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THATS LAUNCHES “NEW LOGGING EMPLOYEE SAFETY”
WEB SITE
RELEASE: April 29, 2005
CONTACT: Neil Ward (301/838-9385)
nward@forestresources.org
Rockville, MD – The National Timber Harvesting and Transportation
Safety Foundation (THATS) has launched a new section of its
www.loggingsafety.com web site
to help loggers orient new employees to logging safety, complete with
free, downloadable materials.
“Nearly one half of all logging injuries occur to workers with less than
one year on the job,” states Virginia Tech’s Bob Shaffer, leader of the
team that developed the program. “We realize that new employees are in a
vulnerable position, and that logging safety programs need to put a
special focus on them.”
Shaffer worked with the Forest Resources Association’s Southwide Safety
Committee to develop the six-step “First-Year Safety Program for
New Logging Employees,” to enable a logging business owner or foreman
to communicate a safety ethic, along with safety information, to each new
crew member. A grant from THATS supported the project.
The program calls for presenting a first-day safety overview, following up
with a series of 20- to 30-minute safety training sessions during the
first eight weeks of employment, and conducting structured “safety
observation audits” throughout the first year, as well as monthly
“debriefings”—-apart from the new crew member’s participation in OSHA-mandated
safety meetings.
The on-line resource contains hot links to downloadable supporting
materials an employer or foreman can use to conduct the sessions or
reviews recommended, including relevant FRA Loss Control Overviews, Safety
Alerts, and Technical Releases, as well as Observation Audit Forms for
specific logging tasks. Access is free to all.
THATS encourages all forestry and logging organizations to link directly
to this important resource at
www.loggingsafety.com/first_year_safety/NwE-home.htm, or to the
LoggingSafety.com home page at
www.loggingsafety.com.
The Forest Resources Association Inc., which serves as the
secretariat of THATS, is a nonprofit trade association concerned with the
safe, efficient, and sustainable harvest of forest products and their
transport from woods to mill. FRA represents wood consumers, independent
logging contractors, and wood dealers, as well as businesses providing
products and services to the forest resource-based industries.
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