Thursday, June 29, 2006

July Meeting

The July meeting of the Des Moines Co. Safety Exchange is scheduled for Friday, July 14, at 7:00 am. The meeting will be held in the Grayhound Room, at the Great River Medical Center campus.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Local Tragedy

I'm sure by now most of you are aware of the devastating incident that occurred at one of our member facilities. Two workers are missing and presumed dead at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant after an explosion on Monday.

The folks at the IAAP have been amongst the most active and involved members of the Exchange. Anyone who knows much about the place or the people who work there knows that safety is ingrained in everything that is done. Nothing is done without a written procedure, and every procedure is reviewed for safety. Construction, equipment, and tools must conform to exacting standards and are also reviewed. So how did this happen? Well, that is to be determined. But what we do know can be applied to all of us.

We do know that a highly energetic substance released its energy at an unexpected time and in an unexpected way. All of us have operations that involve large amounts of energy (or at least fatal amounts of energy). If we don't have adequate controls to separate our people from these energy sources, the results can be fatal. The energy of a moving forklift, a working height of eight feet, a truck backing into a dock, a brake press forming metal--all have a sufficient quantity of energy to take away life or limb. Our challenge as safety professionals is to lead efforts to ingrain a safety culture in our work place. People do the right thing even when no one is looking. Hazards are identified and controlled far upstream, before employees are exposed. These are the things let us sleep well at night. As Monday's events showed us, none of us should be resting too easy.

Monday, June 12, 2006

GRMC Wellness Initiative

GRMC is pushing forward with a community-wide initiative to build a "wellness culture" here in the Burlington/West Burlington area. The intiative is called Burlington Partners for a Healthy Community and includes healthcare providers, the Chamber of Commerce, insurance adminstrators, and our Safety Exchange. GRMC has brought in a heavy hitter-Sean Sullivan of the Institute of Health and Productivity Management-to help guide and measure the results of the initiative.

The idea is that communities with a wellness culture are more productive, and that it costs less to do business in such communities. Thus, these communities can use this aspect to market themselves to attract new business, similar to the more traditional measures like a highly educated work force or highly developed infrastructure.

There are opportunities for your company to participate in this exciting project. Contact Jamie Dengler at GMRC if there is interest at your company.

Friday, June 02, 2006

June is National Safety Month

For those who aren't aware, June has been declared National Safety Month. Hopefully, that means that some of our over-worked safety professionals will re-charge their batteries with a well-deserved trip to the ASSE Professional Development Conference in Seattle. For the rest of us, we'll have to settle for Steamboat Days and thinking about new ways to motivate our employees to work safely.

The IA-IL Safety Council has placed a number of educational and motivational materials on their web site www.iisc.org for members. If your company is not a member of the IA-IL Safety Council, perhaps it is time to consider a membership. The cost is based on the number of employees in your company, and can easily be recovered in savings on training materials, conferences, and promotional items.

It is interesting how media focus influences the perceptions of the public. The National Safety Council recently conducted a survey of workers' greatest safety concerns. Violent crime and natural disasters tied as the leading concerns at 59% of workers surveyed. Unintentional injuries followed at 55%. The Council points out that in reality, 16,134 people were murdered and 234 people died in natural disasters while more than 110,000 died in accidents (2004 data). The survey also points out that most people feel safer in their home than they do at work. The numbers show that in 2004, about 5,000 lost their lives at work, while off-the-job injuries claimed more than 44,000. Of course, most of these incidents don't make the news.