Health and Safety

L-242 members work four years at Hanford without recordable injury

MEMBERS OF LOCAL 242 (Spokane, Wash.) working at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Wash., received recognition from signatory contractor Chicago Bridge & Iron (CB&I) recently for working four calendar years without a recordable injury.

TO HELP FAMILIES and local lodges...

Group seeks to measure training effectiveness

EIGHT VOLUNTEERS FROM Local 101, Denver, recently participated in a two-phase pilot study at the lodge designed to measure the effectiveness of local exhaust ventilation (LEV) training. The study is being carried out by the Center for Construction Research & Training (CPWR) and a consortium of university researchers.

Boilermakers Health and Safety Services Director Mark Garrett was on hand to observe the study, which was performed by Pam Susi of CPWR and Sergio Caporali, PhD, of the University of Puerto Rico.

Some may not go off in time

THE MOST COMMON type of smoke detector — ionization — may not save you in “smoldering fires,” those that start out producing little flame but lots of smoke. In a test initiated by NBC Nightly News, more than half an hour passed before ionization smoke detectors activated once a smoldering fire began.

However, photoelectric smoke detectors go off much sooner when there is a smoldering fire, the test showed.

Injury rates drop across three categories

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of Construction Boilermaker Employers (NACBE) presented its annual safety awards to the 2011 top-performing locals from the Boilermakers’ four U.S. vice-presidential sections March 5 during the annual Construction Sector Operations conference held at Marco Island, Fla.

Local 263 (Memphis, Tenn.), representing the Southeast, took national honors with zero lost-time accidents, zero compensable injuries, and zero OSHA-recordable injuries.

Boilermakers, other crafts cut recordable injuries to zero

BOILERMAKERS LOCAL 37 (New Orleans) and Local 110 (Hattiesburg, Miss.) were among the craft unions employed by Day & Zimmerman to be recognized August 30 by Entergy for working 100,000 hours since January 2011 without a recordable injury. The awards were presented at L-37’s union hall in Slidell, La., during a meeting of the Entergy Fossil Tripartite.

Daughters of deceased L-73 member lay wreath at Saint John, NB, monument

THE FORMAL DEDICATION and unveiling of a new monument to commemorate Canadian workers who have been killed or injured on the job took place on April 28th at Rockwood Park in Saint John, New Brunswick. The unveiling was part of a “day of mourning” ceremony in which more than 30 wreaths were laid at the foot of the monument by family members and union representatives.

Lost-time injuries drop to record low

TO PREFACE THE NACBE awards presentation at the Boilermakers Construction Division Conference held at Marco Island, Fla., March 20-25, NACBE Exec. Dir. John Erickson congratulated all locals for driving the 2010 lost-time injury rate to an all-time low. “We could not have accomplished these numbers without the participation of each and every single Boilermaker,” he said.