US Foods Testing Wearables for Injury Prevention

US Foods is testing new devices in warehouses across six U.S. cities as it tries to reduce the number of workers getting injured on the job, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
Sensors on the device track user movements and alert employees by buzzing and vibrating when they might be at risk, according to the report.
Two months into the testing, the effort is reducing ergonomic injuries that are common for distribution center employees and truck drivers, the company said.
The devices are part of a broader effort to improve safety at the country’s second-biggest food distributor as warehouse jobs face more scrutiny.
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The U.S. Postal Service has been ordered by a federal court to stop retaliating against employees in Washington State.
The permanent injunction was issued by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Tacoma after an OSHA investigation found USPS had violated the provision in the Occupational Safety and Health Act that protects employees against retaliation for reporting workplace injuries.
After three separate investigations, the agency determined that the USPS improperly fired three probationary workers in East Vancouver, Seattle and Tacoma after they reported workplace injuries.
The consent judgment also requires the Postal Service to pay $183,732 in lost wages, interest and damages to the three unlawfully fired employees.
The Department of Labor said that in the past four years, it has sued the USPS to protect probationary employees in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington who faced similar retaliation after reporting injuries.
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Perdue Farms said Tuesday that its Concord, North Carolina food production facility completed a full 12 months without an OSHA recordable safety incident, which it called “a rare safety milestone” for the year through July 11.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says poultry processing facilities on average experience 5.7 recordable incidents per 100 employees annually. Perdue’s plant has 270 employees.
In a statement, Perdue cited its three-year-long Maintenance and Reliability Strategy, which has led to a 60% improvement in overall plant downtime performance, a 140% improvement in maintenance labor spend variance to standard.
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Workplace fatalities in Wyoming increased 25% in 2022, from 27 deaths in 2021 to 34 in 2022, data from the state’s Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.
OSHA had jurisdiction over six of 2022’s 34 deaths, according to Wyoming OSHA Deputy Administrator Karen Bebensee. Two of those were related to roofing.
In Wyoming’s construction industry, there’s been an increase in fatal falls statewide in the last few years, she said.
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Dykema has posted a webinar offering guidelines for employers facing a visit from OSHA inspectors.
Led by the law firm’s Gavin Hill, the webinar advises preparation for the inspection, mainly having an advance plan and a designated company representative for OSHA interactions. As well, companies should train employees in advance on their rights and about what to expect in an inspection.
“A call to OSHA is typically among the first calls that first responders make from the location of a worksite incident, and OSHA compliance officers may even beat your organization’s HSEQ personnel to the incident site,” Hill said.
The 63-minute webinar can be accessed for free at https://bit.ly/4f475dH.