OSHA Awards GATF Grant for Training Plan
By Lisa Cross, Business Editor -- graphic arts online, 11/1/2002
The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) has awarded the Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (GATF), Sewickley, Pa., a grant of $249,740 to develop employee and instructor ergonomic training materials for the printing industry. The materials include work practice guidelines, training materials, fact sheets, and employee pocket cards in English and Spanish. In addition, GATF will develop and conduct train-the-trainer courses regarding ergonomics guidelines for the printing industry.
The grant was one of 64 awarded to nonprofit organizations through OSHA's Susan Harwood Training Grants program. In all, the agency awarded more than $11 million for safety and health training programs. Primary areas of emphasis for the grants were ergonomics, responding to workplace emergencies, and training for small businesses and workers who don't speak English.
"Education is the foundation for ensuring safety and health in the workplace," explains Elaine L. Chao, U.S. labor secretary. "These grants will help deliver that education, through training and compliance assistance, which contributes to our mission of protecting America's workers from being injured on the job."
The training grants are named in honor of the late Susan Harwood, a former director of the Office of Risk Assessment in OSHA's health standards directorate, who died in 1996. During her 17-year tenure with the agency, Harwood helped develop OSHA standards to protect workers exposed to bloodborne pathogens, cotton dust, benzene, formaldehyde, asbestos, and lead in construction.
Meanwhile, the Graphic Arts Employers (GAE) has committed $20,000 in resources to begin a project to develop printing industry-wide voluntary guidelines to reduce ergonomic injuries. GAE, a committee of the Printing Industries of America (PIA) that serves unionized printers, has said that it strongly supports protecting workers and reducing injuries.
In June, PIA and OSHA agreed to establish a collaborative relationship to foster safer and more healthful workplaces.
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