For many people, listening to a safety lecture or following safety rules is viewed as an infringement of their freedom, questioning of their intelligence or just a plain waste of time. But for Jerry Bach, vice president of the Sacramento, CA-based Safety Center Incorporated, teaching safety and having a safety plan in place is important.

Bach said he just "want(s) everybody to go home at night. You can't believe how many people are dying out there in the workplace. Safety is required by law, but we want people to go home at night."

According to a report published by the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 84,000 people-enough people to fit into two sold out baseball games-died in workplace accidents from 1992 through 2005. In fact, more than 5,700 people lost their lives in the workplace last year alone. More than fifteen people in this country died every day from calamities on the job, the report stated.

However, the 2005 figure is down 1 percent over 2004 and has dropped 14 percent from a high of more than 6,600 work-related fatalities in 1994, the report stated.

But Bach just cannot accept these statistics.

To fight this epidemic, several states have passed laws mandating that companies, depending on their size, must have safety and hazard plans of action that their employees must follow. These plans have to be implemented consistently in order to be successful.

There are eight components that should make up every workplace safety and injury prevention program. They are:

--Hazard assessment

--Hazard correction

--Responsibility

--Accident investigation
--Training

--Compliance

--Documentation/recordkeeping

--Communication

While some of these areas cross-over into one another, sometimes they just stand on their own. Let's take a look:

There cannot be a safe environment unless the surroundings are assessed with the idea of determining what could be or become a safety hazard, known as hazard recognition. For example, is there something on the floor that could make it slippery and unsafe on which to walk? Are there frayed wires coming out of an electrical socket? There is no way to know how safe your environment really is until you look around for things that could be harmful or even fatal.

If safety hazards are found through a safety inspection, they need to be corrected. Those wires need to be fixed. The floor needs to be mopped.

 

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