Text For Citation: 01 Item/Group: 002 Hazard: ERGONOMIC

Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970: The employer did not furnish employment and a place of employment which were free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees in that employees were exposed to: a) The hazard of conducting lifting tasks including, but not limited to, the hand lifting and carrying of barrels of materials from the 50/50 trim and fat platform, throwing large arm bones at table one, and tossing large shank bones at table number 2 thereby exposing employees to the risk of musculoskeletal injuries such as back injuries and muscle strains because of the undesirable ergonomic conditions and improper work techniques. Feasible and useful methods to correct the hazard, among other methods would be to implement a musculoskeletal accident prevention program which would include the following essentials: 1) Incorporate into the orientation program more comprehensive training to ensure that all employees possess, demonstrate, and verbalize a working knowledge of body mechanics and manual lifting. 2) Surveillance of the work area on a regular basis for the purpose of monitoring the lifting techniques being practiced. 3) A survey of all work areas to identify those ergonomic actions which may contribute to back and muscle injuries. 4) Positive corrective measures such as the use of lifting and movement, assistance devices to eliminate and/or improve conditions identified as contributory factors to musculoskeletal injuries. ABATEMENT NORMALLY WILL BE MULTI-STEP AS FOLLOWS: STEP 1: Effective administrative protection such as employee training, physical assessment, etc., shall be provided as an interim measure until feasible engineering and/or administrative control can be implemented or whenever such controls fail to reduce employee exposure to nominal risk. STEP 2: Submit to the Area Director a written detailed plan of abatement outlining a schedule for the implementation of engineering or administrative measures to control employee injury due to manual lifting tasks. Engineering controls to reduce musculoskeletal stresses include, but are not limited to, job redesign, reduction of the horizontal and vertical load distance from the body, reduction of the lifting frequency and/or weight, and the use of mechanical lifting aids. This plan shall include at a minimum, target dates for the following actions which should be consistent with the abatement dates of the citation: a) Evaluation of the conditions, locations, and manual lifting activities that the employees are performing at the onset of musculoskeletal injuries; b) Evaluation of applicable control measures; c) Procurement, installation, and operation of selected control measures; d) Monitoring to assure effective utilization of control measures. STEP 3: Abatement shall have been completed by the implementation of feasible engineering and/or administrative controls and upon verification of their effectiveness in reducing the occurrence of musculoskeletal injuries.