FESS Sets a New Safety Record
The Facilities and Engineering Services Section reached a milestone Saturday
by beating its 1999 record of 302 consecutive days -- 304 as of Monday morning --
without an OSHA DART Lost Time injury. Section head David Nevin said all those
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A FESS electrician demonstrating 70E Personal Protective
Equipment (Click on image for larger version.) |
involved deserve credit, from Director Mike Witherell down to the individual
employees.
"It's a real achievement of the individual employees who have taken the idea of
safety, and internalized it, making it part of their everyday work ethic," Nevin
said, adding: "None of this could have happened without the leadership and support
of the Director."
Nevin said that making good on the pledge contained in FESS' 1998 Sign Up for Safety meeting, which set new, higher standards of safety, was not easy, for a section that performs some of the lab's most hazardous tasks - such as facilities maintenance, complex mechanical and electrical equipment maintenance, as well as plowing roads during snow storms. "If you look at the OSHA list of most common causes of injuries, such as falls, electrical shocks, pinch points," said FESS Senior Safety Officer Greg Mitchell, "we're encountering all those hazards hourly."
The 1998 "FESS Sign Up For Safety" initiatives and its subsequent renewal in 2001 made a difference, Nevin said, because of the commitment each employee took on to be responsible for his or her own safety as well as for the safety of those around them. Specific programs were implemented, such as the yellow "Missing Link" suggestion box, and the weekly "Toolbox" meetings with crafts people and Roads & Grounds personnel. Nevin also credited the outstanding support received from all laboratory divisions and sections for the No-Maintenance Zones program, which focused on the elimination of hazardous conditions encountered by those performing maintenance on their equipment.
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