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Omaha, Nebraska Area Office Uses E-Mail Updates to Provide Safety and Health Information to Wide Audience

The Omaha, Nebraska Area Office in OSHA’s Region VII uses e-mail updates to provide timely safety and health information to a growing number of people throughout Nebraska. The updates include information on Nebraska workplace fatalities, new OSHA compliance assistance resources, regulatory developments, OSHA enforcement actions and notices of local safety and health training opportunities. The Area Office even uses these e-mail updates to send notices of OSHA job announcements to the local safety and health community.

Doug Fletcher, the Compliance Assistance Specialist for the Omaha Area Office, sends out the e-mail updates at least once a month to employers, employees, union representatives and labor groups, professional and industrial associations, Chambers of Commerce and government agencies. The distribution list also includes participants in OSHA’s cooperative programs, including the Area Office’s Alliances, Strategic Partnership participants and Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) participants in Nebraska. In addition, the e-mail distribution list includes local worksites listed in OSHA’s Site-Specific Targeting program, companies that have sustained fatalities in Nebraska and companies that have come to the Area Office for informal conferences to review proposed citations.

"We are pleased that we have been able to send these e-mail updates to provide workplace safety and health information to so many people in Nebraska," said Ben Bare, Area Director of the Omaha Area Office. “This tool has helped us to quickly get critical safety and health information out to those who need it most. We are only now beginning to realize how valuable and versatile this tool can be.”

The Area Office has found that many recipients of the updates are thankful for the information. The following are examples of feedback from the recipients:
  • "Doug, thanks for the updates. We have been using the fatality information for toolbox talks with our clients and also distribute the update to all of our members. The feedback we have received has been very positive." Kevin Schwartzer, Safety Director, Associated Builders & Contractors.
  • "Thanks Doug. I appreciate the information. I am also concerned with the rash of fatalities in Nebraska. We need to all get the word out to make sure everyone understands we are all vulnerable. I will make sure all shifts at our plant know we must stop the occupational deaths in Nebraska." Bob Wing, Corporate Safety Director, BPI Technology, Inc.
As of July 2007, the e-mail distribution list had grown to over 1,200 contacts. However, the updates reach many more people when they are forwarded to a group’s members. For example, the Nebraska Grain and Feed Association, an Alliance Program participant, forwards the updates to its over 300 members and the local Associated Builders and Contractors forwards them to its approximately 250 members.

For more information, please contact Doug Fletcher.

As of July 2007