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 unacceptable risk of musculoskeletal injuries from tasks involving lifting or other forms of overexertion with utilizing adequate administrative or engineering controls: a) Entire Plant: A review of injury and illness records for 1987 indicates that there are an inordinate amount of musculoskeletal injuries plantwide (27 per cent of all recorded injuries) particularly in production and maitenance departments. As a minimum all potentially exposed employees must be trained periodicallyin body mechanics, safe manual lifting technuques and other proper and appropriate work practices to avoid over exertion and body trunk strain injuries, including the use of lifting assistance devices. Training is to be provided to employees which will familiarize them with methods to identify unsafe lifting and hazardous lifting conditions. In addition, past and current musculoskeletal injuries are to be evaluated to determine cause and prevention with the implementation of further adminstrative and/or engineering controls where feasible. Step 1 - Effective administrative protection, such as employee training, physical assessment, job rotation, etc., shall be provided where appropriate or an interim protective measure until feasible engineering or additional administrative controls can be implemented or whenever the other controls mentioned fail to to reduce employee exposure to nominal risk. Step 2 - Submit to the Area Director of OSHA 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 lifting frequency, or weight, and use of mechanical lifting aids. This plan shall include at a minimum, target 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 measures. 3) Procurement, installation and operation of selected control measures. 4) Monitoring to assure effective utilization of the control measure(s). 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.