Category Archives: Safety

Georgia Gin Safety Round Tables Well Attended

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The AgriTrust of Georgia and the Southeastern Cotton Ginners Association again put on two Ginners Safety Round Tables. This year the sessions were held at the Heart of Georgia Gin in Hawkinsville and Sconyers Gin in Sycamore.

Topics covered in this year’s Round Tables included Fork Lift and Warehouse demonstrations by MacKinnon Equipment Services, Personal Protective Equipment by Josh White with the AgriTrust, Maintenance and Off-Season Repair safety led by Jackson Hammack (Early County Gin) at Hawkinsville and Lupe Alonzo (Mobley Gin) and Rick Riley (Sconyers Gin and Whse) at Sconyers, and two Lock-out Sessions with Kirby Bailey of Safe Workforce Development and Andy Knowlton of the Southeastern Cotton Ginners Association. Additionally, the Continue reading →

Is your OSHA 300 Form Posted?

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OSHA has put a lot more emphasis on the tracking and recording of accidents and injuries. The obvious thought is that you can’t improve what you don’t measure. For years almost all employers have been required to keep track of their accidents and injuries via the OSHA 300 form. You should have 5 calendar years of OSHA 300 forms in your files. Additionally OSHA has now begun collecting the OSHA 300A information from nearly everyone that needs to keep a 300 form. The next electronic submission will be sometime this Summer.

The 300A summary of accidents and injuries are supposed to be posted each year beginning Continue reading →

OSHA Will Continue to Accept 2016 OSHA 300A’s A Few More Days

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For the past few weeks we’ve written articles and sent reminders that the deadline to submit your OSHA 300A form electronically was December 15th. OSHA has said they will continue to accept data for 2016 through December 31, 2017. So… IF you have not send in your information, please do so. More information can be found in this blog or by visiting the OSHA site on the electronic submission.

OSHA has not extended the deadline but all indications are that the late submissions will not have enforcement action because of them. They will no longer accept 2016 data after the end of this year so failing to submit your data by then would likely end up in an enforcement action if discovered.

In other OSHA activity, OSHA is considering some changes to its policy on these electronic Continue reading →

OSHA Delays Electronic Reporting Deadline by Two Weeks

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Late last week OSHA announced a delay of the Electronic Reporting of the OSHA 300’s for two weeks. The delay, officially announced on November 22, extends the deadline for sending the information for calendar year 2016 until December 15.

Last week, in this blog, we reminded members that the requirement to send the OSHA 300A summary data had not been modified since their proposed rules changes in July. This extension makes no other changes to the rule but rumors are that any additional change will take the form of not making the information public. That was our largest issue with the rule to begin with.

Please refer to THIS ARTICLE for more details on how to report with links to OSHA’s Site on the subject. As of now, there are a handful of State Plan states (where OSHA responsibilities are handled by state agencies) that have not adopted the reporting rule. In the Southeast, South Carolina is the only state that has not adopted the electronic reporting rule. According the SC OSHA site, employers in SC are not required to send their information to OSHA.

This rule is sure to change again so please keep up with the Blog or other sources to stay on top of these changes.

Its Time to Send in your OSHA 300A’s

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This has been a back and forth issue for some time. We were hoping the time wouldn’t come but it’s looking more evident that the time has come to send your 2016 OSHA 300A forms to OSHA.

Last year, OSHA released a new regulation on record keeping and reporting of injuries and illnesses. Originally, all employers with 20 or more employees at any point in the year in certain industries (including agriculture) needed to submit their OSHA 300A (Summary) data from calendar year 2016 to OSHA buy July of 2017. Under the new administration, that date was postponed and a proposed rulemaking came out that delayed the deadline for submission to December 1. The site for submittal of the 300A information went up in mid August.

We have continued to hear that OSHA will be making some changes to the rule but what those changes were have not been leaked. The hope was they would get rid of the Continue reading →

Keep Your Workers Safe

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Historically, the last week or two in October and the first week or so of November are the most dangerous time for our employees. We’ve already had one reportable accident this season when a brand new and properly trained employee put his hand in a lint cleaner before it was done coasting down.

Many gins are having a LOT of trouble finding second crews or enough employees to run two shifts. We’ve also heard reports of a large number of inexperienced workers being put on this year. Many gins are putting crews of local workers on for the first time in many years.

This is when we really need to pay attention to our training procedures. Please do your best to make sure your employees know and understand the work rules. Make sure they are properly trained to do their job and not to help on any job unless asked to help and then only do what is directed.

Last season was a very good year for accidents in the SE. It can be done but now is the time to really pay particular attention to the training and supervision of your seasonal people.

Lets have a Safe Season.
DSF