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!

Quarterly Safety Make-Up Meeting Thursday, 9/20/12 at 4:00pm

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees:  As you all know, we had our 3rd quarterly safety meeting of 2012 on Saturday, 9/8/12.  The safety topic was fall protection.  We hope that the meeting was beneficial to you and provided you with some tips to help prevent you from sustaining a fall of 6' or more to a lower level.

We had 110 employees in attendance.  We want to thank all of you who attended.  This shows that you are a team player, this shows that you care about your safety, the company and the others working around you.

For those of you that could not attend, the quarterly safety make-up meeting is scheduled for Thursday, 9/20/12 at 4:00pm.  The meeting will be held at our office location at 28059 W. Commercial Ave. in Barrington, IL.  If you are planning on attending, you need to contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham, no later than Wednesday, 9/19/12 to notify him you are attending.  We need to know the head count ahead of time to help determine the room size, chair rental needs, etc. You can reach peter at (847) 526-7477 or by e-mail at pgraham@4idi.com.

Hope to see you at the make-up meeting!

Have a Safe Day!

290 Consecutive Days Worked Since Our Last Lost-Time Injury!

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees:  I just wanted to mention that we as a team have worked the past 290 consecutive days since our last lost-time injury which occurred in November of 2011.  Great job everyone on looking out for yourselves and for each other and helping to prevent the serious type injuries that involves an injured worker being off work for multiple days.  Our record for the past 13 years is 435 consecutive days worked between lost-time injuries.  Lets work as a team towards shattering this goal.  The only thing getting broken around here is our consecutive days worked record.

To help prevent serious fall related type injuries, you are encouraged to attend our next quarterly safety meeting which is being held on Saturday, 9/8/12 at 7:00am at our office location at 28059 W. Commercial Ave. in Barrington, IL.  The meeting topic is Fall Protection!

Have a Safe Day & see you on 9/8/12!

Quarterly Safety Meeting Reminder - 9/8/12 on Fall Protection

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees:  All employees are invited to attend our 3rd quarterly safety meeting for 2012 which will be held on Saturday, September 8th from 7:00am to about 9:00am.  The safety training topic will be on Fall Protection.  The meeting will be held at our office location in the warehouse at 28059 W. Commercial Ave., Barrington, IL 60010.  We last trained on fall protection at our August 2010 quarterly safety meeting so it's time for a refresher for our tenured employees and maybe some new safety training for the new hires.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 646 people died from falling 6’ or more to a lower level while at work in 2010.  260 of those fall related fatalities were construction workers.  Fall related fatalities are the #1 killer in construction.  There were a total of 780 construction worker fatalities in 2010 and 33% of all the construction fatalities were due to falls.  Falls rank #1 as the most frequently cited construction OSHA standards with 7,139 citations being issued in 2010.  We want to provide fall protection safety training so that you don’t become one of these statistics.  We want for all of our employees to live up to our safety mission statement which is: “Everyone Goes Home Alive and in the Same Condition as They Arrived; Your Loved Ones Count On It!” 

We encourage everyone to attend for several reasons of which the most important reason is for your safety. We look forward to seeing you on September 8th.  Should you have any questions regarding fall protection or the upcoming meeting, please call our Safety Director, Peter Graham at (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

I.D.I.'s 100% Hard Hat Policy

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees:  I just wanted to shoot out a reminder to all regarding our 100% hard hat policy.  We have recently had to issue several written safety warnings due to employees not wearing their hard hats while working.  This policy has been in place for many years and we are confident that all employees know the policy.  The policy is also gone over with all new hires during safety orientation.

We need for all employees to be wearing their hard hats for several reasons.  The #1 reason is for your safety.  Other reasons are that it is good for public relations with our clients, it is required by most of our clients and hard hats are an OSHA requirement based on most of the tasks we perform.

There are no excuses for not wearing your hard hat.  Our Safety Director & Superintendents are required to enforce this policy for your safety.  We have also trained our Safety Coordinators on enforcing our safety policies.  If a Safety Coordinator or any employee at I.D.I. advises you to put on your hard hat, they are doing you a favor. Our Safety Coordinators also have the authority to issue written safety warnings to employees not following our 100% hard hat policy.

Please keep in mind that the hard hat is not only required while you are performing a task. The hard hat is required at all times during your work shift except for during your break periods such as lunch.  Please keep in mind that if you are taking a break for lunch, etc., and then you are going to roam the job site such as to use the restroom, you are also required to wear your hard hat while roaming the job site as other trades may still be working.

If you have any questions regarding our 100% hard hat policy, please contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham at (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!