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

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 excessive risk of developing back injury from lifting tasks without administrative or engineering controls: a) Core Area; An employee designated as a molder/laborer was exposed to excessive risk of back injury from lifting tasks, in that, the employee lifts 100 lb. bags of molding sand for the core machine without engineering controls. The injury and illness records for 1987 documented an incident of musculoskeletal injury for the employee designated as a molder (10/26/89). b) Mold Area; Employees designated as modlers were observed lifting 100 lb. molds from the jolt-squeeze machine to a conveyor belt without administrative or engineering controls. The injury and illness record for 1989 documented an incident of musculoskeletal injury for the employee designated as a molder (10/26/89). Abatement normally will be multistep as follows: Abatement Schedule Step 1 - Effective administrative protection, such as employee training, physical assessemnt, job rotation, etc. shall be provided as an interim protective measure until feasible engineering or permanent administrative controls can be implemented which will 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 task. 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, or weight, and use of mechanical lifting aids. This plan shall include at a minimu, taget dates for the following actions which must be consistent with the dates required by this citation. 1) Evaluation of the conditions, locations and manual lifting activities that the employees are performing at the onset of musculoskeletal injuries. 2) Evaluation of applicable control measure(s). 3) Procurement, installation and operation of selected control measures. Step 3 - Abatement shall have been completed by implementation of feasible engineering or administrative controls, upon verification of their effectiveness in reducing the occurrence of musculoskeletal injuries. Suggested methods of abatement would include the following: Instance (a) - Core Area - Feasible engineering controls would include the use of mechanical lifting aids, i.e. lift tables and/or hoists for lifting the sand, or reduce the weight of the bags of sand. Instance (b) - Mold/Cast Area - Feasible engineering controls would include the use of mechanical lifting aids, and feasible administrative controls would include employee training, job rotation, and the use of back supports for lifting tasks.