Toilet break time is also official during work hours - tribunal judgement

Those who get involved in accidents even while attending nature calls are eligible for compensation. The following news report link may be read.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Soldier-taking-toilet-break-during-working-hours-should-be-considered-on-duty-Tribunal/articleshow/21350476.cms

Road safety - impatience of heavy vehicle drivers

Today, I went out to take admission for my son. My wife was on the wheel. While returning, on a busy road, a state government bus driver kept honking and we could not give way, as the road ahead is not free. After a while, that driver overtook us from left side and drove to right past of our vehicle, threatening to crush our car. While overtaking, he waved his right hand furiously.

I could not understand, how one will get moving space when the road is full of traffic. All vehicle drivers need psychology classes, road accident data, reasons for road accidents and stress levels to all on the road. As per data, most of the road victims are due to hit by state buses.

Recently, a college girl died (see my previous post) when hit from behind by a state run bus. 

Scaffold erection - work at height - construction safety

I booked a flat and work is in  progress (for last three years!!!). Today, I attended a meeting of flat owners with the builder. Like earlier times, again date for handover was extended by a month. The reason told was that because of rains and high velocity winds at height, and as it involves erection of scaffolds i.e work at height, construction activity was stopped.

Whatever was in other owners' minds, as a safety professional, I was glad to hear such a thing that builder stopped his work inspite of project delay. Already, he is running beyond the agreed possession date which was almost two years ago and is liable to pay some compensation as per the agreement.

How many will take such a decision though it is well known fact that any untoward incident will lead to project delays due to enquiries by police and municipal authorities.

Construction is an activity in which large number of accidents take place and the work force is also mobile with little protection for their lives.

Ammonia accidents

In the Wake of West, Texas: 1,000 Toxic Chemical Accidents You Have Not Heard Of

LINK

Who is responsible for safety for works in your plant?

In an operating plant, various works of maintenance, civil, erection/commissioning of new equipment/facilities, house keeping, etc will be in progress under the supervision of in-charges for respective agencies. However, in case of any lapse with regards to safety or any incident/accident, question arises to decide who is responsible for the incident. Though, safety permits may be issued in the name of the executing agency, plant in-charge also should be held equally responsible as it is the work in his plant and is being done by other agencies because of his request. If any incident occurs, brunt is to be borne by plant officials, plant operations may have to be suspended and in worst case plant may be exposed to damage.

Hence, plant officials can't escape from responsibility to ensure safety during works executed by other agencies. 

Safe driving measures - a record achieved

The state road transport corporation of Andhra Pradesh (APSRTC) received a trophy for better performance on road by its drivers after achieving accident record of 0.13 and 0.11 accidents per every lakh kilometers driven in the last two years. The corporation has 23000 buses that ferry about 1.2 crore passengers every day with 82 lakh kilometer coverage whereas in the country about 1.5 lakh buses ferry 7 crore passengers every day.

This low accident record was made possible by putting  a family photo of the driver along with breath analysis of drivers for alcohol before boarding. Also, the corporation sacked those drivers found in intoxicated condition.

This strong message of zero tolerance to drink driving has worked as per the words of Managing Director of APSRTC. 

From the above, we can see that tough measures to the extent of termination and encashing family sentiment result in better safety for the people. Similar measures should be taken by all industries and regulators should act tough on erring industries even by suspending/cancelling the licence so as to ensure a safe work place and environment.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Better-drive-safe-wifes-watching/articleshow/17935143.cms

Safety Management of Contractor Manpower

Outsourcing of various industrial activities is common all over the world. It is rare to find organizations which do not follow this. This is done to overcome shortage of manpower, non-availability of experts in specific field, obligation to reduce permanent staff, financial considerations, etc. The skill sets of persons and duration vary with the requirement. Personnel from suppliers of equipment, instruments, etc too work in the premises for erection, commissioning, maintenance, etc. Thus other than regular employees, organizations deal with contractor manpower for housekeeping, maintenance, plant operations, erection/ commissioning, construction, material handling, canteens, etc in addition to the visitors like vendors, consultants, etc. Also, we find visitors, project students, apprentices, trainees, etc who stay in the organization for some duration.

Ensuring safety of all these persons is as important as regular employees. An analysis of accidents reveals that contractor workers are involved in 30-35% of accidents. The major reason for these accidents is lack of awareness about the hazards, supervision, failure to ensure supply and use of requisite safety gear to the workers both by the contractor and department in-charge.

Most of the occasions, persons engaged by the contractors are not same i.e floating workers and is difficult to ensure availability of same person for specific nature of work. This requires training of newly joined persons almost on weekly basis, if not every day and contractors exhibit resistance to send these newly joined workers for training.

The time needed by security personnel to permit contractor workers inside factory premises generally varies from 30 to 60 minutes depending upon the security level. The time available for work will reduce further after taking into account of time for training. As the attrition of employees is more, the working hours will reduce and this leads to shortcuts to avoid safety training of newly joined contractor workers.

It is observed that the small contractors generally deploy 2-10 persons in most of the works and generally he will have more than one work at site in his hand and he or his supervisor keeps shuttling between various work areas in the plant leading to poor supervision.

With increasing work load and reduction of manpower, plant in-charges too find it difficult to monitor all outsourced activities. Verbal communication instead of written communication also leads to misunderstanding of the task and wrongdoings during the work execution. To avoid any consequences, generally, following clauses will be included in the tender while outsourcing the activities.

·     Continuous supervision by the contractor,

·     Hiring technically suitable persons for the job,

·     Valid medical fitness certificate from qualified doctor for the persons to be employed,

·     Obtaining suitable insurance cover for the persons to be employed,

·     Prohibition of child labor,

·     Ensuring issue and use of PPE,

·     Sole responsibility of the contractor for all accidents and consequences arising out of it,

·     Use of tested and certified tools,

·     Bringing his own tools and equipment required for the work, etc

But, this is not suffice to ensure safety of these workers as we see violation of most of the clauses at many sites. To cut costs, apart from major machinery/devices offered by plant as per work order, contractors do not bring other tools, lifting tackles, weld sets, ladders, etc of their own and instead use from within the plant. In case of any accident, it is likely that concerned plant in-charge will be blamed for allowing using department material.

For civil works, it is common to see use of fire hydrant water or garden water. Fire hydrant water is for emergency use and garden water is generally recycled and treated water.

We find retired employees too taking up contract jobs in the organization and due to their familiarity with the plant and the staff, their seniority and that their peers/juniors will be working in the plant, some of them move as if they are department staff and this leads complacency / extra authority in using department materials and at the same time, when any accident takes place, they can easily influence and shift the blame.

Apart from these violations, it is likely that contractor works for jobs outside the scope of the work order. Unfamiliarity of workplace in these situations leads to accidents endangering both contractor workers and department staff.

When an accident takes place, in case of major treatment, question arises about who will foot the bill, as generally, small time contractors do not have requisite financial capability to bear the cost. Though, tender clause puts responsibility on the contractor, organizations end up in paying the bills in such situations. Sometimes, the cost of treatment exceeds the value of the contract itself, in which case recovery becomes difficult. To avoid these costs, contractor may takeout his injured person outside the premises from treatment and one will not find the injured again in the workplace. The reply usually given by the contractor will be that the person recovered and is working at some other site or that he went to his native place.

Now-a-days, many of the organizations have been certified for ISO/OHSAS and this requires ensuring safety of the persons in the organizations to whom we outsource or procure to meet our needs. With transparency being the buzzword, one should be more attentive because any incident is projected out of proportion, however small it is.

To ensure safety of contractor personnel working within / their own premises, organizations should have proper procedure for tendering, evaluation and selection of contractors who have, (i) well laid out policy for recruitment of manpower, (ii) regular training of man power, (iii) deployment of safety supervisor and (iv) defined  responsibility and accountability of all persons engaged. 

Organizations should have a designated person in every department / section, who should coordinate and obtain from all contractors working in their plant about (i)  number of persons engaged for each of the work with names, addresses, contact numbers, availability medical fitness certificates (ii) number of new persons brought in that day (iii) qualifications / experience (iv) tools brought to the specific workplace with relevant test certificates (v) issue of PPE to all persons (vi) facilities of the organization/department proposed to be used (vii) details of start and end date of the work, (viii) details of subcontractors, if any, etc.

Based on the above data, head of section/department should assess the need and ensure job specific training, safety measures to be taken, issue of specific PPE for work in different areas, availability of requisite safety permit and supervision for ensuring safety and issuing warning letters in case of violations. In case of work on machinery, material handling equipment, etc., he should ensure their safe working condition before allowing the contractor personnel for work.

Safety in-charge should obtain weekly/monthly reports about various outsourced activities, manpower engaged, permits issued and closed, etc. He should interact with concerned plant in-charges about safety issues specific to the workplace, reporting of incidents/occurrences and their investigation for corrective and preventive measures.

Following measures will be helpful in ensuring safety of contractor persons at workplace.

1.        Identification of jobs to be outsourced with job hazard analysis, safety measures to be taken, assessment of training requirements, supervision.
2.               Insertion of appropriate clauses in the tender and work order for penalties against violation of stated safety provisions. Though penalty clause is available, it is questionable on how many occasions this is used as one can find a number of violations every day. At the same time, when contractor appeals for cost escalation, the proposal is evaluated without considering the penalty amount to be recovered for stated violations. If a person is deployed specifically for safety supervision and recording the violations and issue notices for recovery, it will act as a deterrent and ensure safety at workplace.   
3.                Ensuring different colored uniform for persons engaged in outsourced activities for easier identification and monitoring.
4.          Ensuring contractor supervisor for every work undertaken by him in the site.
5.                   Valid medical fitness certificate for the job for all persons engaged, irrespective of the nature and duration of the work.
6.                   Maintaining register for outsourced works with details of contractor, number of persons engaged, availability of PPE, supervision, violations, etc.
7.                Records of pep talk and training with respect to the work, safety and emergency procedures.
8.                   Preparation of checklist based on job hazard analysis and safety work permit conditions for use by contractor.
9.                   Ensuring adequate insurance cover for the persons.
10.                   Compulsory medical examination of injured persons of the contractor after treatment.
11.                Maintaining first aid box by the contractor at the workplace.
12.                    Ensuring availability of sufficient clean drinking water at the workplace.
13.                    Ensuring change rooms for contractor workers with provisions for bathing.
14.                   Ensuring use of separate dress for persons engaged and their washing.
15.                   Display of warning signs, caution boards.
16.                  Checking of all permitted equipment, tools, etc by department persons before start of work every day for safe use by the contractor and maintaining the record with observations.
17.                   Display of safe operating instructions, safe operating procedures, do’s and don’ts in languages understood by the persons engaged for the work.
18.                   Prohibition of unauthorized use of facilities like water, electricity, forklifts, cranes, lifting tackles, weld sets, etc not covered in the work order.
19.                    Prohibition of use of fire hydrant water and garden water for any purpose other than intended.
20.                    Ensuring availability of proper access, use of tubular scaffolding, safety shoe, helmet, safety belt, anchoring provision, etc for civil works.

            In some organizations, all tender/work order proposals will be referred to safety department to study for assessing the safety measures taken by the proposer and advise necessary clauses for incorporation before release of tender / issue of work order. The main grouse of the contractors is that additional costs are imposed on them in the name of safety and this is due to improper documentation / clarity in the requirements stated in the tender document. To avoid this, plants are encouraged to send their draft proposals for tender for review and suggestion to insert appropriate safety clauses in the document before its release for enquiry. This results in proper cost estimates by contractors before quoting and enables provision and compliance for safety.  

Following are some of the general practices to be ensured/followed to reduce injuries/improve safety performance.

1. Plants should continuously put efforts to reduce outsourcing of activities by automation or other methods.
2. Plant in-charges shall ensure that only those outsourced activities as specified in the scope are executed with all safety provisions.
3. Work order should be cancelled for any work taken up beyond the scope of the work order.
4. Supervision by both department and contractor has to be ensured.
5.  Plant in-charge should be held responsible for initial and monthly training of the manpower engaged for outsourced activities.
6. Plant in-charge should ensure use of PPE like safety shoes, gloves, helmets, goggles, face shield, aprons, etc as required for the work, by the man power engaged in the outsourced activities, even if it is in the scope of the contractor.
7. For outsourced work, supervision from atleast shift in-charge should be ensured..
8. No outsourced work is permitted in night shifts.
9. No woman should be allowed to work on or near machinery in motion as per Factories Act.
10. Skills and qualifications for various categories of persons engaged during outsourcing should be specified.
11. Safety work permit should be taken before start of work by submitting, (i) job hazard analysis, (ii) valid medical fitness certificate, (iii) name/designation of the department person responsible for supervision and also for ensuring use of PPE. 

With the above, I am sure that safety of the contractor persons can be ensured.

Chevron's safety record hit by accidents

A spate of accidents in Chevron Corporation reveals a lot is to be done by oil industry as even the best organization with commitment to safety suffers from accidents. The statistics are wonderful with an incident rate of 0.2 per million man-hours worked. Though there are organizations where zero accident rate is reported for many years, the approach and methodology varies from industry to industry.
There are many organizations where safety is only a stage talk and give least importance in practice. Unless everybody from top to bottom assume responsibility for safety, no organization however best it is, will fail and therefore needs continuous vigil on its operations so that accidents do not occur.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Chevron-s-safety-record-hit-by-accidents-3791793.php#page-1

Act on near misses instead of cleaning after accidents

In an article,  http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/st_essay_close_calls/, it is stated that there is an 80% drop in serious accidents at Dow Chemical after the company implemented close call reporting. Though, it looks cumbersome and time consuming initially to act upon the near misses, it is an opportunity to purge the system of unsafe conditions and will be prove beneficial in the long run to the organisation. Managers should encourage their employees to report all near misses and appreciate them instead of chiding them and be grateful to the workers for reporting near misses.

Accident alert - Don't leave the child in the car

In an incident, a child was left in the car and by the time father returned, the child was found dead in a tragic way. The accident alert appeared in Cite Digest can be read in the following link.
http://www.citehr.com/418712-accident-alert.html

Blast and fire in Vizag Steel Plant

In an incident of explosion and resultant fire in Vizag Steel Plant, 16 persons died and  property worth crores of rupees is damaged. It is reported that the incident happened in oxygen plant of the recently commissioned steel melting shop-II during trials. The hot metal from blast furnace will be sent into a mixer where oxygen will be blown at 17 kg/cm2 pressure to remove impurities and then convert into blooms. It is reported that the back pressure caused the explosion.

As per the reports, following are my observations:

1. Impurities from hot metal will be burnt in the mixer with oxygen.
2. Operators could not get the oxygen pressure of 17 kg/cm2 and instead they got about 14 kg/cm2.
3. They tried to admit oxygen at this lower pressure 2-3 times.
4. While people went closer to the unit to see reasons for low pressure, explosion occurred.
5. The pipeline for oxygen is of 5 mm thick instead of 10 mm
6. The oxygen container and associated piping got burst
7. The fire after explosion led to fire causing injuries/fatalities and property damage
8. Vehicles flew of about 50 m from the incident site

The above indicate nonavailability or failure of check valve / non-return valve in the connecting line; non-availability or failure of safety relief valve in the oxygen container and or mixer. The back pressure could be due to sudden reaction of impurities like carbon, etc with more oxygen supplied (2-3 times as low pressure was there) and the reaction product gases could have builtup pressure and non-venting of these gases as they are formed could have led to pressure buildup and back pressure.

As the plant is being commissioned/started for trial runs, many people including top level management was present and so many people thus got exposed.

Why so many vehicles including autorikshaws and scooters were available near the site is not known.

http://www.rediff.com/news/report/eight-killed-in-explosion-at-vizag-steel-plant/20120614.htm

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-06-13/hyderabad/32214943_1_oxygen-plant-sms-wing-blast-furnace

Dust explosions: little known hazards

Hazards of dust and consequences arising out of dust explosions are still little understood by manufacturing facilities that handle dust of variety of materials, let it be, sugar, plastic, floor (wheat/maize/corn/...), metals (iron, zirconium, thorium,uranium, titanium,...), etc. Otherwise, there would have not been so many incidents every year leading to injuries and deaths of so many.
Proper measures like closed ventilation, maintaining humidity, earthing and bonding, flameproof electrical fittings, static discharge stations, cotton uniforms, periodical cleaning,etc will prevent dust explosions and its consequences.
Proper collection and disposal of dust needs to be given due attention.
An article in the following link is good reading material. There are few reports and video in www.csb.gov on the same subject.
http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/05/29/8957/unchecked-dust-explosions-kill-injure-hundreds-workers?utm_source=iwatchnews&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=rss

Subsidies by governments - what about safety investment?

In an article today, I understood where the huge amounts of subsidies allocated/borne by the government are utilized. Some amount goes to help the poor / middle class people. In this, some amount is also being spent on those who does not deserve because of their high income but possibly because of the difficulty in providing targeted distribution system, such leakages are happening. It is stated that Rs 5,29,000 crore is being the tax breaks given by the government to the corporations, which result is reduced cost of production thus the cost of product sold in the market.
I feel government should also include provision for exemptions on the money spent to improve safety in the work place. And while filing their tax returns, they should include the safety performance by way cost of the accidents (direct and indirect) and this much should be penalized for poor safety. This equivalent amount should be credited in to safety promotion fund account managed by the government for appropriate use. And those who do not incur any cost due to accidents, government can give some exemption either a % of their profits or the amount spent on safety betterment as safety reward by proper adjustment in balance sheets.
I am not an economist, but I feel such measures help in improving safety for the workers in the company.

Molten metal contact with water-blast-2 deaths

In an incident, while removing the stuck slag from a blast furnace with the help of a poclainer and rod, the slag along with molten metal steel came out and came in contact with the water resulting in a blast. A worker and a supervisor died in the incident due to fall of hot molten metal. The poclainer also got partially melted.
The furnace was commissioned recently.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Visakhapatnam/article3374003.ece

It is reported that the contract labour use for critical jobs also is a reason for such accidents. Unless proper training and supervision is not ensured, such incidents are bound to repeat.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Visakhapatnam/article3379616.ece

Who bears the most of the cost of a workplace accident? Employer ! Community!! Workers!!!

In a blog (safetyatworkblog.com), it is reported that 95% of the cost of a workplace accident is borne by the workers and community, whereas the employers incurs the balance. If this is true, then, employers are making profit at the cost of the society even during accidents. Though, it is not clear, how this data is arrived at, however, it is true that a business minded person passes on all his costs to his customers and he may add a percentage of the total costs (including those incurred due to incidents/accidents) as his profit. Can we draw from this, by stating that the higher the input costs, higher the profit. May be the breakeven period will be more, but afterwards, profits will be more. I am not an economist, but with my thought process, I am putting this analysis.

A freak accident - unsafe act

It happened.

In a house, the family head tried to lit something. It did not. Then, he brought petrol in a bottle, poured a little on the material which he want to lit. After keeping the petrol bottle aside, he lit the matchstick. Immediately the fire spread from the material to the petrol bottle. In panic condition, he threw the bottle outside his house. The burning petrol bottle fell on a lady going on the road. She received burn injuries on hands and her clothing got burnt partly. She was admitted in a nearby hospital for treatment.
Mindless acts can lead to such type of accidents, endangering the persons who do not know what is going to happen to them.
Similar things can happen in industries endangering the environment and public at large due to unsafe actions by the persons inside the factory.

Road rage - a car accident

Today morning while going to my work place, while going over a rail over bridge, I saw a car that hit a truck on its rear side, possibly in the darkness. No idea about injuries. Yesterday, same time, I saw the truck at the same place in halt condition, due to some breakdown. The surrounding area was isolated by keeping some tree branches.
Normally, when some vehicle is under breakdown, the driver uses blinkers that are ON indicating about vehicle presence. Some keep stones upto some distance. Some use night reflectors to indicate presence of vehicle.
Nobody expects, vehicle parking on the rail over bridges, flyovers, etc and drive vehicle at full speed, particularly at night times due to little traffic. I suspect accident might have occurred for this reason.
Many times, I too had heart jump while driving on flyovers, as suddenly I find some one talking on mobile after taking sides to the extreme end; some repairing their vehicle; some stopping the vehicle and looking at the nature; and so on.
Some trucks while carrying lengthy rods, pipes, etc do not tie the red flags, do not switch on the blinkers, and those driving behind, if they do not recognize, surely they get involved in accidents.
Road safety is very important for every one and loosing concentration even for a second may lead to deaths.
Sometime back, a person driving his 2-wheeler on a main road died, as all of sudden a mini truck entered from side road to main road rashly, leaving little chance for the person to escape.
I feel there should be speed breakers on all branch roads just before joining the main road so that vehicle speed will come down drastically.
Some places, I found branch roads immediately at the end of the flyovers. This condition too can lead to accidents as those driving fast on flyovers will find vehicles entering from branch roads. This is my personal experience too. Once, I was driving my vehicle on a rail over over bridge. I saw a 2-wheeler raider in front of me skidded and fell down while applying brakes as he saw a vehicle entering from branch road. Seeing this another vehicle driver nearby also applied brakes and he too fell down. From then on, whenever I drive down on flyovers, I am going very slowly, though I drive at speed while driving up on the flyover.

Asphyxiation - death of persons

Today, in a lecture, I heard about asphyxiation deaths, in which two persons died in a manufacturing facility. The reason was that instead of air, nitrogen gas was admitted in the work space in which they were working. This happened due to lack of colour coding on pipelines carrying air and nitrogen. Effect of different oxygen levels on human beings is listed below.

     
     % of O2     Effect
20 – 21            Normal
12 – 15            Muscular coordination for skilled movement is lost
10 – 14            Conscious, but judgment is faulty and muscular effort leads to fatigue
  6 – 8              Collapse occurs rapidly, but quick treatment prevents fatal outcome
       ≤ 6            Death occurs in 6 – 8 minutes
   > 60             Inhalation for several days may cause lung damage
35 – 40            Permanent visual impairment / blindness

·         A common symptom at low levels of exposure is headache. 

·         Depletion of O2 by combustion in a confined space may cause adverse health effects Some metals burn intensely in oxygen rich atmosphere (ex: iron wires)

·         Lubricating oil undergoes exothermic reaction causing intense burning in the presence of liquid oxygen

People question the need for measuring oxygen levels with the routine reply that they worked like that in the last 10 years.The main reason for the accidents is not the lack of the knowledge in our work place activities. It is the lack of application of the knowledge we already have.

An activity is being done in a particular fashion without any accident for a few years does not mean that it is safe. We have to remember the words of renowned safety professional, Trevor Kletz, “We have done this way a 100 times without an accident is not acceptable, unless, an accident on the 101^st occasion is acceptable to all of us”.

Wrong signals - a nearmiss experience

Yesterday, I went  to see my friend staying about 20 km from my residence. I went on a 2-wheeler and stopped at a traffic signal. A car was on my right with right indicator blinking. When the traffic signal turned green, I moved straight and this car on my right instead of going straight or right turned left. I was just ahead of it and would have fell down had the left moving car bumped my vehicle. My heart pounded fast for few minutes.
A similar incident happened earlier few months ago which I mentioned in my earlier post wherein I was hit by a car and I fell on the road. Few years ago, when I was going to my office, again, I had a near miss, this time from another 2-wheeler with wrong signals. I was going straight and the scooter with left indicator ON, moved right. The driver shouted at me and when I pointed him to his left indicator, he laughed and drove off.

This type of driving with wrong signals is very dangerous and we have to be careful on the road, more so at junctions, irrespective of the indicators on the other vehicles.

Distraction during work

An article mentions about distractions and interruptions at work arising out of phone calls, visitors, etc and its impact on time to get back to work with same concentration. It says that on average, everyday a desk worker loses 2.1 hrs. Apart from colleagues in the same department, there will be visits by some unexpected visitors without notice which one has to give some time. Then there are some who keep talking on phone. You may want something, but