All that said, according to a recent Automotive Service Association news release, there is mostly stick and little carrot in OSHA s new directive. For example, when an MSD incident occurs twice in the same job, or if the shop has experienced two incidents in 18 months, a shop owner would have two options. Suffice it to say that I don t have room here to describe what that would entail. Use your imagination. Other business groups have estimated the cost to small business as being 15 times OSHA s estimate.
Young men love to see how much weight they can handle on their own.
However, in an automobile assembly plant, when workers were asked for and paid for ideas to reduce workplace injuries, they came up with the idea of having the assembly line flip a vehicle over to install shocks, instead of working upward from below in a pit. The idea was implemented, and the number of injuries plummeted. Shop owners could introduce similar incentive programs to young technicians to encourage an injury-free environment, just as factories do. Some already are. Pay them well for substantial suggestions to improve the safety of the workplace.