations for future research, relating to using appropriate multilevel research designs, justifying group level constructs, developing group-level measures, expanding investigations to the organizational level, and developing multilevel approaches to intervention design, implementation and evaluation

Perspectives on safety culture

Overviewing selected elements from the literature, this paper locates the notion of safety culture within its parent concept of organisational culture. A distinction is drawn between functionalist and interpretive perspectives on organisational culture. The terms ‘culture’ and ‘climate’ are clarified as they are typically applied to organisations and to safety. A contrast is drawn between strategic top down and data-driven bottom up approaches to human factors as an illustrative aspect of safety. A safety case study is used to illustrate two measurement approaches. Key issues for future study include valid measurement of safety culture and developing methods to adequately represent mechanisms through which safety culture might influence, and be influenced by, other safety factors

Healthcare Management Primer

This primer was written by students enrolled in HMP 721.01, Management of Health Care Organizations, in the Health Management & Policy Program, College of Health and Human Services, University of New Hampshire. This course was taught by Professor Mark Bonica in Fall 2017