Production Machining - Your access to the precision machining industrial buyer.
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productionmachining.com :: 17 2 weeks on that job were safety training and shadowing on safety audits. Tere are many ways to get injured or killed in steel plants where everything is larger, tougher and has more horsepower than a human, not to mention exposure to ex- tremely high temperatures (molten or red hot steel) or in the case of the lab—hazardous acids and toxic chemicals. Paying attention to safety was how we sustained our business, by protecting the health and well-being of our employees. In the precision machining shops I visit, owners and managers see safety the same way, as a means to protect their employees and assure that the business is not endan- gered by consequences of catastrophe. Our precision ma- chining industry has a lower DART rate than our fabricated metals sector, even as we use many of the same processes. Te idea that reporting injuries and illnesses is a "right" is absurd. Te OSHA General Duty Clause clearly states that it is an obligation or duty: "Each employee shall comply with occupational safety and health R eporting of injuries and illnesses is not a right. It is an obligation of the employee to report and a responsibility of the employer to record, investigate and take appropriate remedial actions to retrain as necessary and to remove any hazards identifed. I just fnished preparing comments on OSHA's latest Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding "Improved Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses." In this notice, without actually proposing any regulatory language for employers to review and provide comments, they propose to: 1. Require that employers inform their employees of their right to report injuries and illnesses. 2. Require that any injury and illness reporting requirements established by the employer be reasonable and not unduly burdensome. 3. Prohibit employers from taking adverse action against employees for reporting injuries and illnesses. Te idea that shop managers are somehow trying to discourage reporting of injuries and illnesses is a foreign concept to me. My frst supervisory job was as a laboratory supervisor at United States Steel; I can tell you that my frst Reporting Injuries and Illnesses: On-the-Job Obligation, Not a 'Right' • Reporting Injuries and Illnesses: On-the-Job Obligation, Not a 'Right' • PMPA Announces New President Tom Bernstein • Save the Date • Craftsman's Cribsheet : Technical • Listserve Topics • PMPA Calendar By Miles Free, Director of Industry Research and Technology, PMPA :: mfree@pmpa.org Continued on page 20