Are you preventing MSD's if not it will COST you. [Archive] - LawnSite.com™

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BUSHMASTER

01-31-2001, 01:21 PM

While reading Pro mag which can in today i came across a small article on "Ergonomics" OSHA heres an outline

Common Musculoskeletal disoders
they come from the repetition..you yall know what i am talking about...
We are to explain their signs and symptoms to our employees
by October 14 2001.
We are to handel any claim by an employee whithin 7 days of the employees claim.When a claim is found to be a work related MSD we are to correct this hazzard whithin 90 days.
We are also required to develope and provide review,updates, and proper training for all our employees this is to be on going as long has we opperate.(which this is already in afect in factories,plants,etc)

Here is the kicker If ......Ha....If the employee can not do his or her job because of the (MSD)injury We the employer are..ARE REQUIRED to due the following:(
Pay 90% of the employees regulars earnins...you know the based on the hours you said he or she could get....
(i think legally part time is no more than 25 hrs a week)
And 100% of their benifits.......ins.401k,and anything else that apllies for 90days............

these regulations are being challaged by the ANLA American Nursery and Landscape Asso...............

My thoughts: I see workmans comp going up for ours feild,equiptment prices going up for thier up grades,and our office spaces becoming oshaapproved .

Yea even us solo guys are effected on paper ...i heard somtime ago about this with home based offices an that osha if they wanted to can come to our home office an make us complie with these regulations even tho .... they don't have enough man power and thier main consitrate on offices would be corprate there is always the chance.

We need to start thinking on ways to prevent MSD from even happening without loss of production.the office would be prety easy to fix ....you can buy just abouty anything thats Ergonomicly correct...but there will be some thought to change technics that are used everday ....heres one large scale flower beds all that bending.and whatnot...steering our mowers for hours on end ...its gonna take some inventivethought...and yea their will be folks out thier you could pay a lot of CHEEZE to give their Professional Advise on how to improve the work enviromet..(repition,AKWARD POSTURE)

What are ya'lls thoughts,feelings on this ........
any ideas on some things we can do to prevent MSD's
get ready to spend $$$.....

And really choose your employes wisesly well no one working in the in the green indusrty would scam us.oh yea for those that work people under the table ....well let some of these folks get wind of this and you have major problems......

[Edited by BUSHMASTER on 01-31-2001 at 01:25 PM]

Chip

01-31-2001, 04:41 PM

I read the same article today and was in total shock. First think about how this will effect your overhead, especially if you have 2 or 3 year contracts. Opps there goes your profit. I think this is something that will have to be phased in over a longer period of time.
Repetitive Motion Disorders are not uncommon in the manufacturing industry, many new business have started because of this. Now they are starting on our industry it is just someone else with thier hands out. I do agree that certain jobs will cause problems. I get numbness in my hands from too much weedwacking. That is what I have a helper for, we switch off to solve this problem. I guess now I will have to start documenting all this.

lakegastonla

01-31-2001, 05:25 PM

Bushmaster, you made some good points and introduced some topics that most companies are probably overlooking the importance of. But, I've got one word for you: SPELLCHECKER. Not trying to be a smart***, but if someone from a government orginization read the post here it would probably hurt more than it would help, even though you hit the mark with your ideas.

Getmow

01-31-2001, 09:50 PM

I agree in part to the regulations. I know that I have permantly injured myself from the counless hors on a string trimmer(wrist to elow), ZTR(left wrist to elbow) and hedge trimmer(back and wrist). The hazards are there.
Sometimes in life we have to assume that there will be some hazards associated with making a dollar. That is why we get paid. We us our bodies or brains or something like that. The workers should step up and the Government should step down.
Just my opinion.