I was wondering if anyone else has seen an increase of serious injurys in 2007 My own opinion is that engineers,salesmen and saleswomen have lost the respect that machinist and fabricators have to work with dangerous equipment and excpect work to be done within insane timelines. Last year year These accidents happen just in my area.
1.) Former co-worker lost a finger in a press
2.) My present coworker lost a finger in a milling machine
3.) Fatal accident down the street was told he must get a press going was picked up in another press by a robot
I know everyone is responsible for there own safety but some must agree when there is overwhelming stress put upon you by management and others the first thing you forget about is safety.

u says ur present coworker lost a finger in a milling machine its not a his mistake actually management is responsible for that they should check them machines regularly and use other machines or tools .

Okay. So, to summarise, he put his fingers near a fast spinning sharp thing without appropriate care and attention. How, exactly, is that the fault of management?

Sorry for my bluntness, but I take extreme exception to the idea that personal responsibility these days can be avoided by just pointing a finger to 'management'.

Cheers,

Allan.

Dibblah - I concur.

This is indicative of the "hot coffee lawsuit" mentality. No accident is ever the worker's fault, it's all management.

Yes, there are still worker safety issues caused by management not having the appropriate countermeasures in place, but that is the exception rather than the rule. Anytime in recent memory I've heard of an industrial accident, the core issue was the worker not following the proper safety protocol and subsequently suing the company. Like the guy who forgot something at work so he decided to jump the gate (so it didn't shut the system down) to the company's AS/RS warehouse, with 30 mph robotic forklifts inside. Got run down, family sued the place, won.

I'm sorry, if you stick your hand in a running milling machine or fail to secure a press, you deserve to lose a finger. Some people are here only to serve as a warning to others.

I've done some unsafe things and got burned, but I have the good sense to realize that I'm the idiot who did them. I have all the safety equipment I need to do my job properly. Using the safety equipment each and every time is ultimately up to the individual doing the job.

Hey don't take this the wrong way; I intend no offense, but I see the other side. And think I've been there.

I wish I had your experience. I started in the environmental field, and am trying to switch careers. I have a year in trade school, manual machines. I agree that blatant mistakes by the worker are one thing, but in my experience there's more often than not bad management out there. And sometimes it *is* the managements fault.

Your only choice when in a bad management situation is to leave once you wise up. If you don't, then it's your fault for staying. Here are some of the things that made me leave companies.

I was doing OSHA 40 hazmat work (1994), before being properly trained. That's a minimum of 40 hours classtime before going on a nasty site. A year into the job, and after the training, we worked an acid spill that closed US1 for 16 hours. My company promoted a guy who they knew falsified his credentials including high school graduation... on this spill he ordered us to skip a manadory (40 CFR) safety meeting, and as a result, my half of the crew tightened all the overpack drums for shipping. This wouldn't have been a problem, except he failed to install the self relieving valves (85 dollars apiece) as recommended by chemtrek and instead wanted the drums loose. I was in the trailer counting the drums for manifest when they started expanding. One looked like a wok on top. I left shortly thereafter... the idiot who caused this mess was never reprimanded, but later fired for theft.

The words of the company man were "While it was a significant emotional event, your life was never in danger." A couple of guys had to hold me back. Yeah right... it took the experts to fix it. In class A suits and bomb squad gear. No, I'm not kidding. We turned the spill over to the national response center. 'Bout got us fired too.

I still shake when thinking about it.

I worked for a major university (1997-99)... I was the first ever to come into Health and Safety with previous hazmat spill experience. I was impressed and fooled by all the nice equipment that they had. Explosimeter... don't need it. Not even for spilled av gas. Certainly not for unknown atmospheres. I got in trouble for insisting. Respiratory protection? We were wearing filters when supplied air was required. I got in trouble for insisting on medical monitoring after an unknown overexposure. Can you say Hazcom 1500?? The industrial hygenist couldn't field calibrate the pid (a basic hygiene and safety tool)... Heck, I had more training and experience with it than she did. The management considered me arrogant for helping people learn to use it. And don't get me started on Mercury... I saw a major spill not get reported... because reportable quanity refers to shipping, not us. You should have seen the contractors faces when he asked what our DEQ cleanup endpoint was, and our office told them we were not reporting it. The levels were so high when cleaning up that in 30 minutes you were done for the day... unless you were in completely enveloping protective gear (which of course we didn't have). Can you say "I'm gonna have to have something in writing!!" Of course, the readings I took were invalidated by the industrial hygenist as "incorrect" and way too high. I was later passed over for promotion, for people who were more qualified, yet had not yet taken any of the OSHA required training. Sure enough, one of these people on their first spill outing, made the mistake of sitting down in the area where all the little mercury droplets were... without protective gear. I don't know, more qualified than me, and stupid enough to sit in the area of ookie stuff I'm cleaning up?? I stayed far too long.

On a side note, the architechture(sp) dept had a woodworking shop... they let anyone use it. A full scholarship young man (18) with a bright future was using a bandsaw. He had no shop training or experience whatsoever. Cut off all the fingers on his dominant hand, at the base of the palm. No reatachment possible. The universities position was that he was an adult and could make his own decisions... And, that OSHA was for employees, which students clearly are not, therefore not protected or constrained by OSHA either. I just didn't agree with that at all.

I went back to a small enviromental company. They accepted a confined space job. This wasn't their bag of tea. I was the only person (out of about20) to be trained to supervisory levels, and nobody was trained as a competent person on the monitoring equipment for chlorine... which was part of the process. The lockout tagout was iffy at best, and they had one recovery system for two people in the hole. That system was a rope tied to an extendahoe... and not really a good choice... Of course I objected to the company doing the job, and was scheduled elsewhere that day.

So. You can guess that the processes kicked on while somebody was in there, and double block and bleed was not used. Their only saving grace was there were no deaths due to chlorine fumes. And my coworker struggled out before he drowned. A couple of 4 inch pipes putting hot water on ya can ruin your day. I used some pretty choice language describing the idiocy, and had to leave before being fired.

I haven't been back. WON'T go back. I've run out of close calls.

My guess is that it is the same with machine shops. There will be both good, bad, and inbetween. I've heard of some bad.

In classes (2006), half of the students in my group came from a shop that paid them to be there. They hated occasionally working in the back room of their shop pushing buttons, because they would get "coolant cough" and be sick for a couple days after. They consistantly asked for some solution to the problem, some increase in ventilation, or better enclosure of the machines. No dice. The airborne coolant would stay. So would the three day barf out your lungs cough.


I don't know...

How is that the employee's fault???


In Virginia, a foundry near where I live exploded. The union had for three years been trying to get the company to repair leaking high pressure gas lines to the furnaces. After the explosion, Osha found these lines terminated with things like two liter bottles wrapped in duct tape. Three workers died, and had it not been at shift change... it would have been many more.

They got fined, like the largest Virginia fines ever, but there should have been people in jail.

Again, what could they have done differently except strike? Ya gotta work!

There was a Tool and Die shop I wanted to work at, and a classmate was working there. The roof leaked, they wouldn't fix it, and he said if you stepped in a puddle you could be electrocuted. They employed about 15 or so people. Just don't step in the water that's all over the floor.

I hope that machining is not trading your health for money like the environmental field.

But when you have a skill... you can take your ball and go home :)

At least that's what I'm hoping.

And I'm not so young and trusting anymore.

I'll certainly believe that others will, like I have, for one reason or another work under bad conditions, and take risks when both underinformed and overpressured.

And for a bad employer I'm certain if you start talking OSHA, you'd better move your tools close to the door.

Glad that's off my chest... apologies in advance if offended.

Mike Horne

Safety is the responsibility of both management and the workers. Management needs to provide basic safety tools and equipment as well as well written policies on safety issues. In my shop I have clear expectations of my workers regarding safety, they get 3 written warnings when they break company policy, after the the 3rd warning they no longer work here. They get one written warning if they disable any safety interlock system, they do it a second time and they are gone. My workers also have an expectation of the company, we provide them with safety glasses, prescription safety glasses if needed, gloves for chemical mixing, msds sheets in an easy to find organized binder, good ventilation, etc. We also have an open door policy, if one of my workers comes up to me and says a piece of machinery is not functioning properly or safely, it is shut down until it is repaired. In fact I will give a written warning if I find out that a piece of machinery was being used after there was a problem with it and I was not notified. On the flip side we have to make money, but I don't want anyones injury or death on my head. So far no major injuries, and we are making the green stuff just fine:)

JDenyer232 You are a good manager. I'm sure you respect that this machinery is dangerous stuff and operators deserve some respect. Let me ask you do you let your salesman rip into your operators because they made a ridiculous timeline and let the operators take the blame because they are lower guy on the totem pole and put them in a stressfull enviroment. Sure there are machinist and operators that need a kick in the rear to get them going but where not talking about them just your average good operator or machinist

JDenyer232 You are a good manager. I'm sure you respect that this machinery is dangerous stuff and operators deserve some respect. Let me ask you do you let your salesman rip into your operators because they made a ridiculous timeline and let the operators take the blame because they are lower guy on the totem pole and put them in a stressfull enviroment. Sure there are machinist and operators that need a kick in the rear to get them going but where not talking about them just your average good operator or machinist

My saleman never gets to talk to the operators, timelines are my responsibility, if something is going to be late I let our sales dept. know as soon as possible so they can contact the customer. I have walked out of more that one meeting with a sore butt, but hey, that's my job and that's what I get paid for. We are very rarely late, I always factor in a little extra time for a job for the what if this goes wrong factor. When it comes to crunch time of getting something out the door, then I am right next to my guys running a machine to make sure that happens. My company is really good to work for, they put people first, and all managers including the owner are working managers. Most days I'm either writing a program for a new job, setting up a machine, or running the parts. It does get a little hectic doing all this plus answering the million questions and dealing with management activities, but in the end I stay very busy, and that makes the work day fly:) And yes I do have respect for the machinery, it can do some awful things to you if you get careless(nuts)

My saleman never gets to talk to the operators, timelines are my responsibility, if something is going to be late I let our sales dept. know as soon as possible so they can contact the customer. I have walked out of more that one meeting with a sore butt, but hey, that's my job and that's what I get paid for. We are very rarely late

This is the kind of mentality we need our owners and managers to have a true manager someone that will get his own butt kicked for the safety of his workers. How is he rarely late on deadlines you might ask it is because his workers respect him for getting his butt kicked for them. He is letting his operators and machinist worry about the job at hand not deadlines,shipments, late payments you know the stuff other people get paid very well to handle.
I used to work for an owner like this before We never knew that their was screaming mad customers or late shipments because salesmen promised them before talking to anyone or engineers trying to cover their butts with their mistakes or anything else that goes on in every shop all we knew is we had parts to make so we did it well the owner took care of those other matters. His catch phrase was no one gets hurt on my watch if any one bothers you send them my way. He meant that to if he saw a salesman talking to us while running a machine trying to hurry things along he would rip them a new one. I would kill to work for someone like that again. Talk about having some respect for us machinist he took alot on so we could work safe. He's retired now with a mansion right on the ocean he still got the job done while still creating a safe enviroment

so far 2008 hasn t been any picnic
i agree with the fact personal safety is an individual responsibility and as pointed previously we tend to overlook things or take shortcuts if we are under the gun , pressure from upper management can be great at times ,at all times where i work !
i get put under a heavy amount of pressure to assure the upper management the guys working below me are performing sometimes beyond reality other than that we are the a%^holes of the day , enough so that ive had it and my days are numbered there
with that said ,those of us who take pride in our work and ourselves tend to try to save face and push ourselves beyond our limits and in our haste do have a higher chance of hurting ourselves , in one week i smashed the crap out of one finger and in one shot gashed open both of my thumbs while sliding a razor sharp plate across the table ,took two weeks of crazy glue to keep the one cut closed enough to start healing , i know this could have been avoided , i should have been paying more attention and shouldn t have been in such a rush but my mind was elsewhere (multi tasking)
the guys on the floor should be left to do what they do ,they do not or were they hired to deal with salesman bs , thats the job for upper management to keep under their control

**a machinist needs to be able to consentrate on the job at hand without distraction **

personally safety is our responsibility period , screw the company

Implementing a good safety program is never easy, but in the long run the company saves money, and is more productive. One simple preventable injury can put a guy out for a week or more, how do ya pick up the slack then, drive the other guys even harder? I think not. An extra minute or two to double check your setup, or slow down a little to do something in a safe manner is time well spent, not only for the company but also for the workers. Now don't get me wrong, if I see one of my guys gabbing or walking around doing nothing when there is work to be done he will get his butt chewed. It is true that as a manager my guys respect me, and will go to great lengths to make sure that what needs to get done gets done, but our one rule is to do it once, do it right, and do it safe. Dertsap, I would leave that company ASAP, bad things can happen to people when they are rushed to get it done. There is a thread on this forum somewhere entitled lathe safety with the attached picture of a man who got caught up in a lathe due to loose fitting clothing, while the photo is gruesome, I printed it out to show my guys why I don't allow loose fitting shirts, rings, or watches in the shop, and that long hair must be tied up and covered. It really drove the point home for some of them. Be safe out there, you only get one body.

The one thing that I have seen in the shop is, the older we get, the slower we are. So we all (management & workers) need to be mindful of each other and help get everyone safe. Safety is everones responible, but lets get to the facts and that is you really don't want to see anyone get hard.

Lets all stay safe out there.

ron2008

In me old company when work was slack the management had the guys angle grinding some components out of their aluminium housings.

I vagualy recalled that the components contained Thorium 232, an alpha emitter.

The point only got home to management when I said

"look, would you breathe in plutonium or uranium dust?"

"No way" was the indignant reply.

"Well" I said "Thorium 232 is more tightly controlled from a contamination point of view than both of them. Basicaly your are, by law, allowed more Plutonium or Uranium dust on the shop floor than Th232".

That made the point, but I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't mentioned/ remembered it.

On the other side- had a friend who worked at a comany that stripped asbestos- they wore full enclosed suits, boots and air filtered helmets. They worked in a positive pressure environment with extraction via monitored filters.

When they wanted a cigarette they would hide round the back and use a stanley knife to slit a hole in the plastic enclosure which they'd tape up afterwards (of course removing their filtration helmets)... mesotheleoma takes around 25 years to develop.

Another guy I knew was cleaning pitch off off a burner in a 10' X 10' enclosed cubicle with trichloethane which is non flamable, but cos of the smell the guys on the shop floor moaned so he shut the door and continued. After cleaning with tric he finished off with methanol and when done clicked the burner on to check it was ok. The atmosphere exploded blowing all the windows out- he didn't work again- the paper overals he was wearing made the burns worse.

Mind you, at the same company they used to wash the picth off their hands using trichloroethane cos they'd heard that the previous stuff they used, napthalene, was dodgy.

Seen a guy at the same company eating his sandwiches with his hands and arms up to his elbows covered in red arsenic trisulphide dust. Guess he didn't know it was dodgy.

Hey don't take this the wrong way; I intend no offense, but I see the other side. And think I've been there.

I wish I had your experience. I started in the environmental field, and am trying to switch careers. I have a year in trade school, manual machines. I agree that blatant mistakes by the worker are one thing, but in my experience there's more often than not bad management out there. And sometimes it *is* the managements fault.

Mike Horne

You seem pretty bitter. Have you ever worked anywhere with a good safety program?
What does: "Safety is a management committment and a line responsibility." mean to you?

Brian

I remember my first day as a cnc operator programmer, it was a cabinet shop, sat down for luch with all these guys eating their sandwiches with the nubs left of their fingers...it was un-freaking-believeable. It made me very aware to be very careful- and I was- I took no risks; and when my probation came up and I was informed that they weren't going to keep me past my probation I was very relieved- they saved me from making the difficult choice were the money was good but the air was bad and safety was not part of the machinery.

You seem pretty bitter. Have you ever worked anywhere with a good safety program?
What does: "Safety is a management committment and a line responsibility." mean to you?

Brian

Bitter? You say that like it's a bad thing :) Of course I'm bitter. My emotion now doesn't invalidate any instances of really poor management I endured :) Trying to do the right thing cost me a lot of trouble, three jobs, a relationship, and a bit of my health.

I did have a good experience, I guess it spoiled me for what to expect afterward.

My first job was for the park service, a program called YCC, the remainder of the Civilian Conservation Corp. Essentially we did all the heavy brush and tree removal on old civil war entrenchments in the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park were machinery was prohibited. The Chief Ranger took safety very seriously, took pride in the program and really was a good boss. The immediate super was a student who went to Canada summers to be a lumberjack. I'll never forget his safety presentation.

It went something like this: "These are the tools you'll use, watch carefully. This is a swing blade, it cuts grass. Don't get too close to anybody else while swinging this. The tool rule is two tool lengths, plus two arms lengths, get any closer and... (he wacks a helmet on the ground away from us like a golf ball) Don't let that happen to you or anybody else. This is a loping shear, these are copper pipes. (cuts the copper pipes with the shears) Don't do this to your fingers. Next he puts a steel toe boot on a stump. "This is the Park Service Fire Emergency brush hook, it cuts down trees. *Chop* Whacks the boot in half. Be very careful using this tool. Chainsaws you will not use. I will teach you what to do when I'm using them later. Next topic is heat. There will always be water, if the heat is bothering you, I expect you to stay at the cooler so I know there is trouble. Do not make me tell you that you are having trouble with heat, we all will at some point this summer. If there are two of you having trouble, we all take a break." I usually had a half gallon of gatorade with lunch.

And his words on work "I expect you to do your best, only you know what your best is. I'll do my best, you do your best."

The Chief Rangers words were memorable to. "If you work like your mother is watching everything you do, then you will probably do okay in life."

We had some minor mishaps, but nothing serious.

My other good job was this:

My first spill boss was hard as nails, but fair. He said that we would do dangerous work, and as such I had to trust his judgement, but I could question it... but if I did, and I was wrong... I would be fired on the spot. I used it too. My fellow techicians and I suspected the guy about to be promoted spill operations manager falsified his references, so I asked the boss to call and verify them. Not one checked out. I was right, but they fired my boss that week, because the company decided that to run the office you needed a masters degree, which he didn't have. So, they put a guy with no spill experience in charge of deciding who to run things out in the field, and then supervising him.

From the earlier post:

"What does: "Safety is a management committment and a line responsibility." mean to you?"

An ideal not often reached.

If you own a shop and mean it, my hat's off to you. There seem to be some small shop owners on this thread who have an attitude I heartily approve of. Once I finish getting moved, I may beg you for a job :)

Seems the places I didn't fit over the years did not have safety as a management committment... when presented with problems, they would rather hide heads in sand, come up with some bizarre interpretation of Osha, or blame the worker. I'll sound bitter I know, but it sounds like another poster up on the wall, that mangement has there to look good, paid a consultant some money to come up with, but doesn't take to heart.

The above statement to me seems to leave out teamwork, and has an adversarial attitude towards the workforce. I mean really, management is not the only part of the equation with a brain. In fact, the majority of the times I've been in a company with trouble and they bring in a "consultant" to fix the problem, management is not told anything, that is *nothing*, that is not known or thought of by the employees that they are supervising. There just has to be some face saving gesture that will be ignored later. I find that usually somebody has to get really badly hurt before a company will accept the culture of not screwing up again. Hell, I worked at a state university health and safety department, and the only reason that I didn't get fired for insisting on using and following OSHA procedures was that I would have had a heck of lawsuit.

Enough of that... in manufacturing and machining, the "line" if you will... you have skilled and highly trained workers. If they fulfill their responsibility, there should be no serious problems.

But again, there has to be cooperation from both sides of the equation. I like that, Safety = |management|x|line workers| if either value is zero, you are in trouble.

I guess that I don't entirely agree with "Safety is a management committment and a line responsibility." Because I feel it is everyones responsibility.

I'm surprised that industry doesn't spring for lots more training. I mean, if you generate any waste at all, and have a vendor that picks it up, they often throw in a number of training spots every year to get your business. Wink Wink! The same guys that train Osha 40 for hazmat probably also are trained to do the general industry 30 hour course. If you are a large manufacturer, then Clean Harbors, Safety Kleen, or whoever picks up rags, oil, or recycleables will probably be happy to do a joint class on this or that. They have to spring for that training themselves, or keep a guy on staff... a thousand bucks a head is a heck of a tax write off. Advertising, good will, and a tax write off... easy math!


Also a few universities have some kind of adaptation for machine shop safety online. Cheap compared to the aftermath of that horrible picture...

The Osha courses for general industry are if I remember right 30 hours or so. I'm probably close enough to a University to piggy back into a class for cheap. If not, it's probably only grand or so for the course.

Speaking of which, the general duty clause... requires management to control hazards not otherwise directly stated in the CFR, and protect workers from things known or reasonably expected to be dangerous. So when management drops the ball completely, I'm not inclined to be terribly forgiving. It's been law around for about thirty years. Plenty of time to get with the program.

Amazing what I remember, I have a big old stack of Osha certificates, one more won't hurt :)


Luck

Mike Horne