NSSGA seeks input for inspector trainees

NSSGA is asking for help in its efforts to improve the ways in which the MSHA inspectors evaluate conditions at aggregates workplaces.

The MSHA-NSSGA Alliance’s Technical Task Force is developing a program whereby aggregates safety and production personnel will use a panel discussion for MSHA Academy inspector trainees to present an operator’s perspective of MSHA standards compliance.

NSSGA is looking for senior production officials to serve on the panel. Specifically, the organization is looking for people who are able to speak compellingly about compliance and safety from the vantage point of a senior production professional.

So far, members have suggested instructing inspector trainees on:

• promoting zero fatalities as a real, and achievable, number;
• encouraging observations and reviews of near-miss accidents;
• promoting best practices gathered from inspections of other operations;
• conducting small group safety meetings on every inspection; and
• realizing the lengths that many operators go to in order to implement safety and health practices to benefit workers that go far beyond what the standard requires.

Those interested should contact Joseph Casper, NSSGA’s VP for Safety, at 703-526-1074 or via email before May 30.