UPS fined by OSHA in midwest for egress

[crowbar]

5/2005: OSHA inspected the Sharonville, Ohio Hub. Inspection #308788140.

6/6/2005: OSHA issued Citation and Notification of Penalty

8/14/2007:Administrative Law Judge Ken S. Welsch issues Decision and Order finding UPS guilty of not maintaining unobstructed 28-inch wide exit paths.

10/3/2007: Occupational Safety And Health Review Commission found UPS guilty:
Secretary of Labor v. United Parcel Service, Inc.
OSHRC Docket No. 05-1115
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1/9/2009 proposed nationwide Corporate Settlement Agreement (CSA) between OSHA and UPS posted in Sharonville, Ohio Hub includes:

Training of all employees by 3/31/2009.

Applies to all package facilities nationwide.

UPS must prove violations have been abated in Sharonville.

UPS pays $4,400 fine.

UPS agrees 28-inch wide exit path applies to entire path, from work area to outdoors, not just by the exit door. Path must be kept clear at almost all times.

Sort Aisle C-slides, occasional packages, and irregulars (bulk) train may obstruct work areas in limited circumstances.

All employees will be required to obey a new set of work rules and undergo annual training in keeping exit paths unobstructed. [Basically UPS signed a CSA to solve its problems with OSHA by obligating us to assume the responsibility of keeping exit paths clear. Just like they solved a previous OSHA problem by obligating us to know all those Depth of Knowledge safety questions. If you have been threatened with discipline if you didn't know your D of K answers, this may be deja vu all over again!]

UPS doesn't admit guilt. [Naturally. They're just spending millions of dollars fighting this three-plus year battle and agreeing to major training requirements and work rule changes nationwide for the heck of it.]

OSHA needs no warrants or subpoenas to access UPS facilities or obtain UPS documents to verify UPS is complying with this CSA.
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I believe the Case is still going on! I have the Egress Case Decision (32-pages, 1,232kb), the proposed Egress CSA (10-pages, 680kb) and a few other documents, but each exceed BrownCafe's file attachment size requirements. Unfortunately, they are scanned files so they are "pictures" of the pages, rather than text files. I searched for "OSHRC Docket No. 05-115" but only found a Friend of the Court brief by the Chamber of Commerce. Any ideas for getting these files posted online so everyone can download 'em?

The Decision and proposed CSA are interesting reading and show how UPS fights and delays OSHA's safety efforts up until UPS looses the battle. Then it embraces the safety proceedures and enforces them on us! If you didn't know about all their anti-safety lobbying and court suits over the years, you'd think they were a very pro-safety company. Every Safety Committee member should get a hold of these (and similar) documents, as well as the safety grievances decided by the National Safety & Health Committee. It will open your eyes.

Could you please email me these files to thecrowbar22@hotmail.com? zip or .rar files are fine.

[Sleeve_meet_Heart]

I am betting that instead of slowing down the belts and enlarging the facilities to solve the problem, the company will just have the Safety Committee come up with a "7 point egress commentary" that all of us will have to recite, complete with acronyms, catch phrases and doughnuts as a reward for successful memorization.

There will never be a seven keys of egress

"Stop belts"
"pick up falling boxes"
"move packages to the side"
"load packages from the preload efficiency piles
etc

They all sound like stealing time, never gonna happen.

[Bubblehead]

I am betting that instead of slowing down the belts and enlarging the facilities to solve the problem, the company will just have the Safety Committee come up with a "7 point egress commentary" that all of us will have to recite, complete with acronyms, catch phrases and doughnuts as a reward for successful memorization.

Not sure if it was a 7 point commentary, but nothing was done besides meaningless gestures as you described.
The hub in question, not unlike the one in Oregon that you work, was outdated and undersized after about 5 years of it being opened.
That was in 1986.

[bluehdmc]

A lot of the buildings I've been in certainly haven't had 28" inches of room when the irregular carts are in the unload aisles. Most of the time you can barely squeeze through sideways. I've seen exits blocked by carts, packages, tires, etc. I've come in an exit door to check a trailer and have just knocked the stuff off the stairs and had a part-time sup say, "Come on".
My reply was, "Blocked Egress, Fire Hazard."
I'd hate to see what would happen if a package caught fire, (even if it was something UPS doesn't ship and it got snuck on there anyway).

[Hoaxster]

Not sure if it was a 7 point commentary, but nothing was done besides meaningless gestures as you described.
The hub in question, not unlike the one in Oregon that you work, was outdated and undersized after about 5 years of it being opened.
That was in 1986.

That's unusual ... they are usually outdated and undersized by the time they open.

[capt. kirk]

I love how they design a building to a certian size, then give us a package car that is so big that you can not close the overhead doors all the way, makes the preload so happy on those mornings when it is 10 degrees outside with a nice 25 mph wind.

[hurricanegunner]

When will OSHA start inspecting the trucks and demanding 28 inches of aisle space in those? Perchance, to dream.

[JonFrum]

Could you please email me these files to thecrowbar22@hotmail.com? zip or .rar files are fine.

Three emails sent with attached files. (They may be caught by your spam filter if they aren't sitting in your inbox.)

[crowbar]

got 'em, thanks!

[ORLY!?!]

A lot of the buildings I've been in certainly haven't had 28" inches of room when the irregular carts are in the unload aisles. Most of the time you can barely squeeze through sideways. I've seen exits blocked by carts, packages, tires, etc. I've come in an exit door to check a trailer and have just knocked the stuff off the stairs and had a part-time sup say, "Come on".
My reply was, "Blocked Egress, Fire Hazard."
I'd hate to see what would happen if a package caught fire, (even if it was something UPS doesn't ship and it got snuck on there anyway).

( I'm not insulting you at all )

I'm pretty sure if there was a fire in a building with little to no egress, we would find some extremely motivated employees that day, lol!