Telling your workers to be aware of hot weather hazards, take breaks and drink plenty of water is just part of what you need to do to prevent injuries and ensure compliance. You also need to create and implement a heat stress plan that combines appropriate engineering, administrative and work controls. Here's how to create a plan. There's also a Model Plan in the TOOLS section of SafetyXChange that can be adapted in both the U.S. and Canada.

How to Create a Hot Weather Plan

Although it's based on a plan written for forestry operations, the Model Plan in TOOLS can be adopted to other kinds of work, especially outdoor work. Also keep in mind that these are minimum measures. For example, the plan doesn't provide for medical monitoring or calculations of exposure limits such as the wet bulb-globe thermometer index (WBGT), which is a generally recognized heat standard.

Like the Model Plan, your plan should:

Say When Heat Stress Measures Should Be Taken. Set a thermal trigger when heat stress measures should take effect. You can use a WBGT calculation, a humidex advisory, smog alert or particular temperature as your trigger (assuming your state hasn't adopted specific standards regarding exposure levels).

Require Periodic Monitoring of Temperature and Humidity Levels. To control exposure to heat stress conditions you need to monitor temperature and humidity levels of work areas on hot days. Put someone in charge of measuring the temperature and humidity levels at designated areas throughout your workplace. Require that person to take measurements both at the beginning and end of employee shifts.

Adopt Engineering Controls. Consider using engineering measures to control how hot your workplace gets including:

Adopt Administrative Controls. Your plan should include administrative controls such as:

Require Appropriate Clothing. Your plan should also instruct workers to wear light summer clothing. If they work outdoors, they should wear light colors. It might be appropriate to require clothing for high radiant heat and water or ice-cooled insulated clothing for extremely hot temperatures.

Require Employee Training. Make sure your plan requires someone at your facility to train all employees and supervisors on the signs and symptoms of heat stress and how to prevent or treat them.

Describe Appropriate First Aid Measures. Set out the appropriate first aid measures that should be taken to handle different kinds of heat-related illnesses. For example, workers should be instructed to take those suffering from heat stress to an air conditioned room for evaluation. In some cases -- such as heat stroke -- it may be necessary to call emergency services.

Conclusion

There's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all plan. Details of your own plans will vary according to your industry, facility type, work process and state or provincial law. But the Model Plan lays out the fundamental elements a basic plan should include. So it should help get you started in your own efforts to establish effective and systematic heat stress protective measures before the hot weather season.

LAWYER TO ENGLISH DICTIONARY

'Jurisdiction'

By Glenn Demby

joo - ris ' DICK' shun

What It Means: Jurisdiction is the legal authority of a court or tribunal to try a case. Jurisdiction is generally based on two factors:

The dollar amount of the claim may also be a factor in determining which court has jurisdiction - e.g., small claims v. regular court, federal v. state.

How It Comes Up: There are a number of courts and tribunals that may have jurisdiction over an occupational health and safety dispute, including:

In most cases, there's no dispute over which court or tribunal has jurisdiction and should hear the case. But occasionally, jurisdiction is a subject of controversy and the court or tribunal must determine that it has jurisdiction before deciding the merits, i.e., substance of the case.

Example: A company disciplines an employee for refusing to wear a hard hat in a construction area. The collective bargaining agreement (CBA) allows the company to discipline employees who commit safety infractions. But the employee's refusal to wear a hard hat is based on religious grounds. He's Sikh and can't remove his turban. The union files a religious discrimination complaint to the EEOC. But the company claims that the EEOC lacks jurisdiction. It says the case is actually a dispute under the CBA and should be heard by a labor arbitration board. The issue of whether the EEOC or labor board has jurisdiction over the case-that is, whether the case is really a discrimination case or a labor dispute-must be resolved before the merits of the employee's claim are addressed.

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