Workplace Violence Prevention

[Excerpt] How well is your workplace addressing violence prevention?* Let’s start with your workplace’s definition: “workplace violence” brings to mind fights, physical or sexual attacks, murder, property damage, or arson; and certainly acts of terrorism. Does your policy include the unauthorized possession of firearms, explosives, or other weapons at work? Does your program’s policy cover verbal as well as physical issues? OSHA and NIOSH have recommended including verbal harassment and threats -- face-to-face, in writing, or electronically – as these are not only problems in themselves, but also could escalate to other forms of violence

Accommodating the Allergic Employee in the Workplace

[Excerpt] Once an employer learns an applicant or employee is allergic, and in need of an accommodation, the employer may be required by the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide the needed accommodation. The allergic worker may be able to respond to low levels of exposure, levels which may be lower than the relevant occupational exposure limits set by OSHA or recommended by agencies such as NIOSH or organizations such as the ACGIH. Accommodating the allergic employee would therefore generally involve reducing exposure further by providing specific protection for the sensitive individual, such as additional protective equipment which the average (nonallergic) worker probably wouldn\u27t need. Protective equipment could involve the use of respirators for respiratory protection or protective clothing (such as gloves) or barrier creams for skin protection. The use of respirators would involve employer compliance with OSHA\u27s Respiratory Protection Standard (29 CFR 1910.134) including the use of a physical to determine whether a worker could wear a respirator. Battery-powered respirators may enable those with pulmonary or cardiovascular problems to still use a respirator. Respirators made of silicone may enable someone to wear a respirator who has a rubber allergy (such as an allergy to mercaptobenzothiazole)

Communicable Diseases and the Workplace

[Excerpt] Coming to work when we are sick raises some interesting questions: How contagious are we? Should we stay home? What could be done to prevent disease transmission to others, with its effects on absenteeism, performance, and efficiency, as well as in the interests of public health? Is working from home an option? Shouldn’t the employer provide sick leave or flextime to discourage working when sick? Without sick leave, aren’t people more likely to go to work sick, as well as send sick kids to school? Should an employer sponsor, or even require, vaccinations? When trying to change policy and attitudes on communicable infectious diseases in the workplace, there is a good business case to be made. Workplaces traditionally plan for a variety of crises – especially infrastructure damage and its recovery – but planning and prevention for diseases seems to get overlooked, despite its very significant cost in both human suffering and dollars. Some diseases that have had a costly impact on businesses include mumps, measles, norovirus, SARS, tuberculosis, and whooping cough

Health Hazard Manual for Firefighters

[Excerpt] Firefighters, as well as victims, can be exposed to a variety of toxic substances during a fire. Some of these toxicants are particularly insidious because they are produced by thermal decomposition before smoke makes a fire evident

Causes of Poor Indoor Air Quality and What You Can Do About It

This brochure is one of a series on human resources practices and workplace accommodations for persons with disabilities edited by Susanne M. Bruyère, Ph.D., CRC, Director, Employment and Disability Institute, Cornell University ILR School.It was updated in 2010 by Nellie Brown, M.S., CIH, Statewide Director, Workplace Health and Safety Program, Cornell University ILR School, from her original, which she wrote in 1994 and first updated in 2002

Crisis Management

[Excerpt] It’s no longer a matter of WHETHER a crisis will happen or not, it’s a matter of WHAT TYPE it is and WHEN it occurs. An organization (and its union) that can manage and recover from a crisis demonstrates competence – the results can mean survival, growth, and profitability , which also means preserving and growing jobs while building reputations and trust

Occupational Asthma or Work-Related Exacerbation of Asthma

[Excerpt] Occupational asthma is asthma due to work exposures. It can be caused by a specific workplace agent with a specific immune system response – the agent is called a sensitizer. It has been recommended that whenever an adult experiences new-onset asthma, occupational asthma should be suspected. The respiratory symptoms of occupational asthma include wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, cough, and sputum production. While these are similar to asthma that is not work-related, these symptoms occur due to a work-related exposure

Health Hazard Manual For Cutting Oils, Coolants, and Metalworking Fluids

[Excerpt] The metalworker can be exposed to cutting oils during application by two basic routes of entry: skin contact and inhalation. The higher risk jobs tend to be those with high cutting speeds, heavy oil flow, and continuous contact, which may result in the worker being splashed with oil on the skin or clothing. The oil may remain on the skin for some time and oil-soaked clothing may be worn all shift. Cutting oils may be applied manually, by an air-carried mist, or by a continuous flood. When flooding is used, the oil is delivered by a pump, piping, and nozzle to the cutting zone. With this method the tool, work, and chip are flooded. (Used fluid is then collected in the chip pan and returned by gravity to the pump sump.) Inhalation of cutting oil mists may occur because of the nature of coolant delivery or because of the high temperatures and speeds generated at the cutting tool\u27s working edge. When the mist stream method of coolant delivery is used, much of it evaporates on contact with the hot tool, workpiece or chip. In addition to the intentional production of oil mists, vaporized oil can also be generated by the forces of the rapidly spinning workpiece or tool, or by the vaporization of the fluid from the heat of the cutting process

Lyme Disease and the Workplace

{Excerpt] Lyme disease, an infection by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, was named after a Connecticut town where a group of arthritis cases in children appeared in the early 1970s. These bacteria are carried by infected blacklegged ticks and are transmitted to humans through tick bites. While deer feed ticks and spread them around — actually mice infect the majority of ticks carrying Lyme in the Northeast. A mouse might have dozens of ticks covering its ears and face and can infect up to 95% of those ticks. Climate change is part of the surge in Lyme disease cases, but a big factor has been the history of land use in the Northeast. When the area was first settled, early farmers clear-cut nearly all of the forests to plant crops and raise livestock, as well as cutting down trees for commercial use and for firewood. While a lot of forest has come back, today it\u27s broken up by roads, farms, and housing developments. Mice tend to thrive in these fragmented landscapes because their predators -- foxes, hawks, owls -- need big forests to survive

Preventing High-Pressure Injection Injury: A Hazard of Hydraulics and Pneumatics

[Excerpt] A high-pressure injection injury involves air, fluid, or solids forced into the skin by high pressure. Typically these occur when we feel for leaks with our fingers, such as when air or hot hydraulic fluid is forced into the skin by high pressure from a leak in a high-pressure line. Another example is the painter using a paint gun with so high of a pneumatic pressure that it twisted around in his hand and injected paint and solvents into his abdomen. So many of these injuries happen in the hands and fingers when feeling for leaks, but there have been cases such as someone searching for leaks with the tongue (ouch!), or listening for leaks producing an injury into the side of the face, or being struck by a detached hydraulic hose whipping around in the air