Region 7 News Release: 09-294-KAN
March 24, 2009
Contact: Jeremy Eggers
Phone: 303-844-1299

U.S. Department of Labor's OSHA partners with contractors building the Hills Dry Pet Food facility in Emporia, Kan.

WICHITA, Kan. -- Ensuring the highest level of employee safety and health during the building of the new Hills Dry Pet Food facility in Emporia, Kan., is the goal of a site partnership between the project's contractors and the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) area office in Wichita.

The goal of this partnership, which also includes the Kansas Department of Labor-Division of Industrial Safety and Health; Austin Building and Design Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio; Kajima Building and Design Inc. in Atlanta, Ga.; and Hills Pet Nutrition in Topeka, Kan., is to create and maintain a worksite free of worker injuries and illnesses that could result in lost workdays.

"This partnership not only showcases the high performance safety systems and commitment to safety and health of Austin Building and Design Inc. and Kajima Building and Design Inc., but also acts as a force multiplier to the advancement of OSHA's mission to promote the safety and health of America's working men and women," said Charles E. Adkins, OSHA's regional administrator in Kansas City, Mo.

The partnership will serve as a model to subcontractors and others by demonstrating how to implement a strong safety and health program on a large, multi-employer worksite. It also encourages a higher level of participation in the safety process by involving everyone on the jobsite. The project is scheduled to run about two years.

For more information about this partnership, call OSHA's Wichita Area Office at 316-269-6644. More information about OSHA's Strategic Partnership Program is available at http://www.osha.gov/dcsp/partnerships/index.html.

OSHA's Strategic Partnership Program is part of the agency's ongoing efforts to improve the health and safety of employees through cooperative relationships with trade associations, labor organizations, employers and employees. More than 1.4 million employees and nearly 28,000 employers across the United States have participated with OSHA in more than 580 strategic partnerships since the program began in 1998.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing a safe and healthy workplace for their employees. OSHA's role is to promote the safety and health of America's working men and women by setting and enforcing standards; providing training, outreach and education; establishing partnerships; and encouraging continual process improvement in workplace safety and health. For more information, visit www.osha.gov.

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