Last year, we asked National Safety Survey participants, “What occupational safety and health challenge would you most like to see OSHA address?” It’s worth noting that many respondents wanted to see the agency address ergonomics concerns in some way. (Learn more by reading last year’s feature article, “National Safety Survey: Selling Hearts and Minds on Safety.”) But here are a few of the answers you didn’t get to see.
(And don’t forget that time is running out to complete our 2012 National Safety Survey. It only takes a few moments to fill out the survey, so be sure to join the conversation.)
What occupational safety and health challenge would you most like to see OSHA address?
“Consistency of the agency. Each new administration, we get the local flavor of the day. Political appointees are useless, they merely wave the flag of their party or push their own agenda. The top tier of OSHA is biased, flip-floppy and inconsistent.”
“I am a 59-year-old woman in a toilet tissue, paper towel manufacturing facility. I perform maintenance and fine tuning on converting equipment. The 35 years I have worked here have taken their toll on my body. I am slower moving and thinking. I would like to see more emphasis on taking care of the older worker.”
“Make combustible dust safety understandable.”
“Giving the manufacturing sector a break on the fines. If we are really trying, you just can’t keep up with everything. Why fines? Why not ‘fix.’ Why the fear factor?”
“Address the potential issues with nanotechnology through a strong research program designed to determine the risks, and if risks are identified, take appropriate action to ensure protection workers.”
“Rewriting/reissuing standards in plain language, of practical length, and eliminating outdated information. Streamline regulations so that everyone can easily follow them and avoid leaving much to individual interpretation.”
“Addressing the need for enforcement in small- and medium-sized companies that hire non-English speaking workers, especially the very young ones.”
“Get to the real problems and stop being a COP … Not be part of the problem but part of the cure.”
“Adopt the current ACGIH TLVs as the PELs and make it so the standard changes with the updates going forward.”
“Get back to working together. I think the current administration is concentrating too much on OSHA enforcement and not enough on working together. Perfect example, I’ve been teaching OSHA 10- and 30-hour courses for years and the focus was employee safety, now we need to instruct 2 hours on how to report your employer.”
“Aging work force. There are a lot of gray heads out there that are not adequately protected.”
“I am interested to hear Michaels’ thoughts on this: Our city thinks it is appropriate to outsource our jobs to private contractors. Soon there will be no employee safety to worry about because we will have no employees. How will all these sub-contracted, non-benefited workers be protected?”
“Workplace stress. Many persons are under stress due to supervisors passing over qualified employees for their favorites who are not as qualified, both in the office as well as the shop.”
“Answer the question: Why do accidents happen?”
Read Part 1 of this blog series, learn more about the National Safety Survey or go directly to the survey itself.