Inside Safety

Bringing You Safety & Health News You Can UseMarch 2011
Safety Center Incorporated
In This Issue
Good People get DUIs
Welcome Spring!
Inland Empire Forum
Sacramento Forum
Members Only!
New CSMS
Go SRC!
Origins of Occupational Safety
Product of the Month
Video of the Month
Safety Talk of the Month
Class Calendar
Quick Links...

Good people get DUIs

 Sometimes good people get DUIs

Let us help your employees get back to work and on the road!

Driving under the influence is not just for alcoholics. One of your key employees may have made the misjudgment of driving after drinking over the legal limit (.08). This does not always make for a bad employee or even poor character. Good people and good employees get DUIs. If you have such an employee we can help. In 1971, Safety Center created the first DUI program in California. Our professional experience and reputation are unparalleled.

Once a person is charged with a DUI, that person's driving privilege will be suspended. According to DMV the suspension or revocation is an immediate administrative action taken against their driving privilege only. This is called Administrative Per Se (APS). Any sanctions imposed by DMV under APS are independent of any court-imposed jail sentence, fine, or other criminal penalty imposed when a person is convicted for driving under the influence. Visit our DUI facts page for more information.

Any person with a DUI will be required to complete a California State Licensed DUI program before they being eligible to get an unrestricted license back. However, he/she may qualify to drive after a minimum 30 day suspension with a restricted license (depending on the charges and county). Enrollment in a DUI program is required to qualify. Visit our alcohol and drug program questions page for more information.

We help people get back on the road at 6 locations in 3 Northern California Counties, serving wet reckless, three, 6 & 9 month First Offenders and 18 month Multiple Offenders. We have an industry record success rate of 98 percent. Help get your employees enrolled prior to conviction and they can save $50, or help them pay the full program fee at their time of enrollment and they can save $50 (restrictions apply). Visit us online for further information.

Welcome in Spring!

 Cherry Blossoms

E-Inside Safety is growing and stretching to bring you more safety news you can use! We are looking forward to a new permanent feature that will ask some of the nation's foremost safety professionals why they entered the safety profession, why they stay and lessons learned.

  
We will also be asking YOU, our wonderful readers, to share some of your best safety secrets, fixes or tips. Submit your best safety idea, we will post polls for voting and award our winner with something fabulous! Watch out in upcoming issues for more details.
  
You can begin to send in your safety ideas as well as suggestions for safety professionals you would like to hear from, to: rhondalyn@safetycenter.org.

 Safety Forum of the Inland Empire logo

April 19, 2011

8:40 - 10:30

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 SRSF Logo Gif

What to Do, What Not to Do, What to Say, What Not to Say when CalOSHA Comes Knocking!

April 7, 2011

7:30 am - 9:30 am

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 Members Only
March Members

Harrington Hospital

Keith A Sorsdal-US Air Force

 

Member of the Month

West Bay Sanitary District

If you would like more information about Safety Center Membership and its benefits, please contact our Membership Coordinator by email or by phone at (916) 366-7233 x 214.

CSMS Logo
Congratulations
New Certified Safety Management Specialists!

Jed Beyer, CSMS

West Bay Sanitary District

Kelly Topping, CSMS

Amy's Kitchen

Joseph Richard De Lise, CSMS

Veolia ES Industrial Svc Inc/Pacific Liners

Syblon Reid Logo

Congratulations to Syblon Reid Contractors who recently received a 2nd place National AGC Safety Award for their safety program and performance. SRC has won 4-first place awards the last 3 years from AGC of California.

 

"Thanks to all at the Safety Center for being an important part of our safety program and making a difference in the health and safety of our employees."

~Bill Koponen, Human Resources Manager

 

Thank you Bill and Syblon Reid for your dedication to workplace safety and health! 

Safety Center Workplace Safety

Sacramento

3909 Bradshaw Road

Sacramento CA 95827

(800) 825-7262 x 219

(916) 366-1230 FAX

workplacesafety@safetycenter.org

  

Claremont

109 S. Spring Street

Claremont CA 91711

(909) 625-9650

(909) 625-9652 FAX

gayleen@safetycenter.org

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Greetings!

March 25th of this year commemorates the 100 year anniversary of a national tragedy that shook the industrialized world. At 4:45 pm, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the 9th floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Within a matter of minutes, 146 young workers lost their lives due to poor housekeeping practices and non-existent fire prevention measures. The public outcry after this event eventually led to organized labor unions, new legislation and regulatory requirements designed to protect workers from workplace injury and illness.

In this month's Inside Safety, we will revisit these young people's stories and commemorate their sacrifice. Safety Center Senior Staff Instructor, Bruce Anderson, often begins his classes (while holding a thick occupational safety and health regulation book in hand) with: "All these regs were written in your blood." Many of the CFRs and CCR T8 regulations were written in response to a workplace illness, injury or death.

The 2004 Walnut Creek Pipeline explosion took the lives of Tae Chin Im, 47, Javier Ramos, 36, Israel Hernandez, 36, Miguel Reyes, 43, and Victor Rodriguez, 26. Four others were injured. This incident led to more regulatory and legislative changes to California's excavation standard, requiring trained line locators on underground installation projects.

In 2008, California's Heat Illness Prevention Program was pushed through from an emergency/temporary action to a permanent regulation, but it took the death of 17 year old farm worker, Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez and her unborn child to fuel the impetus for legislative action.

So just hang in there when you as a safety professional are met with blank stares and less than enthusiastic responses. Remind those around you that regulatory compliance is not just a hassle; many have died and suffered so that today's workers might have safe working conditions.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Early Labor Organizing

The Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) was created in 1903 to support garment workers' participation in unions. The WTUL's mission was to improve living and working conditions of garment factory workers by improving wages, advocating access to education through literacy programs, calling for an end to night work for women and demanding an end to child labor. The WTUL also called for an end to the subcontracting system which often led to 52+ hour weeks with unpaid overtime and demanded that at-home piecework be limited to 2 hours a day.

 

Women PicketingMarch is National Women's History Month. It is easy to forget that women, especially immigrant and poor women played a pivotal role in bringing better working conditions to all American workers. They campaigned for 8 hour days, safer working conditions and called for an end to the common practice of wage reductions for supplies and electricity necessary to perform job functions.

 

Garment workers began organizing and striking in New York City in the late fall of 1909. 30,000 Women's Shirtwaist Makers walked off the job, demanding better working conditions. The strike ended February 15, 1910.

 

Picketing women withstood police brutality, imprisonment and disapproval from their families for not behaving in "ladylike ways." Factory owners hired scabs, thugs, police and prostitutes to intimidate and threaten picketing garment workers, deliver violence, threats and to cause general mayhem during the protests. Male tailors gained courage from the Women's Shirtwaist Makers strike which eventually led to the Great Revolt of 1910.

 

Garment Workers

The average garment worker in New York in 1911 was a young Russian, Italian or Jewish girl between 15-17, newly immigrated and illiterate. Immigrant families took piecework home where children as young as 3 or 4 years old worked overnight pulling Immigrant Pieceworkers at homebasting and trimming threads as the entire family worked. Young children sometimes worked on the factories floors and would hide when labor inspectors visited. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory's 9th floor workers "official" ages were from 14 to 43. Many young immigrants either lied about their ages in order to obtain work or did not know their exact age. The majority of the workers were between 16 and 23 with a median age of 17.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory

ShirtwaistThe Triangle Shirtwaist Factory made "shirtwaists." This was an extremely popular style of blouse worn by post-Victorian era women in the United States. It is the blouse most often associated with the Gibson Girl.

The Factory occupied the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of the Asch building. The Asch building was hailed as an engineering feat of its time and was touted as a "fire proof building." Fire sprinklers were a costly investment, so Factory owners, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, decided not to install them in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.

 

Fire safety measures available for the 9th floor factory workers at the time of the fire were: 27 tin buckets of water, a single flimsy fire escape, 2 doorways, one chained and locked, the other opened inwards, effectively trapping the workers inside after the hysterical masses crushed those in front against the doors in an attempt to escape.

Keep reading...

For more photos, view this flikr slide show.

Cornell University Online Museum

Visit the Cornell University, Kheel Center online exhibit of the Kheel Center at Cornell University covering the story of the fire and labor activism, mourning and relief work surrounding the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

 

Product of the Month Blow Out Sale!

Bloodborne Pathogen Teaching Kit

Get yours now! Limited stock available!

 

This Teaching Kit meets current OSHA training requirements. The BBP program was created for students and employees who have potential for occupational exposure to blood or other potentially infectious materials. Bloodborne Pathogens, Fifth Edition includes supplemental information on airborne pathogens such as tuberculosis.

The Teaching Package includes:

Bloodborne Pathogen Teaching Kit Blowout!

~Bloodborne Pathogens Student Manual

~Bloodborne Pathogens Instructor's

  ToolKit CD-ROM

~Bloodborne Pathogens DVD

 

List Price: $131.95
Our Price: $68.99 <--That's nearly a 50% savings!

Video of the Month 

Bad Fire Escapes 

Egress / Exit Safety E7  

What a way to die. What if your building has emergency exits, but you can't escape the disaster because you can't exit safely? Good housekeeping practices and regular safety inspections are necessary to ensure egresses remain accessible and useable. Obstructions, exit doors, and how to safely exit are covered.(1992 5 min)

 

To rent videos, please contact our video librarian at (916) 366-7233 x 250 or by email.


Photo Note:
Flimsy ladders twisted under the weight of escaping the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory workers.

March Safety Talk 

Create a Fire Safety Plan Now!

The young workers who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire did so because of a non-existent fire safety plan. Poor housekeeping practices combined with highly flammable materials, inadequate space between workstations, inadequate fire fighting equipment, blocked and/or locked egresses, inadequate fire escapes, etc. all combined to create an environment ripe for a tragedy of great magnitude. Maybe your worksite is not this lax where fire safety is concerned, but share this month's safety talk with your facility to help improve your fire prevention and safety plan.

Click here for the full safety talk.


Sincerely,


The Workplace Safety & Health Program Department

Safety Center Incorporated