Free Safety Training Videos

Free? Yes! Whether you are a Florida small business or a Florida public employer, you can borrow up to 5 safety training videos at a time. To check out the long list of videos, including many in Spanish, click here.

Manufacturing Company with a High DART Rate?

OSHA places high-hazard manufacturing and maritime industries at the top of its inspection list. Here's the list for 2012, shown in three sortings: by NAICS, alphabetically, and by DART..

What Florida Small Businesses Say about the USF SafetyFlorida Consultation Team

The on-site consultation program has had a broad impact on Cable USA. It has changed the culture of our organization to that of a team. The SHARP award could not have been achieved without a team effort, and when teamwork improves, productivity and quality improve as well.-- Devin Brock, Vice President of Operations, CableUSA

I am a HUGE fan of University of South Florida SafetyFlorida. I firmly believe that their services have made Marpan Recycling a much safer and therefore productive workplace. -- Nancy Stephens, General Manager, Marpan Recycling, Tallahassee

(The consultation) was nothing but good for us. It was a very positive experience and brought our safety program up to a new level. – Teresa Nealer, Safety and Health manager, Florida’s Blood Centers, Orlando. Achieved a twenty-four percent reduction in workers’ compensation modification rate.

It can help you and even save one of your employee's lives. – Gus Cagigas, Safety Coordinator, Portside Maintenance and Repair. Zero DART rate for past two years.

How Companies Profit from Safety

Florida Underwriter describes how insurance brokers recommend USF SafetyFlorida to their clients for free consultations and the SafetyWriter, the online safety plan builder.

850, The Business Magazine of Northwest Florida, documents the safety attitudes and practices that save money for a construction firm and a high-end commercial woodworking business.

Jacksonville Business Journal describes how USF SafetyFlorida helps companies Increase Profits through Workplace Safety.

OSHA News

New National Emphasis Program for Nursing and Residential Care Facilities

OSHA has announced a new National Emphasis Program for Nursing and Residential Care Facilities. The program is designed to protect workers from serious safety and health hazards that are common in this line of work. OSHA’s increased emphasis on hazards identified in nursing and residential facilities include exposures to bloodborne pathogens and infectious diseases, tuberculosis, workplace violence, ergonomic stressors related to lifting patients, and slips, trips and falls.

Who is affected? In an April 5 memo to OSHA Regional Administrators, Assistant Secretary Dr. David Michaels listed NAICS codes 623110—Nursing Care Facilities, 623210—Residential Care Mental Retardation Facilities, and 623311—Continuing Care Retirement Communities. Small employers within these categories will receive the highest priority for targeted inspections and outreach efforts, and are now classified as high-hazard industries.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nursing aides, orderlies and attendants “had the highest rate of musculoskeletal disorders of all occupations in 2010.” Compared to the average musculoskeletal disorder rate of all workers in 2010—34 per 10,000 workers—nursing aides, orderlies and attendants had a rate of 249 per 10,000 workers that same year, more than 80 percent higher.

What can you do if your company is within these NAICS codes--623110, 623210 and 623311? Contact us and we will help you review your safety and health management system. Through a comprehensive on-site analysis, we will analyze your existing written safety and health plans, engineering and administrative controls, safety and health education and training, and employee work practices. This analysis is free and completely confidential since consultation services are separate from OSHA enforcement. We will help your team identify workplace hazards and provide you with solutions on how to mitigate and correct any deficient areas. Don’t delay. It can be the difference between an OSHA citation ... or not.

For more information about OSHA’s new NEP, click here. To receive your free on-site safety and health analysis, visit us online at www.usfsafetyflorida.com

OSHA extends temporary enforcement measures in residential construction

OSHA will extend through September 15, 2012, its temporary enforcement measures in residential construction. The temporary enforcement measures include priority free on-site compliance assistance, penalty reductions, extended abatement dates, measures to assure consistency and increased outreach. Fatalities from falls are the number one cause of workplace death in construction.

Over the past year, OSHA has worked closely with the industry, conducting over 1,000 outreach sessions nationwide to assist employers in complying with the new directive. OSHA will continue to work with employers to ensure a clear understanding of, and to facilitate compliance with, the new policy.

CDC: 13 Deaths Linked to Bath Refinishing Chemical

Methylene chloride vapor has been recognized as potentially fatal to furniture strippers and factory workers but has not been reported previously as a cause of death among bathtub refinishers. In 2010, the Michigan Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program conducted an investigation into the death of a bathtub refinisher who used a methylene chloride-based paint stripping product marketed for use in aircraft maintenance. The program identified two earlier, similar deaths in Michigan. Program staff members notified NIOSH, which in turn notified OSHA.

In addition to the three deaths, OSHA identified 10 other bathtub refinisher fatalities associated with methylene chloride stripping agents that had been investigated in nine states during 2000-2011. Each death occurred in a residential bathroom with inadequate ventilation. Protective equipment, including a respirator, either was not used or was inadequate to protect against methylene chloride vapor, which has been recognized as potentially fatal to furniture strippers and factory workers but has not been reported previously as a cause of death among bathtub refinishers.

Methylene chloride is a highly volatile, colorless, toxic chemical that is widely used as a degreaser, process catalyst, and paint remover. Because methylene chloride vapors are heavier than air, in the case described in this report they likely remained in the bathtub after application. To use products containing methylene chloride safely, work areas must be well-ventilated, and when levels of methylene chloride exceed exposure limits even after implementation of engineering and work practice controls, workers must use respiratory protective equipment, such as tight-fitting, full-face, supplied-air respirators.
OSHA's standard for methylene chloride, which was promulgated in 1997, covers all occupational exposures to the chemical (e.g., general industry, shipyard employment, and construction). The standard mandates that air monitoring, medical surveillance, hazard communication, and personal protective equipment be in place where methylene chloride is used.

OSHA Salutes Three Florida Small Businesses

Gate Precast, Orbeco-Hellige and Technology Conservation Group earn OSHA praise for safety management.

OSHA Letter to Beverage Distribution Companies

Beverage workers have a significantly higher rate of musculoskeletel injuries than workers in most other industries. Here's what you can do!

Preventing Residential Construction Falls

OSHA guidelines help prevent fall-related injuries and deaths and demonstrate work methods for complying with OSHA fall protection directive. See OSHA's new fall protection video for helpful details you can apply to your job sites.

New and Revised OSHA Publications

Aerial Lifts Quick Card

Aerial Lifts Fall Protection Over Water in Shipyards Quick Card

Employee Rights and Responsibilities Following a Federal OSHA Inspection

Laboratory Safety

Permit-Required Confined Spaces in General Industry

Ending Grain Storage Deaths

You're thinking about the Mid-West, right? But it was a Florida grain storage fatality 15 years ago that caused OSHA to take a new look at its grain storage standard. Here is the latest update on grain storage safety guidance.

Your Next Step in Safety

Charlene Sitterly -- Program Director, USF SafetyFlorida

Worker protection--reducing injuries, illnesses and fatalities on the job--is the primary mission of the USF SafetyFlorida Consultation Program.

See our video! Our safety and health consultants are your key to achieving these benefits. They follow high and consistent standards for helping employers protect their workers. These standards, along with their years of consultation experience, will help you build a workplace safety system that unites all the elements of leadership commitment and job task procedures. With a workplace safety system in place, you can meet production goals while maintaining the health of the whole employee family.

To assist you in developing a workplace safety system, our consultants focus on management commitment, employee involvement and participation in order to establish a safety and health management system that works best for your business. Helping employers develop a safety management system gives us great satisfaction. That’s because, in the short term, our service can provide the hazard identification that directly prevents an employee from getting hurt or killed.

If our consultants find hazards while performing a consultation, we will provide you with a detailed list of those hazardous areas. But we will go beyond that to help you understand why the hazards exist and what specific actions can be done to address each hazard. This level of thoroughness is what employers find so helpful about our consultation program. We are more than about hazard identification but about helping you find hazard solutions that can create a new opportunity to profit from safety.

In summary, our primary purpose is to help your company prevent work-related fatalities, injuries, and illnesses. In the short term, we do that by emphasizing hazard identification. In the long term, we do that by helping you develop a safety management program. Hundreds of companies already have used our SafetyWriter, which helps employers develop a written safety plan. And we have the Sunshine State Safety Award and SHARP OSHA- inspection deferment programs to acknowledge and reward companies that have top-of-the-line safety management systems in place.

If you are ready to take the next step toward safety in your business, please contact us today and request on-line a free and confidential safety consultation.