DCHAS-L Discussion List Archive
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Subject: Re: Safety Training
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:51:09 -0500
Author: "Amell, Diane (DLI)"
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Subject: Re: Safety Training
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:12:11 GMT
Author: "paracelcusbombastusvon**At_Symbol_Here**juno.com"
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Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:50:06 -0400
Reply-To: DCHAS-L Discussion List <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU>
Sender: DCHAS-L Discussion List <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU>
From: ILPI <info**At_Symbol_Here**ILPI.COM>
Subject: Re: Safety Training
In-Reply-To: <COL124-W8A7C6648C59DCA0412CBAC8850**At_Symbol_Here**phx.gbl>
Academia needs to wake up
and have a simple outright ban on all laboratory work until the worker
has completed their mandatory safety training. We don't
allow folks to start driving and then "get around to" getting their
driver's licenses, do we?
I agree that most EHS
departments have enough grief being seen as an arcane enforcer rather
than safety/productivity partner in academia, however this one simple
rule needs to be written in stone so it isn't unwritten in
blood.
In my 4 years at MIT, not one person
ever said "I can't wait to start work but have to take my training class
first." They just started in the lab. Now, that was back in
the days when the web was still a twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee's eye and
things have likely improved to a fair degree. However, the
attitude of "work now and safety when I get around to it" is still
rampant at most academic institutions and is a direct result of failure
to promote safety culture.
I
conjecture that this failure of academic institutions to teach and
promote safety culture in their curriculum and department is the root
cause of the vast majority of accidents at such institutions.
Training should start on day 1 with the formal presentations, and
on day 1 the message should be that safety is an integral part of
planning every single laboratory operation (not just experiments,
either). Safety planning/procedure should be written into the
laboratory notebook of every undergraduate student (and for that matter,
graduate student and postdoc). Only then can our system start
graduating students competent in safety culture - students who can then
go on to industry without culture shock or into academia with the seeds
of long-overdue change.
Rob
Toreki
PS: One other issue at the major
institutions is that it is simply impossible for the PI of a 20-person
group to be on top of all safety matters in their operation.
Authority is delegated or diffused to the point that folks are
basically winging it in many cases. I know people who saw their
research advisor perhaps once every two or three weeks and they were
lucky to talk to him or her for 20 minutes. Those previous moments
will focus on one's thesis work results from the past 2 weeks and plans
for the coming 2 weeks are the reason for the meeting; safety will
never, *ever* come up. But this digresses into another
conversational thread.
=======
=========================
======================
Safety Emporium - Lab & Safety Supplies featuring brand
names
On Aug 26, 2010, at 9:53 AM, Dan Herrick
wrote:
As
others have noted, the approach that works well in industry won't work
as well in academia. If the people not attending training are
employees of the academic institution (facilities staff, maybe?), you
may be able to implement some of the performance-based consequences
whcih have been suggested. For faculty, undergrads, grad students,
and post-docs, this is not realistic.
We have web-based
training for a number of modules (Haz Waste, General Chem, etc) and we
require documentation of Lab Specific training every year. All
training is also recorded in a system where we can track metrics by PI
and follow up on incomplete training. For continually
non-compliant folks, I try all the usual channels - multiple emails,
reminders of when live courses are given, attempts to give live courses
to an entire research group at a group meeting all at once, etc.
Usually people complete training eventually, if only because they are
sick of my repeated emails. Sometimes it comes down to individual
visits with individual PIs - they may not be actively "avoiding"
training , they may just legitimately be extremely busy. If one
"sells" it right, this can come across not as "You didn't do your
training!" but "How can I help you ensure the safety of your laboratory
in the most effective way?" In the long run, the latter is more
helpful than the former.
A lot of it does come down to the safety
culture that is created within the academic institution. If EHS is
viewed as a helpful partner in ensuring that research proceeds in an
effective manner, and if there is buy-in from University leadership and
Departmental leadership regarding established safety programs, then
"escalating" the continually non-compliant to the next level of
"management" is straight-forward and should produce results. If
EHS is viewed as merely an ancillary part of the campus that enforces
regulatory codes or as a group which tends to impede research being
done, or if top level folks at the University are not interested in or
engaged in safety, the task is much harder.
Good luck.
Dan
Herrick
EHS
Coordinator
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
Mechanical Engineering
Department, Research Laboratory of Electronics,
Department of
Aeronautics and Astronautics, Civil and
Environmental Engineering Department
herrickd**At_Symbol_Here**mit.edu
Date: Wed,
25 Aug 2010 16:01:19 -0600
From:
ldamon**At_Symbol_Here**FVCC.EDUSubject:
[DCHAS-L] Safety Training
To:
DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDUI am wondering how
others address employees =93blowing-off=94 safety training. There
always seem to be the few employees that invariably are no shows for the
trainings.
Thanks in advance for your
replies=85
Laura Damon
Coordinator of Instructional Safety and Chemical
Hygiene
Flathead Valley Community
College
ldamon**At_Symbol_Here**fvcc.edu
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