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/358706
November 2013 7 Fall protection most-cited safety violation: OSHA O nce again, fall protection tops the list of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)'s most-cited workplace safety violations in the United States. The top 10 was announced at the National Safety Council's congress and expo in Chicago in early October. "We appreciate our colleagues at OSHA sharing their most recent data as we look toward leading safety into the future," said NSC president and CEO Janet Froetscher. "This reminds us that it's very important to learn from the past and address these top violations to help make our workplaces safer." 2013 PRELIMINARY TOP 10 VIOLATIONS 1. Fall protection (8,241 violations) 2. Hazard communication (6,156) 3. Scaffolding (5,423) 4. Respiratory protection (3,879) 5. Electrical, wiring methods (3,452) 6. Powered industrial trucks (3,340) 7. Ladders (3,311) 8. Lockout/tagout (3,254) 9. Electrical, general requirements (2,745) 10. Machine guarding (2,701) Ontario electrical safety record improves, but high-risk behaviour continues: ESA By Zachary Pedersen D espite a 38 per cent decrease in electrical fatalities in the last fi ve years, Ontarians — including professional electricians — continue to be injured and killed in electrical safety incidents, according to a report by the Electrical Safety Authority (ESA). More than 70 per cent of all incidents occur in four areas: electrical workers; contact with overhead power lines; the misuse of electrical products; and electrical fi res caused by old or faulty electrical wiring. ESA research shows there continues to be a gap between actual risk and perception of risk when it comes to these four areas. Electricians continue to be critically injured on the job when working on energized electrical panels or commercial lighting systems. Electrical workers account for 28 per cent of electrical-related workplace fatalities from 2003 to 2012, according to the ESA. Electrical workers and those who hire them do not perceive these jobs to be high-risk, the ESA's research reveals. Some electricians end up "working live," which is a technically improper procedure in many cases. "Electrical workers continue to be injured or killed — in some cases because they do not appreciate or have become complacent about the risk, and in others because they feel pressured by their customer or employer," said ESA chief public safety offi cer Scott Saint. "We need to better understand these perceptions so we can change them. Changing people's misperceptions is critical to our goal of eliminating electrical- related deaths and injuries." While electrical-related fatalities have decreased, even a small number of incidents can drastically alter the current safety trend. "Workers and members of the public must understand the risks and take proper precautions," said Saint. "Vigilance is the key to safety." Power line contact continues to be an area of concern, accounting for almost one-half of all electrical-related fatalities in the past 10 years. On average, three people die and fi ve are critically injured each year in Ontario due to contact with overhead power lines. While most members of the public know a downed power line is dangerous, consumer surveys indicate the majority fail to consider that they may com e into contact with a live wire when doing yard work and chores, like trimming trees or cleaning eaves troughs. Risk of repetitive strain injury differs across genders By Uyen Vu T he risk of a work-related repeti- tive strain injury (RSI) differs in some sectors among men and women, found a report by the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) in Toronto. Overall, the study found a higher percentage of women report work- related RSIs than men (7.5 per cent and 6.9 per cent, respectively). "Our fi ndings suggest that gender contributes to RSI risk in diverse ways based on job segregation, non-work exposures and, possibly, biologi- cal vulnerability," said IWH scientist Curtis Breslin, the lead researcher on the study. "More tailored, gender-spe- cifi c approaches to RSI prevention may be warranted." Breslin's study used data from Sta- tistics Canada's Canadian Community Health Survey over the period 2003- 05. The analysis is based on 89,000 respondents who reported working at least one week in the past year. It incorporated information on the self- reported prevalence of RSI, including whether the respondents attributed the cause of the injury to work activities. In a sector grouping arts, enter- tainment, accommodation and food services, men's risk of RSI is 23 per cent lower compared to men working in the retail sector (retail workers were the comparison group in this study). However, RSI risk for women in enter- tainment/accommodation is on par with RSI risk for women in retail. For men working in agriculture, forestry, mining and utilities, the risk of RSI is 25 per cent higher compared to retail. For women in these sectors, the risk of RSI is slightly lower when compared to retail. A more dramatic gender differ- ence was seen in construction, where the RSI risk for men was 65 per cent higher compared to retail, whereas the RSI risk for women was 28 per cent lower. This discrepancy is somewhat surprising, Breslin said. "That difference between men and women in construction — we wouldn't have necessarily expected that," he said. "We hear from the min- istries of labour that the few women who do get into this work get injured because they're basically using tools and lifting things that are designed for men. But when you look at it at the population level, there didn't seem to be that much risk for women." That could be because men and women have different job tasks within certain sectors, including construction, said Breslin. The study data did not contain that level of detail, so more research is needed. For both men and women, the study found certain factors tend to be linked to work-related RSI. One of them is age. Workers between ages 15 and 24 tend to report the lowest levels of work-related RSI, while workers in the 35 to 44 and 45 to 54 age brack- ets tend to report the highest levels. Women aged 45 to 54 report higher levels of work-related RSI (10.8 per cent) than men and women in all other age groups. Men and women who have stressful jobs also report higher levels of work- related RSI. The prevalence of RSI among people who report working in stressful jobs was nearly double that for workers in low-stress jobs. The risk of RSI is signifi cantly higher for workers in British Columbia than in Ontario, with men facing 29 per cent higher risk and women 47 per cent higher risk. That's after personal and work-related factors are taken into account. Possible explanations for this difference are complicated, said Breslin. One might be how provinces deal with RSI in their programs and policies. For over a decade, B.C. has had stringent regulations on work- place ergonomics. Further research is needed to know whether higher levels of RSI symptoms in the province are what prompted lawmakers to tackle the issue in the fi rst place. Or it could be that tackling the issue made work- ers more aware of RSIs. "We can't evaluate the extent to which the self-reported bias may be there. But we have to acknowledge it," says Breslin. At minimum, the study points to the need for further investigation into the causes of the provincial differences. "This is the fi rst time anybody has taken a look at the provincial differ- ences," he said. Uyen Vu is the editor of At Work, the quarterly newsletter of the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto. 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