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Preparing for the Worst
Connecticut companies get serious about training for workplace accidents and disasters
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Business New Haven
11/26/2001
By: Nancy Barnes
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Early one mid-September morning, a group of army poolees - camouflage hats set evenly across shaved heads - completed maneuvers on a plaza in downtown New Haven to a gunnery sergeant's unyielding bark. A worker at the U. S. Postal Service (USPS) across the street conducted business briskly, the gold rings on her fingers flashing as she nimbly counted stamps. A customer who approached the counter had entered a building where sound was wanting. With just one glance from a security guard, she had passed quickly through the metal-detecting frame.
By November, the brick surface of Pitkin Plaza was empty save for a flock of pigeons, some of the young recruits having shipped off to boot camp weeks before. That Saturday, the marching orders, every bit as swift and sudden, came from the postal service's side of the street.
“X-ray your bag,” said one security guard to a woman who was entering the building, as he scanned the jacket another customer wore. Looking confounded, the man wondered if the problem were his keys. “Put it here,” said a second guard to the woman, keeping his eyes on her handbag as he moved rapidly toward the Linescann 110's conveyor belt.
The woman behind the counter was the same postal worker who had stood there before. She smiled as she greeted the customer, and gave her the ZIP code her envelope lacked. Lifting her head, she told the customer to “Have a nice day” as the woman turned to leave. And to the postal clerk's name tag - half-hidden by her long, flowing hair - was affixed a stamp honoring veterans with a depiction of the American flag.
The paradox of war on the home front, of life that seems normal but is not quite, looms large in some business transactions across south-central Connecticut. Although the USPS, plagued by the threat of anthrax, has received the most attention, the degree of caution at many companies is high. Training for workplace accidents and disasters has acquired an importance it did not possess before.
Among the businesses which, by their very nature, have built a concern for contaminants into workplace education is Subway International. Based in Milford, the fast-food giant, now the sandwich segment leader in the quick-serve food industry, began one of its mandatory two-week training sessions for roughly 100 franchisees in early November.
As part of the course, each student visits a local store where they learn about food-borne illnesses and “all the care that has to be taken in that concern. Learning all the handwashing and glove and safety precautions and washing utensils - how to bake the bread, how to slice the bread…” says company spokesperson Annie Smith.
Since the beginning of the anthrax scare, the ubiquitous white gloves that Subway food handlers wear have spread to the mailroom at the company's Milford headquarters, which is now off-limits to everyone except the staff who work there. Smith says that the mailroom staff now also wears masks.
Less well-known than the death toll from the terrorist events - perhaps because the numbers accrue more slowly - is the fact that roughly the same number of American workers die from accidents in the workplace each year. Last year, 5,915 people died from workplace-related accidents, or 17 each day, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Workplace accidents are especially high among Hispanic workers in Texas and Florida, in part because of language difficulties.
With 55 fatalities last year, the state of Connecticut ranks 18th nationally in number of per-capita fatalities in the workplace. Connecticut ties for 23rd in number of job-related injuries and illnesses, again according to BLS reports.
Twelve years ago, the reputation of the Exxon Corp. in health and safety issues ran aground as surely as its Valdez freighter on Bligh Reef. Today the company, which in 1999 merged with Mobil to create the Exxon Mobil Corp., is a member of the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP). The program is administered by the Occupational Health & Safety Administration (OSHA) of the U.S. Department of Labor.
The program recognizes companies that demonstrate a consistent record of improvement in workplace safety procedures and have an injury and workplace-related illness rate that is far lower than the national average.
In Stratford, the Exxon Mobil Chemical Co.'s Films Business makes a thin, polypropylene film for use in candy wrappers and tobacco products. There, many of the safety precautions take the form of standard industry issue. Workers are expected to wear safety glasses and hearing protection at all times. Face shields, cut-resistant gloves and arm gauntlets are also among the employees' personal protection equipment. And the workers' safety training program covers hazards communications as well as the dangers of asbestos and lead.
More innovative is what the films plant terms its “lock-out, tag-down” program, which helps workers to isolate and control energy sources within the factory. The company implemented the precaution this year.
Placards in three colors - one for electrical, a second for pneumatic and a third for hydraulic - have been installed on the assembly line. A large sign on the company's wall tells a worker where in the plant to go to turn off the energy source, according to a company spokesman.
The total cost of the placards is minimal, yet the benefits to companies that consistently try to avoid worker accidents are broad.
“Clearly, anytime you have a worker out, whenever you see a worker injured, that affects [employee] morale. I think companies recognize the benefits of having effective safety programs,” says Robert Hooper, an assistant regional administrator with OSHA in the Northeast, who is aware of the films plant's VPP status. He puts higher morale, higher productivity, lower workers compensation costs and lower absenteeism among the gains that companies receive.
According to Hooper, OSHA outreach representatives are presently at the “hot zone” in downtown Manhattan - the area where the World Trade Center collapsed - around the clock. There, Hooper says, “We're providing respirators, taking carbon-monoxide samples, doing asbestos sampling. We're concerned with air contaminants that could affect the rescuers' health on the job.”
Hooper emphasizes that OSHA regulates only relations between employers and employees. Its efforts, therefore, do not include persons who are self-employed. However, for the businesses it does monitor, federal OSHA offices have compliance-assistance specialists. By offering training programs free of charge to employers and employees alike, they serve as the agency's health and safety advocates.
Leona May is an industrial hygienist who works as a compliance assistant specialist at the OSHA federal area office in Bridgeport. She was the last appointee in the New England area to a kind of position that was created just two years ago. “All I do is outreach,” she says. “All I do is public information.”
May says that she works with organizations, such as the Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA), rather than with individual companies. “At the CBIA, we can talk to 50 or 100 companies. We can't get that impact doing one-on-one. Hopefully, most of these companies are going to be captured somewhere along the line by the organizations they belong to.”
Right now May is concentrating on educating businesses about the changes in records-keeping that OSHA demands. The new procedures will take effect on the first day of 2002. “The forms are changing, the criteria is changing. Every [business] that has 11 or more employees is required to have an injury and illness log. Some of the conditions as to when you have to record an injury are changing,” May says.
In addition, her activities probe two areas: the blood-borne pathogens that can result in HIV and hepatitis, and the safety of teen workers.
Her efforts to educate health care professionals on blood-borne pathogens focus on safe-needle devices, such as retractable and self-sheathing needles. Recently, she gave a presentation on those devices to a group of X-ray technicians who are studying to maintain their certification.
Her concern for the safety of younger workers takes her to boards of education, teenagers and the business people most likely to hire them. “There's a whole list of tasks that people under 18, who fall under child labor laws in Connecticut, are not allowed to do,” she explains. “You'll see young people get hurt on fork trucks. Meat slicers, meat grinders - workers are not supposed to operate them if they're under 18. That's part of education, too.”
Teenagers, of course, are not the only employees whose jobs can place them at risk. Overhead lifts that don't work force workers to lift and carry heavy manufacturing parts, and even days spent behind a cash register or a computer can take a physical toll.
Heavy lifting and repetitive tasks are known as ergonomic hazards, and they affect all sectors of the economy. They can result in a wide variety of muscloskeletal disorders.
A study released last year by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) quantified the costs that ergonomic hazards are exacting. It estimated that workers compensation for such injuries cost between $13 billion and $20 billion each year. The report put the annual cost to the economy at between $45 and $50 billion.
Right now, ergonomics is a hot political issue, too, because the federal government has yet to enact a new ergonomics standard after repealing the old one.
Ergonomic hazards were very much on the minds of HealthNet of the Northeast Inc., a health maintenance organization in Shelton, when it built a service center that opened late last month. (Its parent company, HealthNet Inc. is located in Woodland Hills, Calif.)
According to spokesman Ira Morrison, the center's 500 employees all have ergonomically correct chairs. Workstations have computer keyboard trays that employees can adjust, as well as pads to support their wrists while they use the computers.
“We offer training to all employees in basic office safety and comfort. How to sit properly, how to lift properly, good posture - how to prevent strain that is common in the workplace,” Morrison says.
Although all employees at HealthNet's Connecticut facilities have ergonomically friendly work stations, each customer service representative at the new center has a headset, so he can avoid the neck strain that occurs from typing while using the telephone.
Since the onset of the anthrax scare in late September, the company has formed a committee to review its plans for a biohazard response. And, using government information, it has sent e-mails to its employees to educate them about the disease. The memo even recommended a protocol employees could use for opening mail.
In spite of many scares, no anthrax has appeared in Connecticut's mail to date. That's good news for all workers. Yet amid the concerns, the worker behind the downtown New Haven postal counter has remained calm. “I don't worry about it,” says the worker, whose first name is Kathy. “If it happens, it happens.”
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