OSHA Inspection: VALUE CITY DEPARTMENT STORES, INC.

Issued

Dec 3, 1992

Abate by

Mar 6, 1993

Penalty

Initial $1,625 · Current $1,625

General-duty citation text

Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970:  The
employer did not furnish employment and a place of employment which
were free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause
death or serious physical harm to employees in that employees were
exposed to:
a.  Employees such as Sorter/Markers, Lead, and Supervisor
Trainees were working various areas of the facility including, but
not limited to, Flat/Sort and Prepack.
Workers were exposed to situations in which they suffered
injuries while pushing, pulling, and lifting totes, boxes, piles of
merchandise and wooden pallets at the workplace.  There was an
extensive history of worker lost time injuries.
The workplace history of lifting, pushing, and pulling strain
injuries can be reduced by a program of abatement activities which
include, but are not limited to, the following:
1.  Identify through OSHA-200 logs, supervisors and worker
questionaires, all current employees who experience limitations, lost
time, work restrictions and symptoms generally associated with
lifting, pulling and pushing stresses to the back, trunk, hands and
arms.  Evaluate OSHA-101's or equivalents and accident reports to
identify job activities that are highly stressful and/or that were
associated with worker injury.
2.  Perform an ergonomic assessment of each operation to identify
the lifting, pushing, pulling, and posture related stressors that
may affect workers involved in handling, moving, and lifting.  Use
ergonomic checklists, developed and implemented specifically for the
identified hazardous jobs, as well as videotape analysis, to assist
in evaluation of the ergonomic stressors.  Examples of stressors are,
failure to slide load in close to the body before lifting, lifts
involving torso twisting, and lifts made using straight legs and back
bent at the hips and waist.
3.  Investigate a series of workstation and work process changes
to eliminate or minimize ergonomic stressors.  When changes are made
in workstation design or procedure, investigate their effectiveness
by conducting additional ergonomic analysis of the jobs.  Include
employee input, through interviews and worker questionaires, in
evaluating the effectiveness of the changes.  Important workplace
design parameters include, load location, start/end relationship of
object lifted, floor condition, body posture, keeping heavy objects
off of the floor, storing heavy objects at mid-height, minimizing
the distance of the object from the body, using two person lifts for
heavy objects, using lighter weight objects (total weight reduction
of the object).
4.  Provide mechanical lifting aids which may include manually
or electrically powered hoists.
5.  Provide training for new employees and conduct annual
training sessions to familiarize workers with an appreciation of the
types of movements and postures which precipitate back injuries.
Train workers to use minimum stress methods for task performance and
enforce their use.
6.  Determine which jobs are low stress and could be used for
light duty and restricted work.  assign injuried workers, workers
returning from extended leave, and new workers to those jobs.  Monitor
the performance of the workers to determine their readiness to return
to regular work status.  Reinforce minimum stress lifting, pushing,
pulling, and work practices taught in item 5 above. Consider the use
of a trained physical therapist in the monitoring of worker progress
toward unrestricted work status.
7.  Establish a medical surveillance program to address early
recognition, evaluation and referral of book injury cases.  When a
worker suffers an ergonomic injury or illness, establish the principle
that the employee and superviser shall be interviewed and the work
station and work process evaluated with the goal of determining how
the job can be performed safely.  It should be the goal that
improvements are made before the worker is returned to the job.
Abatement Schedule
Step 1
Submit to the Area Director a written detailed plan of abatement
outlining management's commitment and responsibilities, as well as
a schedule for the implementation of engineering and work practice
measures to control employee injury due to manual lifting tasks.
Engineering controls to reduce musculoskeletal stresses include, but
are not limited to, job redesign, which addresses reduction of the
horizontal and vertical load distance from the body, reduction of
the lifting frequency, weight, and use of mechanical lifting aids.
This plan shall include, at a minimum, target dates for the following
actions which must be consistent with the dates required by this
citation.
1.  Evaluation of the conditions, locations and manual
lifting activities that the employees are performing
at the onset of musculoskeletal injuries.
2.  Evaluation of applicable control measures.
3.  Procurement, installation, and operation of selected
control measures.
ALL PROPOSED CONTROL MEASURES SHALL BE APPROVED FOR EACH PARTICULAR
USE BY AN EXPERT QUALIFIED BY EDUCATION, TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE IN
THE FIELD OF ERGONOMICS.
Step 2
Abatement shall be completed by 90 days by implementation of feasible
engineering and/or administrative controls and by verification of
their effectiveness in reducing the occurance of musculoskeletal
injuries.  Verification of corrective action shall include use of
employee questionaires, ergonomic checklists and comments from
workers.