Training as a trap
October 13, 2008 By: Carl R. Metzgar, CSP Pit & QuarryHaving been zeroed, yacked, xerographed, warned, versed, urged, told, swayed, required, quagmired, pestered, ordained, needled, manipulated, lulled, kicked, jigged, indoctrinated, harangued, goaded, flailed, egged, directed, cloyed, badgered, brainwashed and admonished to think that training was the be all and end all of loss prevention, it was a terrible surprise to recognize that training is actually its own hazard.
No need to check snopes.com to see if this tale is an urban legend. More of the unembellished facts can be found in Secretary of Labor, MSHA v. John Kemp and Brad Nicolay, employed by American Aggregates 16 FMSHRC 2139. (The decision can be found on the Review Commission web page under ALJ decisions at Oct. 19, 1994.)
American Aggregates was a sand and gravel producer. This case was heard by an administrative law judge and decided as a result of a citation on Oct. 24, 1991. Kemp was the mine manager, president and 25 percent owner of the company. Nicolay was plant foreman. Each of them paid a personal fine.
Braking hazard
The MSHA inspector’s 107 (a) order stated in part: The front-end loader that feeds the main plant did not have service brakes capable of stopping and holding the equipment. The operator would put the loader into gear in the opposite direction that it was traveling to stop the loader. The operator has been reporting this hazard since July 10, 1991, according to company records.
The judge’s discussion before his decision includes the following: Persuasive evidence of defective brakes is the company’s daily equipment checklist involving 50 inspections between Aug. 1, 1991, and Oct. 22, 1991. The inspection forms indicated there were essentially “no brakes” on the loader. …
Nicolay, plant foreman, testified that the loader could be stopped by using the gears or lowered bucket.
The judge said the use of the transmission or bucket to stop mobile equipment, instead of using service brakes, has been rejected by the commission in numerous cases, including those involving Evansville Materials Inc. (August 1980), Mineral Exploration (February 1984), Brown Brothers Sand Co. (March 1987), Missouri Rock Inc. (April 1988), aff’d (February 1989), Brown Brothers Sand Co. (January 1992), Missouri Rock Inc. (March 1994) and Morris Sand and Gravel (April 1994).
In Robert Shick, 14 FMSHRC 340, 341 (February 1992), Administrative Law Judge William Fauver stated, “Dropping the bucket to try to stop a front-end loader is not a safe practice.”
Note five decisions from 1980 to 1989, one would hope that even a small company president would be alert to this information by 1991 and operate accordingly. Then there are four more similar decisions up to the writing of this decision.
No follow-up
Where is the training issue? The training in this case is not detailed and may have been minimal. The foreman may have only handed the operator a pad of forms and told him to inspect the loader each day and fill out a form. Even with this minimum, the operator training was effective -- 50 reports, no less.
A business, professional and personal friend, who is an eminently qualified industrial hygienist both as a practicing scientist and as a polished administrator, said: “Never sample for a chemical or physical agent unless you are prepared to take prompt corrective action if you find something wrong.”
The training paraphrase would be, don’t train for something unless you are prepared to support and follow up on the actions or results you asked for. The “train more” mantra sounds good but falls apart unless it is incorporated into a complete production and loss-control program.
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