Text For Citation: 01 Item/Group: 005 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 increased risk of cumulative trauma disorder(s) from the tasks that they were performing and administrative or engineering controls were not provided: a) Sil-Base Co., Inc., Cast Bldg.,Mixing Floor: where mixers lift 100 bags of Calcium Aluminate Cement and Flint. (12/09/91) Among other feasible methods of control are as follows: 1. Request supplier to ship additives in 40 lb. or 50 lb. bags; 2. Use automatic fed into mixers; 3. Use an air suction hoist when transporting bags to the mixers. Abatement normally will be multistep as follows: Step 1: Effective administrative protection such as employee training, baseline health surveillance,, job rotation, etc. shall be provid e as an interim protective measure until feasible engineering or permanent administrative controls can be implemented which will reduce employee exposure to the hazard of musculoskeletal injuries. Methods of control can be: 1. Have supplier provide 40 lb. or 50 lb. bags; 2. Use automatic feed; 3. Use air suction hoists. Step 2: Submit to the Area Director a written, detailed plan of abatement outlining a schedule for the implementation of engineering and/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 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 conditions, locations and manual lifting activities that the employees are performing at the onset of musculoskeletal injuries; (2)Evaluation of applicable control measures; and (3) Procurement, installation and operation of selected control measures. Step 3: Abatement shall have been completed by the implementation of feasible engineering and/or administrative controls. Where the lifting task analyses in NIOSH's Work Practices Guide for Manual Lifting has been utilized, compliance will be achieved when the calculated action level is met.