"As a Field Inventory Specialist, I see the good, the bad, and the ugly of chemical inventory practices! An accurate chemical inventory is the foundation for your overall chemical management initiatives and GHS compliance. Therefore, similar to building a house, periodic chemical inventories will ensure there are no cracks in your foundation. The foundation is built on understanding what chemicals you have on site, documenting where they are located, as well as ensuring an accurate and up-to-date safety data sheet (SDS) is available.

The rewards are that you will: 1) establish a solid baseline for creating chemical approval and control procedures, 2) ensure SDS compliance, and 3) automate regulatory reporting that is efficient and accurate.

Here are a few of the things I try to go over with EHS managers before I begin an inventory.

1. Tidy up. For safety and efficiency purposes, do a little "spring cleaning" on the areas that you are going to inventory. Dispose of unused or outdated chemicals before beginning.

2. Label and/or bar-code materials. Make sure all chemicals are labeled or use bar codes, if they’re available from your SDS or inventory management system. Labeled materials will speed up the inventory process and allow for the least disruptions of production lines or research activity.

3. Plan the work, work the plan. Set the date early and educate employees about the inventory process. Have a map of the facility and, if employing multiple teams to inventory, assign areas up front so there is no overlap or redundancy in effort."

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Dr. David Michaels announced it during DOL's 2013 Workers' Memorial Day ceremony.

• Apr 30, 2013

OSHA's chief on April 29 announced an initiative to strengthen protections for temporary employees. The announcement was made during a program at Labor Department headquarters in Washington, D.C., marking Workers' Memorial Day.

OSHA also sent a memorandum to its regional administrators directing field inspectors to assess whether employers who use temp workers are complying with their responsibilities under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Inspectors will use a newly created code in their information system to denote when temp workers are exposed in violation of regulations and standards, and they'll assess whether temp workers received required training in a language and vocabulary they can understand.

"On Workers' Memorial Day, we mourn the loss of the thousands of workers who die each year on the job from preventable hazards," said Dr. David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health. "Many of those killed and injured are temporary workers who often perform the most dangerous jobs, have limited English proficiency, and are not receiving the training and protective measures required. Workers must be safe, whether they've been on the job for one day or for 25 years."

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"Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri announced the numbers while kicking off the Department of Buildings' ninth annual Construction Safety Week with the 2013 Build Safe/Live Safe Conference.

• Apr 30, 2013

New York City Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri opened the Department of Buildings' ninth annual Construction Safety Week on April 29 at the 2013 Build Safe/Live Safe Conference, with the announced results of Operation: Low Rise, a two-month inspection sweep of low-rise construction sites throughout the city. Detailed inspections at 920 sites resulted in full and partial stop work orders at 12 percent of the locations, 879 safety violations being issued, and a minimum of $954,450 in penalties.

The conference was held at the New York Marriott Downtown and more than 400 construction professionals and government regulators attended it.

The department's multi-lingual safety campaign for low-rise construction operations, titled Experience Is Not Enough, saw inspectors hand out more than 10,000 educational flyers encouraging workers to take proper precautions on the job site. According to the DOB news release, construction-related fatalities rose to eight last year from five in 2011, and seven of the 2012 deaths occurred on low-rise sites -- buildings under construction that will be nine stories or less."

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