By ORC

The European Union’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) took effect June 1, 2008, replacing 40 laws governing industry’s use of chemicals within the European Union (EU). In this column we will focus on REACH’s most immediate requirements that are already affecting U.S. companies doing business in the EU. 

The American Industrial Hygiene Association’s new Strategy to Demonstrate the Value of Industrial Hygiene (aka, the Value Strategy), developed by ORC Worldwide, uses an eight-step process to identify and quantify the financial and non-financial links between industrial hygiene investment and business value.

A presentation on the Value Strategy was the highlight of the Tuesday plenary session at this year’s American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition. More than 400 people at the June conference attended two follow-up presentations

 A growing number of safety professionals, including many ORC Worldwide members, are questioning the conventional wisdom that preventing unsafe acts and minor incidents will lead to fewer fatalities. The questions arise because in recent years many companies have lowered total injury rates — yet the number of fatalities continues as before.

Risk is the “raison d’etre” for occupational safety and health (OSH) professionals. Our jobs are all about anticipating, recognizing, evaluating, preventing, and controlling risk, so as to keep people from harm while they work.

This is a good thing. So why do we become vulnerable during hard economic times?

Has your company found a way to keep all contract workers and subcontract workers as safe as your own employees?   Nearly three years ago, when ORC Worldwide began looking at the challenge of protecting contract workers on behalf of a client, we discovered an astonishing absence of data on contract worker injuries and fatalities.

During his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama made a number of pledges to "strengthen occupational safety and health" by increasing funding for OSHA inspections and training....