It’s Safe + Sound Week
Launched by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Safe + Sound Week is a nationwide event held every August that recognizes the successes of workplace health and safety programs and provides resources for keeping America’s workers safe. To commemorate Safe + Sound Week this year, NYCHA’s Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Department is highlighting NYCHA’s commitment to employee safety, including through the Authority’s Safety Principles:
- Employee safety is the primary consideration whenever a task is planned or performed.
- All employees are responsible and accountable for taking the necessary actions to provide a safe workplace.
- All employees are accountable for identifying hazards in the workplace. Employees have the right and responsibility to communicate the nature of hazards and ideas for eliminating such hazards.
- Collaboration with all stakeholders is critical to achieve a safe workplace.
Make It Safe Program
Employees can proactively identity and manage workplace hazards before they cause injury or illness through NYCHA’s Make It Safe program. This program empowers employees to stop work if an activity or condition is believed to be unsafe. Work will not start again until all issues related to the safety concern are taken care of and agreed to by all affected employees. The program protects all NYCHA staff from any retaliation if you exercise your right to stop work.
Stopping a Task:
If you need to stop a task under the Make It Safe program, please tell your supervisor. Alternatively, you may have your location Safety Associate advise your supervisor.
Resolving the Concern:
The Safety Associate will work with the employee who stopped the task, supervisors, and appropriate subject matter experts to come up with a solution, to which all parties must agree.
Communicating the Resolution:
The resolution of the safety issue is communicated to all affected employees. Work resumes when all issues are resolved.
Ensuring Compliance:
Make It Safe events must be communicated to the Environmental Health and Safety Department within 24 hours so that the incident can be reviewed and analyzed.
Job Safety Analysis
Developing a Job Safety Analysis (JSA), also known as a Job Hazard Analysis, is critical to ensuring workplace safety. A JSA is a proactive way to assess a job or task and identify potential hazards and controls for those hazards. To conduct a JSA:
- Select and prioritize the job to analyze. This prioritization could include jobs that have led to many injuries, a job with the potential to lead to a severe injury, or a new piece of equipment being introduced.
- Document all the steps in the task.
- Review each task and identify and describe the potential hazards.
- Identify and implement controls for identified hazards. This could include requiring warning signage, personal protective equipment, or other controls.
- Periodically review the JSAs.
JSA results should be incorporated into training materials so workers are aware of potential hazards and controls.
At NYCHA, JSAs have been conducted by the Environmental Health and Safety Department for a variety of tasks, including the use of vertical reciprocating conveyors to transport garbage bags, stoppage cleanup, and clearing of compactor noses. NYCHA’s Job Safety Analyses can be found on Connect under the EHS SafeNYCHA page.
If you have questions about this or any environmental health and safety matter, please email ehs@nycha.nyc.gov. Residents, employees, and any member of the public can submit environmental health and safety concerns at https://on.nyc.gov/submit-concern.
For additional information, please visit https://www.nsc.org/workplace/get-involved/safe-and-sound-week.
