Content about Osha

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is “struggling” with incentive programs that recognize employers for exemplary efforts in preventing workplace injuries and illnesses, Richard E. Fairfax, deputy assistant U.S. labor secretary, told an audience of Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) members on Tuesday.

Fairfax, speaking to TRSA’s Leadership & Legislative Conference, said limited resources have prevented OSHA from expanding these efforts after they grew significantly in recent years, particularly during President George W. Bush’s administration.

In more recent years, OSHA has concentrated on evaluating their effectiveness. “I think the world of the program,” Fairfax says of the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP), but he indicated that such endeavors might need better quality control.

The VPP, Safety & Health Achievement and Recognition Program (SHARP) and other honors awarded to employers, including many in the textile service industry, are under evaluation by an OSHA team Fairfax appointed last summer. “I told them to take as long as they want, to do a top-to-bottom review,” he says.

In the meantime, he urged employers to take advantage of other compliance assistance programs, such as the free OSHA consultation service for companies with 250 workers or less. Agency personnel who visit a business and find violations don’t notify the federal office of these unless the location’s management refuses to fix them. This program saw a budget increase in 2011, Fairfax notes. Each OSHA area office employs a compliance assistance specialist who performs these inspections.

“Our senior and best compliance officers have moved into those positions,” he explains. “They’re not allowed to do anything in enforcement.” They exist for training and outreach and usually “all it takes is a phone call to the office” to involve them in a voluntary compliance effort.

Fairfax also pointed out that the agency hopes to increase its use of private-sector safety pros to help with other employers’ preventive efforts. In this special government employee (SGE) program, such an individual receives three days of free OSHA training, and then participates annually as a member of an OSHA team evaluating other companies’ safety procedures. The agency wants to increase the number of SGEs who can help permanent OSHA staff work with employers in preventive efforts.

Fairfax’s presentation included numerous statistics on the agency’s enforcement activities in 2011, such as a leveling of inspection totals from the prior year (down about 300 to 40,600) and a 6,000 decline in violations to 91,000. The textile services business had no willful or repeat violations, a rarity among industries, Fairfax says.

Those findings are consistent with TRSA’s SafeTRSA education and benchmarking program, which has logged results of improved safety practices among member companies during the past five years:

• 42% reduction in total recordable injuries and illnesses rate (TRIR)
• One-third reduction in DART Rate (days away from work, restrictions or transfers)
• Most recent annual improvement of 5% in TRIR and 2.5% in DART rate

RICHMOND, Va. — Cintas Corp.’s Chester, Va., facility has received the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) “Star” worksite designation from the Virginia Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the agency’s highest recognition for the practice of and commitment to exemplary occupational safety and health.

It is the third Cintas uniform rental operation to receive the coveted status, and the fourth company-wide.

“This type of achievement can only be realized when everyone is working together for one common goal,” says Howard Baron, general manager of Cintas in Chester, near Richmond. “To say I’m proud of my team would be an understatement. It’s a great accomplishment that is deserved by a great group of employee-partners.”

“Receiving the VPP ‘Star’ award here in the state of Virginia is no small feat. Every year, only a small number of companies are awarded this status,” says Jim Cheng, Virginia’s secretary of commerce and trade.

As a facility with leading safety and health practices, the Chester uniform rental facility constantly integrates improvements to its safety and health programs. Cintas employs 120 people in Chester and 1,000 statewide.

CHANDLER, Ariz. — The Chandler facility of national uniform services provider Cintas Corp. has been accepted as an Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) “Star” site, the agency’s highest recognition for the practice of, and commitment to, world-class occupational safety and health.

Cintas says it is the first industrial launderer in the United States to receive the Star certification.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued fact sheets designed to help employers and workers promote safety during the current H1N1 influenza outbreak.

The fact sheets include information on ways to reduce the risk of exposure to the H1N1 virus in the workplace. OSHA also offers additional fact sheets for healthcare workers and others who carry out tasks that require close contact with H1N1 patients, including hospital laundry workers.

NEW YORK — The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a consent judgment ordering Party Rental Enterprises Inc. of Auburn, N.Y., doing business as Able Linen Service, and Daryle Logudice, the company’s chief executive officer, to compensate an employee who was fired for filing a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) about potentially unsafe conditions at the laundry.

AUSTIN, Texas — The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued citations with proposed penalties totaling $149,100 to Texas Linen Co. Ltd. in Austin, Texas, for one willful, 43 alleged serious and one other-than-serious safety violations.

RICHMOND, Ky. — Administrators and managers of laundry processing facilities always have safety on their minds. As industry publications announce the latest injury or fatality, management scrambles to assess their operation’s vulnerability and evaluate their policies in the fear that their laundry could be next.

NEWARK, N.J. — The deaths of two Linden laundry workers, overcome by chemical fumes last month while cleaning a tank, yesterday brought a congressional subcommittee to that city to hear calls for empowering workers to help police workplace safety — and imposing tougher sanctions on employers who endanger the lives of their workers.

WASHINGTON — The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on Thursday proposed $2.78 million in penalties against Ohio-based Cintas Corp. following an investigation into an employee death at the company’s Tulsa, Okla., laundry facility.

Eleazar Torres-Gomez, 46, was killed March 6 when he fell into an operating industrial dryer while clearing a jam of wet laundry on a conveyor that carries the laundry from the washer into the dryer.