Reporting Near Miss Incidents - We Can All Learn From Them

On 10/25/12, one of our employees had a near miss incident that could have led to an injury.  A framer advised that he was down on his knees using a hammer to scrape and chisel away the concrete floor to remove nails and debris so they could install bottom track.  He said that there was some yellow plastic embedded in the old concrete floor but it was difficult to make out exactly what the plastic strip was.  As he was chiseling away to get the yellow plastic strip removed from the concrete floor, it blew up.  It happened to be a strip of yellow shot from a fastener gun.  The framer said that gun powder, dust and probably small pieces of concrete debris flew up into his face and his arms.  He said that he was not bleeding and not in actual pain, however, he could feel it on his face and arms where the debris flew into him.  The framer said that thank goodness he was wearing safety glasses because you never know what might have happened.  He said he had dust all over his face except for where the safety glasses were.  The framer said that he would not require medical care, however, he just wanted to report it the incident.

The concrete floor was poured during a previous year’s renovation and the yellow shot strip was left behind embedded in the concrete floor prior to us starting work at this project. 

Moving forward, our employees at the project don’t know if there are anymore live shots in the yellow strip.  We advised our employees to not touch the yellow shot strip any further and that we would notify the general contractor of the incident and ask for them to have the yellow shot strip removed. 

A few hours later, I called the framer back to see how he was doing.  The framer advised that he is fine and that his face and arms feel better than when we talked earlier.  The framer further advised that a laborer from the general contractor removed the embedded yellow shot from the concrete floor so this hazard is over and done. 

What can we take away from the near miss incident?  That wearing safety glasses may have prevented a serious eye injury or at least prevented our employee from needing medical treatment on his eyes.  Anytime an employee is using a tool to chip away at concrete, safety glasses are required to be worn. The positive that came out of this story is a 1^st hand account from an employee who was doing the right thing and wearing safety glasses when performing a task that would require them and the safety glasses did their job and protected his eyes.  So if you find yourself using tools to chip away at materials, you need to wear safety glasses.  Also, if you are chipping away at something that you aren’t exactly sure what it is, seek out a 2^nd or 3^rd opinion before proceeding. 

Thank goodness our employee is o.k. after this incident!

Quarterly Safety Meeting Set for 12/1/12!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employee:  This is just a notice to advise that we have scheduled our 4th and final quarterly safety meeting of 2012 on Saturday, December 1st at 7:00am.  We have not yet selected the safety meeting topic.  We will keep updates coming as we get closer to the meeting date.  Please mark your calendars and plan on attending.  Our quarterly safety meetings are what set the tone for our whole safety culture.  Please help spread the word so we can obtain a 100% turn out at the meeting. If you have any questions regarding the upcoming safety meeting, please contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham.  You can e-mail him at pgraham@4idi.com.

Have a Safe Day!

2 Weeks Left in October - Our Safest Year on Record!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees:  Counting today, we have 2 weeks left in the month of October at which time, at the end of the month, we end another fiscal year at International Decorators.  If we can work the next 2 weeks in an injury-free manner, we will have completed our safest year on record over the past 13 years.  A lot can happen in a 2 week period so we cannot let our guard down.  We are reaching out to everyone to heighten everyone's awareness to do everything in your power to not get injured and/or to stop someone from getting injured.  If you see someone committing an unsafe act or if you see someone doing something the wrong way which has the potential to cause injury, we are asking you to reach out to the person and stop them.  We want you to stop them for their own safety, for their loved ones and for the company.  In these tough economic times, we just can't afford injuries.  In these tough economic times, employees can't afford injuries.  When an employee sustains a work related injury, no good ever comes from it.  The injured worker loses out on wage earnings.  Under the Illinois Workers Compensation Act, an injured worker receives 2/3rds of their normal wages while he/she is deemed off work by a doctor.  That means that an injured worker is receiving 1/3rd less pay which is a large chunk of money.  Not only are you losing some wage earnings, you are also typically in pain from the injury.  God forbid if your injury is of a serious nature and you are off work for an extended period of time as this can really affect the injured worker and their family.

For the sake or yourself, your loved ones and for International Decorators, lets work together as a team and not allow for any more injuries.  We need to be in the mind set that injuries are just not acceptable.  When an injury occurs, there is typically a very good or very bad reason as to why the injury occurred.  We can't just accept that an injury occurred because "I had the wrong equipment," or "my equipment was defective," or "I cut my hand on a steel stud because I wasn't wearing gloves," etc.  There is always a root cause as to why an injury occurred and we need to sometimes ask why 3 to 5 times to get to the root cause.

"I sustained an eye injury."  Why?  "Because the darn cheap concrete broke and a piece of concrete flew into my eye while I was using a Trakfast gun to fasten a pin."  Why weren't you wearing safety glasses?  "Because we didn't have a box of safety glasses in our gangbox." Why again?  "Because I didn't want to waste International Decorator's money by taking the time to stop working and locate a pair of safety glasses."  Why?  "Because I figured I only had to fasten a few pins and it would only take me 5 minutes and it would have taken me 5 to 10 minutes to locate a pair of safety glasses."  Why again?  "Because I was not planning ahead that I would be using a Trakfast gun and making sure I had the necessary personal protective equipment ahead of time."  Why again?  "I just figured that it was only one time and I was shooting a few pins and I just didn't think that safety glasses were that important."

The bottom line was that the root cause of this injury was not the cheap concrete.  The root cause of the injury was simply that the injured worker didn't follow a company policy requiring safety glasses when using a Trakfast fastener tool.

The bottom line also is that we cannot take short cuts on safety as this is typically when things go bad!  Plan ahead when it comes to protecting yourself and don't commit an unsafe act just because you don't have a pair of safety glasses with you exactly when you need them. If you have Trakfast fastener tools at your job site, this means that eye protection will be needed. Maybe safety glasses had been stocked at the job site and we ran out?  Someone then needs to request more.  Maybe we never did stock the job site with safety glasses?  Again, someone at the job site needs to request some?  We cannot make excuses for injuries occurring.  We need to find out the root cause and then prevent this same type of injury from reoccurring.

By the way, the above accident is hypothetical and did not occur at I.D.I.  We all know better to plan ahead and wear safety glasses while using a fastener tool!

Have a Safe Day!

Mini-Perry Mobile Workstands - Weight Capacities!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees:  We often use mini-Perry mobile workstands to stand and work on.  They are a very handy piece of equipment for increasing an employee's work height as they are more portable and quicker to set up than a baker type scaffold.  These smaller scaffolds are easy to move in and out of rooms and can be carried easier in employee's vehicles.  Because the mini-Perry scaffolds are smaller than baker type scaffolds, they have a much lighter duty weight capacity rating than the baker scaffolds.  The baker scaffolds are rated at a 1,000 lb weight capacity when using a single baker scaffold.  When double stacking baker scaffolds, the weight rating drops to 850 lbs and when triple stacking the weight rating is 700 lbs.

The following are the weight rating capacities for the mini-Perry mobile workstands.  The 4' model has a 500 lb distributed load or 250 lbs per 1 platform.  The 5' model has a 600 lb distributed load or 300 lbs per 1 platform.  Please keep these weight rating capacities in mind and don't overload the mini-Perry's above the weight rating capacities as this could lead to a serious injury.  When you are using a mini-Perry scaffold to stand and work on, please remember to add together your total body weight along with your tools and materials.  If they add up to more than the weight rating capacity of the mini-Perry scaffold, then you cannot use the mini-Perry scaffold for that task.  You would need to use something along the lines of a baker scaffold, pipe scaffold, aerial lift, etc.

We don't want to see someone get injured due to something that is so easily preventable. Please keep with in the weight rating capacities when working on the mini-Perry scaffolds.  If you see someone else using a mini-Perry scaffold above the weight rated capacity, please do your part and address the matter with them as you may prevent that person from making a trip to the hospital.

If you have any questions regarding mini-Perry mobile workstand scaffolds, please contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham.

Have a Safe Day!

Orange Tape on 3-Pronged Electrical Tools and Extension Cords

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees:  We begin a new quarter on Monday, 10/1/12 for our Assured Grounding Program.  The Safety Coordinators have been supplied with orange tape.  Just a reminder that we need for you are to inspect, test and color-code with orange tape all 3 pronged electrical tools and extension cords.  All electrical tools and cords need to be visually inspected.  If you see any defects in the cords such as bare wires, severe kinks, missing or damaged ground prong, the cord pulling away from the plug end housing, etc., then that tool or cord would need to be immediately removed from service and reported to your lead supervisor.  If your tool/cord passes the visual inspection, your next step is to test the cord with a receptacle tester.  First, you should test the outlet that you will be plugging your cord into to ensure that it is properly wired.  You should see 2 yellow lights lit up on your tester and the red light should be off.  This means the outlet is working appropriately.  Next, plug your cord into the outlet and then test the cord with the receptacle tester.  Again, you should see the same light pattern as mentioned above and this would mean the cord passed the test and it is good and safe to use.  Any other light pattern means that there is a problem with the cord and the cord needs to be removed from service and reported to your lead supervisor.  If the cord passes the visual inspection and the cord tester test, you should then remove the previous quarter's red electrical tape and install the orange electrical tape about 1" down from both plug ends.  Your cord is now in compliance with our 4th quarter's Assured Ground Program.  The orange tape shall remain in place from 10/1/12 through 12/30/12.  You are not quite done yet!  You now need to visually inspect all electrical cords and tools on a daily basis and if any defects are found, the cord needs to be immediately removed from service.  Thank you for taking the time to ensure your electrical tools and cords are in safe working order.  Your actions may prevent one of our family members from sustaining an electrical shock type injury or worse yet and electrocution.  If you have any questions regarding our Assured Grounding Program, please call our Safety Director, Peter Graham, at (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

Quarterly Safety Meeting Attendance!

Good evening to all I.D.I. employees:  As you all know we had our 3rd quarterly safety meeting for 2012 on  Saturday, 9/8/12 and the make-up safety meeting was held on Thursday, 9/20/12. Now that the meetings are over, we tallied up the safety meeting attendance show up rates and we are extremely pleased to report that we had an overall field show up rate of 76% with our company goal of being at 75% or better. As far as Safety Coordinators, 40 out of 45 attended the meeting for an 89% show up rate.  Our Safety Coordinator attendance goal is to be at 80% or better.  We exceeded on both safety attendance goals.  We want to say thank you to all of you who attended the safety meeting.  This is a vital part of our safety culture to help ensure we are all on the same page with preventing injuries.  We are a much safer company because of you taking the time to attend our quarterly meetings.  We as a team are only as good as our weakest links so the more people involved at our quarterly safety meetings and the more involved with looking out for each other, the potential to have fewer employees sustaining injuries is much better.

The safety meeting topic was fall protection.  We hope that you took away something from the meeting that will help prevent you or a coworker from sustaining a fall related injury.  260 construction workers died in 2010 from sustaining a fall of 6' or more to a lower level. International Decorator's has never had a fall related fatality or any work related fatality since their inception in 1952.  This is something our owners, Butch & Bill and the founder of I.D.I., Tony Sr. are very proud of.  Preventing fatalities is our number 1 goal.  However, it is also vital that we prevent falls of any kind.  Again, if you see someone working in a position where they are unprotected and exposed to a fall of 6' or more to a lower level, do them a favor and stop them.  Call a time out and get a plan.  The plan could be as simple as obtaining fall arrest equipment and implementing the fall arrest or contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham and he will assist with a fall protection plan.

Have a Safe Day!

Self Improvement; Take an OSHA 30-Hour Course!

What can I do to make myself better?  What can I do to help the company?  What can I do to make myself a more valuable employee to International Decorators?   Frankly there are several things you can do, however, today we are focusing on the OSHA 30-hour course.  

We are encouraging our employees to enroll in an OSHA 30-hour course for several reasons. For starters, the OSHA 30-hour course provides a good solid foundation of safety training.  You will be provided with 30 hours of construction safety training that can help you to sustain a long-term healthy & injury-free career in the construction field.  This course may just save your life!  The OSHA 30-hour course is not just good for you as far as work goes, it will teach you invaluable life skills that you can take with you and use anywhere for the rest of your life as this card never expires.  

Another reason we are encouraging participation in an OSHA 30-hour course is that we are bidding work to general contractors that require us to man their projects with employees that have taken this course.  By taking this course, you make yourself more valuable to a Superintendent when they are choosing their work crews for various job sites.  I also want to mention that if you do take this course; that it does not guarantee that you will work.  It does however increase your chances especially in the weak economy that our country is currently in.  

Where can I take this course you ask?  The OSHA 30 is offered by your union trade schools to members in good standing.  Also, if you take the course through your union trade school, we understand that is either free or low cost to members.  It is offered at limited times throughout the year.  If you are interested in signing up, you are encouraged to contact your trade school by phone or you can look them up on the internet to see when the course is offered.  You can also take it on line through some internet services such as www.puresafety.com, however, the cost is around $189.00.  If you are going to proceed with taking the OSHA 30-hour online, make sure you enroll in the OSHA 30-hour construction course and not the OSHA 30-hour general industry course.  If you have any questions about taking the course online, you can contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham and he can provide you with more information to help you.   

After you take your OSHA 30-hour, you will be issued a card sometime around 30 days later. Please provide our Safety Director with a copy of your card so we know that you took the course.  

Make yourself standout in the crowd!

Again, if you have any questions, contact Peter at pgraham@4idi.com. 

Have a Safe Day!