Alliance -- An OSHA Cooperative Program << Back to Concluded Regional Alliances - Region V

  1. Alliance Background

    Date Signed.

    The alliance was initially signed on July 7, 2005 and renewed in July of 2008.

    Alliance Overview.

    • Enhance outreach activities and training programs to improve business awareness of OSHA's rules, safety and health management systems and cooperative programs as well improve the awareness of the Wisconsin Onsite Consultation Programs Services.
    • Promote the use of OSHA, Wisconsin Onsite Consultation Programs, technical and training assistance and participation in cooperative programs by Onsite Consultation.
    • Improve the safety and health performance of employers that receive outreach, training and other assistance service (i.e. mentoring, Onsite Consultation, hazard identification).
    Implementation Team Members.
     
    Kimberly Stille, Area Director, Madison
    George Yoksas, Area Director Milwaukee
    Terry Moen, Program Director, Wisconsin Consultation
    Frances Huntley-Cooper, Administrator, Workers Compensation Division
    Jose Bucio, Wisconsin AFL-CIO

  2. Implementation Team Meetings

    Meetings were held on these dates: October 29, 2009, December 15, 2009, May 18, 2010 and July 8, 2010. Additionally, meetings of subcommittees of the implementation team met at various times to achieve specific task specific goals.

  3. Activities and Products

    Evaluation Period.
     
    This report covers the period November 13, 2009 to October 1, 2010.

    Alliance Activity and Product.

    • This alliance worked on the topic of fatigue in the workplace, its effects on employees and safety and health and issues that employers should consider when scheduling employees' work shifts. As there are no consensus standards for workplace fatigue, this initiative involved a lot of research to find and evaluate the science behind workplace fatigue and whether it's potential to affect workplace safety and health has been documented in the literature. The team worked hard to obtain scientifically valid evidence of specific risk factors related to workplace fatigue and to try to determine if control measures were available.
    • The alliance decided that the team was not in a position to develop OSHA standards or even recommendations, although they were convinced that information about fatigue in the workplace is valuable to employers and employees. Inspired by OSHA's safety and health web pages, we decided to collect scientifically valid information on the topic with an emphasis on how to develop and implement measures into an employer's safety and health processes. The goal was to make it available via either an OSHA web page or a standalone site. The site would be organized in a toolbox fashion so that employers and other interested parties can pick and choose the information of interest. It was also determined that we had enough information to compile the information into a publication.
  4. Results

    1. All of the supporting information on workplace fatigue has been compiled and organized and is ready to be developed into a web page, either as an OSHA safety and health topic or a standalone site.
    2. A draft 20 page document that summarizes the alliance's findings on fatigue in the workplace was submitted for review by the implementation team. We expect that it will be ready for public view within a few months.
    3. The PowerPoint presentation developed in the past reporting period has been further revised and presented to various groups in the past year:
      1. On April 26, 2010, a one hour presentation was given to 90 attendees of a conference sponsored by the Wisconsin Safety Council.
      2. On June 2, 2010, a one hour presentation was given to 65 attendees of the regional VPPPA conference in Bloomington, MN.
      3. On December 1, 2009, a one hour long presentation was given during the Occupational Roundtable at the Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene to about 10 attendees.
    4. One of the committee members who works for the Wisconsin Hospital Association has posted the PPT to the WHA web site and she often presents it to WHA stakeholders.
    5. We are in the process of wrapping up this project and are excited about meeting soon to select another topic.
    Type of Activity
    (Conference, Training, Print and Electronic Distribution, etc.)    		 Number of Individuals Reached or Trained
    Presentations 165 +
    Electronic media – We are in the process of making the information available to the OSHA community and it may end up on OSHA's Website. To be decided.
    Total More than 165

    Report Prepared by: Leslie Ptak, Compliance Assistance Specialist, Madison OSHA.

    For more information, contact the Office of Outreach Services and Alliances at 202-693-2340 or go to OSHA's Website.