Canadian Occupational Safety (COS) magazine is the premier workplace health and safety publication in Canada. We cover a wide range of topics ranging from office to heavy industry, and from general safety management to specific workplace hazards.
Issue link: https://digital.thesafetymag.com/i/1242765
www.thesafetymag.com/ca 21 footwear, which indicates the specific type of protection the boot provides and for which it has been certified. These markings, or symbols, are explained in the CSA 195-14: • Green triangle: indicates sole puncture protection with a Grade 1 protective toecap. (Heavy industrial work: construction, machine shops where sharp objects are present.) • Yellow triangle: indicates sole puncture protection with a Grade 2 protective toe. (Light industrial work.) • Blue rectangle: indicates a Grade 1 protective toecap with no puncture-resistant sole. (Industrial work not requiring puncture protection.) • Grey rectangle: indicates a Grade 2 protective toecap with no puncture-resistant sole. (Industrial and non-industrial work not requiring puncture protection.) • White rectangle with orange omega: indicates electric-shock protective footwear. (Industrial work where contact with live electoral conductors can occur.) • Yellow rectangle with black "SD": indicates static-dissipative footwear. (Industrial work where a static discharge can create a hazard for workers or equipment.) • Yellow rectangle with "SD" and plus sign: indicates super-static dissipative footwear and sole puncture protection with a Grade 2 protective toecap. (Industrial work where a static discharge can create a hazard for workers or equipment.) Red rectangle with white "C": indicates electrically conductive footwear. (Industrial work where low-power electrical charges can create a hazard for workers or equipment.) • Dark grey rectangle with "M": common standards helps us create that shared responsibility to uphold quality and uniformity." Another standard, CSA Z195.1:16 Guideline for selection, care and use of protective footwear provides advice to employers on how to establish and maintain a safety footwear program and shows how to properly select, maintain and dispose of footwear. It also provides a guide for the assessment of risk factors and a hazard assessment worksheet. A third related standard is the CSA Z334:14 (R2019) Over-the-shoe toe protectors. This discusses design and performance requirements for toe protectors intended to be worn over non-safety footwear. Q 4. How should safety footwear be selected? A All workplaces should complete a hazard assessment of the job and environment to identify the level and type of footwear protection that workers require. The basic safety boot provides impact and puncture resistance, but boots will often need to protect against additional, specific hazards. Moreover, some employers will have their own particular requirements, says Terry White, safety manager at Fredericton, N.B.-based Eastern Construction Safety. "Some places want workers to have footwear of a certain height, for extra support around the ankle. Other employers want workers to have laces because they feel laces are better in the event a worker is injured. Medical people can just cut the laces and remove the boot from the foot more easily." Other criteria may arise from incident history, he adds. From an incident investigation, employers may have concluded an injury might have been prevented if the worker had been wearing a different pair of boots. "They've had people who have been injured, and to prevent that from recurring, they say this time we need a metatarsal guard on the boot." Look for the CSA marking that appears on every pair of CSA-certified "You want your toes to be able to wiggle around freely, not touching the cap. Yet, you also want the rest of the boot to fit snugly." Graeme Hill, owner and operator of Reddhart Workwear Stores Everywhere you look, you can see workers whose safety behavior has been transformed. 800-267-7482 Managing Human Factors for More Reliable Outcomes When personal awareness is up, injuries are down. Culture and performance improve when people are connected to the company. Personal safety and corporate success go hand in hand. SafeStart training helps workers more reliably recognize risk everywhere. SafeStart consultants help organizations get better at managing human factors every day. Connect your leaders with ours, because talking with peers about safety is a chance to save lives. Human factors management can transform your safety results—and your organizational resiliency. Learn to manage human factors with our human factors framework at safestart.com/cos5