If you’re planning to serve drinks at your holiday party, here are some of the steps you can take to prevent drunk driving accidents, recommended by alcohol liability consultant Shelly Timms: 

Make guests pay for their drinks and don’t allow workers to buy drinks for clients
Limit the number of drinks each guest can consume
Offer a wide [...]

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Editor’s Note: It’s become a SafetyXChange tradition. Every year at this time, we publish my analysis of an important but not well understood aspect of workplace safety: an employer’s potential liability for traffic incidents involving employees who’ve gotten drunk at the company office party.
The Risk of Liability for Serving Alcohol
Like many employers, you’ll be hosting [...]

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The U.S. and Canada have similar but not identical health and safety laws and systems. Here’s a little quiz to demonstrate the similarities and differences between the two. If you think the statement below applies to the U.S., list “U”; if you think it applies to Canada, list “C”; and if you think it applies [...]

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OSHA/OHS laws require safety training but generally don’t specify the training methods. But regardless of the methods used, companies have a clear obligation to ensure that all workers are trained by qualified and competent trainers; companies must also verify that workers understand  their training and are able to apply it to their jobs. A recent [...]

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Sadly, under-reporting of workplace injuries has been an acknowledged fact among safety professionals for several years. Now, however, there are new grounds to hope that this situation may be reversed.
The 3 Layers of Workplace Injury Under-Reporting
Under-reporting occurs at three different levels.
Government Under-Reporting: Statistical data reveals that government counts of occupational injuries and illness are [...]

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Editor’s Note: I received this note in response to the story about the Aberfan landslide that ran in Wednesday’s newsletter. The gentleman comes from South Wales and was living near Aberfan when the tragedy occurred. I’d like to share his recollections and reflections with you.
*****
I still live in Wales, in a town called Briton Ferry, [...]

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Let’s play word association. You say “workplace safety.” I picture industry, machinery and assembly line workers a la Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times. The notion of “safety culture” is a breakthrough because it recognizes that workplace safety is rooted in human behavior and that behavior is shaped by the mindset of the actors who author [...]

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OSHA has to inspect workplaces in response to complaints and after incidents occur. But a big chunk of the OSHA enforcement strategy is planned inspections. Since the agency can’t show up at all workplaces, it targets sites that pose the highest risks—like companies with injury rates that are way above the norm for their particular [...]

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Next week is National Infection Control Week in both Canada and the United States. And it couldn’t come at a better time. As we all know, the H1N1 flu has been declared a pandemic, which means it is expected to affect many people around the world. Most will recover, some will die and business and [...]

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Barb’s Pandemic Preparedness Safety Talk can be used as the basis of your weekly safety meeting. But, ideally, an effective safety meeting is tailored to your particular worksite. Here are some ideas for adding your own material to your infection control week safety meeting:

Review your company’s pandemic emergency preparedness plan. Will the business close if [...]

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