HandS has been updated today with the addition of a new section on PPE. The issues covered on this new page are those that some of you may have encountered: no PPE being provided; PPE being provided, but as a substitute for proper controls on hazards; being charged by your employer for PPE; having to share PPE with other people; the imposition of mandatory blanket PPE; and the problem of employees who won’t use their PPE.
Mandatory Blanket PPE is a policy concept that is spreading, causing quite a few problems on job sites, and a fair amount of controversy amongst health and safety professionals. This is where your employer issues everyone with a bundle of PPE and makes it obligatory to wear it all the time, wherever you are in the workplace or on a site. One view credits such employers with being conscientiously pro-active. Another view is that it amounts to little more than lazy health and safety management, because PPE is being distributed and used as the first resort (rather than the last), instead of spending the necessary time and money to carry out proper risk assessments and establish good risk controls, as required by the law.
It’s one thing to be forced to wear PPE that is uncomfortable, makes a job more difficult, or introduces new hazards. It is quite another for someone to flaunt their total disregard for their own safety and that of people around them. The problem of employees who won’t wear PPE is one that affects Safety Reps as well. While it is never up to you as a Safety Rep to act as a policeman for management, you may find yourself in the awkward position of having to encourage co-operation with company policy.
PPE is our right, a right that other working people fought to get for us, and one that a lot of people throughout the world wish they had. In the United States, in 1999, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) finally proposed a rule requiring employers to pay for protective clothing, face shields, gloves and other equipment used by U.S. workers. But before the proposal became a standard, Mr. Bush was elected to office. Since then, the U.S. Department of Labor has neglected to enact the standard. Many workers in America’s most dangerous industries, including meatpacking, poultry, and construction, who have high rates of injury, are still forced by their employers to pay for their own safety gear. According to OSHA’s own figures, 400,000 workers have been injured and 50 have died owing to the lack of the PPE rule. Since only 14% of U.S. workers even belong to a union, we can imagine they’ll be waiting quite a while for PPE that they don’t have to pay for themselves. (The grass is not always greener on the other side.)
The new PPE page encourages employees to take advantage of that right, and to make good use of PPE, with a lesson ’sorely’ learned (with photographs) by a personal friend and fellow Safety Rep, who now wishes he’d donned a pair of gloves to do some simple engine maintenance on his car at home.
I hope some of you find the page useful. As always, stories, comments, suggestions and contributions for the site are always welcomed.
#
