By Travis Halsted, Loss Control Consultant

I was recently contacted by one of our customers with a concern that I do not believe many of us think of. This company was concerned whether or not they had the right form of clamp at the tool end of their air hose. This particular company had the worm-drive style hose clamp holding their quick connect air fittings onto the air hose. The worm drive style hose clamp is the clamp that is tightened by using a flat head screw driver or socket to turn a screw that tightens the clamp. This is a common practice among the vast majority of companies that I visit. Upon the correspondence regarding their concerns, the MTMIC Loss Control team spoke of prior MIOSHA inspections and any knowledge of standards regarding hose clamps for air hoses. Through this communication it was found that a prior federal OSHA inspection from 2013 did cite a facility for the wrong type of air hose clamps. In this situation the facility was found to have worm-driven hose clamps that connected their tools to the air hose. The Enforcement Officer found this to be a hazard, as if the hose clamp was to malfunction or loosen, then the employees would be exposed to the whipping action of the air hose. This was cited under the federal OSHA rule 29 CFR 1910.243(b)(2). That rule states that hose and hose connections used for conducting compressed air to utilization equipment shall be designed for the pressure and service to which they are subjected. The company in this particular inspection was cited for $5,500 for 4 instances of this violation.

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Donna Motley, Vice President of Claims 

Owning and operating a business is multi-faceted. Having Workers’ Compensation insurance, required by law, is one of those many facets. Hopefully, most employers rarely have to utilize their Workers’ Compensation insurance. BUT, should an employee be injured in the course of employment, you, as the employer need to be prepared.

So how far does the employer’s responsibility reach? The employer is responsible for providing a safe working environment, for training employees in the proper way to perform their job, for proper machine and facility maintenance and for properly handling a work related injury, should one occur. An employee injury is costly in many ways. An injured employee is affected professionally and socially. The employer’s production and work product is affected. A work injury has a financial impact on everyone involved. The employer has a vested interest in making the employee be the best he/she can be, as the employer will reap the rewards.

Don’t ignore the signs. If a Supervisor walks past a work station and notices an employee stretching their back, rubbing their shoulder or playing “windmill” with their arms, that should be the employers first clue that something may not be right. Ignoring “signs” rarely benefits the employer. It is doubtful the situation will resolve itself or just “go away”. On the contrary, what usually happens is the employee will start treating with their primary care physician for the medical condition. Then when it starts to cost the employee a lot of money, or the condition does not resolve, or someone tells them they should file a Workers’ Compensation claim, the employee will bring the situation to the attention of the employer. By this time, treatment has been rendered and we would have to obtain all those medical records; suspicion overshadows the entire claim because it is being reported so late and after the employee has received treatment; and we will not allow treatment until the matter has been investigated. This delay in treatment will in turn delay the employee’s recovery and impact work product and production.

While we are not suggesting that a Supervisor “suggest” to an employee that the employee has a work injury, a simple “Is everything o.k.? I noticed you rubbing your shoulder” can go a long way. At that point the employee may admit that he has an injury that occurred outside of work (make note in the personnel file if that is the case); the employee may alert the employer to a machine set up or situation that could maybe be changed to be more ergonomic; and the employee may come away feeling their employer “cares”.

If the employee advises that something he did at work has caused an injury, the employee should be immediately sent to the clinic. Remember, it is not up to the employee to decide whether or not they “want” to go to the clinic if they have reported a work injury. Whether the employee alleges nothing is wrong, an injury occurred outside of work (i.e. they just slept wrong) or there was a work incident, the Supervisor should follow up with the employee later that day, the next day and the next week, and ask if everything is o.k. or if they are having any other issues. Again, ignoring these situations do not make them go away – instead, they tend to “fester”.

As an employer, you should review all employee injuries, your injury logs and/or loss runs to determine how many and what kind of injuries are occurring and where they occur. Then review to see if there are any changes that could be made so injuries do not continue. Your Loss Control Consultant can be a tremendous help in this regard. Remember, we are a team, all working toward the same goal – a safe and productive work environment! We all benefit!

Audit Reviews

Large audit additional premium due – scary words. Each workers’ compensation policy is written with estimated payrolls for the upcoming year. When the policy expires, an audit is completed to get actual payroll. We then calculate the actual premium from the audit payroll, and subtract member payments during the year. The end result is that we have an audit additional due from our member or premium refund due back to our member. More than 97% of the time, this system works out well. The estimated payroll is close to actual and we end up with a small additional premium that is no burden to our member, or we end up with a small return where MTMIC sends a check back to our member. This high success rate does not mean that the other 3% goes easy. The large additional audit dollars affects the budget and causes stress to our member. It also causes discomfort at MTMIC. We do not like to do things that aggravate our members. Remember, most of our members have been with us for years, and that personal relationship and trust is greatly valued by our member and by the MTMIC staff.

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By Donna Motley, Vice President of Claims

An injury occurs at your facility. The incident is reported through the proper channels – this could be a report to the immediate Supervisor, Plant Manager, Safety Director, or Human Resource Department. If immediate medical attention is required (i.e. blood is involved, a head injury, EMS needs to be called) the next step would be to make sure the injured employee receives the proper medical attention. Then, notify the MTMIC Claims Department of the incident – even if notification is without benefit of the Form 100 (Employer’s Basic Report of Injury). In an emergent situation, you may not know all the facts at that point in time, but should medical personnel contact our department for some sort of verification or authorization, we would at least be aware of the situation and able to take appropriate measures to manage the pending claim. Following said notification, the employer should then start their investigation as to the facts and circumstances surrounding the incident. If a serious injury has occurred, the Claims Department will also notify your MTMIC Loss Control Consultant, who will contact you and aid in an investigation and/or schedule to do an investigation on our behalf.

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By Ruth Kiefer, MSc, ARM Loss Control Manager , MSc, ARM, MiOSHA Level 1 Certified 

Effective January 1, 2017: Plastic Injection Mold Industry:Die Change Procedures for Horizontal Injection Mold Machines

s many of you in the plastic injection mold industry know, there will be a MIOSHA rule change in the standard pertaining to injection mold machines that takes effect on January 1, 2017. I have received various responses to this change, for most of you, you are already adhering to the ruling so its no big deal. For other manufacturers, this change has brought up a few questions in recent months, so to help you get ready for the rule change, here are some of the questions that have been posed to our department and to MIOSHA.

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By Patty Allen, Sales & Marketing Assistant

The Department of Labor revised the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Employee Polygraph Protection ACT (EPPA) effective August 1st.

Those revisions were mailed out to each of our companies to post over your existing Federal Labor Law Poster. New Michigan and Federal Labor Law posters will be reprinted in December to include all 2016 updates.

If for some reason you did not receive your updated postings; please contact Patty Allen @ 248-715-0013 or patricia.allen@mtmic.com/blog to request additional copies.

By Glenda Moyle, Premium Accounting Manager

Recently I have been contacted regarding our payroll auditors. I am pleased to say that like the stability of the rest of MTMIC services, our auditors have been the same for over 20 years. Our auditors are from The Aprise Group. We recently have been notified by some of our members that there is a company called “CCS” that has been contacting our members concerning WC payroll audits. This company is NOT related to MTMIC or The Aprise Group. Of course, please call me with any questions.

By Travis Halsted, Loss Control Consultant

A vast majority of facilities that I visit each year have a welding operation present. Whether it be a large welding area with a plethora of welding cells or a smaller one table welding work station, there are a great deal of potential hazards present whenever welding operations are being completed. This is evident by the $119,803 MTMIC has spent on claims since 2009 that were traced back to welding operations. Of the 82 injuries reported, the injuries range from burns, strains, foreign bodies, inflammation, lacerations, and punctures. As there are a great deal of factors that go into these injuries, one particular item can often be found to be a root cause. In many cases, the lack of proper personal protective equipment was found to play a large role.

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By Donna Motley, Vice President of Claims

What is meant by “late reporting”? Typically, we like to receive notice of injuries (via the Form 100 – Employers Basic Report of Injury) within a week of the occurrence. The earlier a report is submitted, the earlier we can set the claim up in our system. Then, if there are telephone calls regarding medical treatment, we will at least have the basic information. The “basic” information required to set up a claim is the employee’s name, address, social security number and date of birth. Obviously, we need to know the type of injury and body part involved. We also require the employee’s date of hire, occupation and the date the employer was notified of the injury. These are mandatory fields to obtain a claim number. You can submit an injury report without knowing the current medical status, treatment plan or whether or not the employee will be losing time from work. We can obtain that information once the claim has been established.

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By Glenda Moyle, Premium Accounting Manager

This is just a reminder to all of our Policyholders that our audit company, The Aprise Group, will be doing the final audits again this year. They have been our audit company for the past 25 years. Once your policy expires, they will be contacting you within 30 days to set up an appointment to do the audit. If you have any questions, please contact me at glenda.moyle@mtmic.com/blog. Thank you for being a member of the MTMIC.

By Ruth Kiefer, MSc, ARM, Loss Control Manager

Many of our manufactures and policyholders may or may not know we also have been servicing the printing industry for a few years now. During this time I have been asked on numerous occasions what does MIOSHA compliance look for in our industry? During one of our recent training events with MIOSHA, I had the opportunity to inquire about which standards MIOSHA refers to when they conduct a compliance visit in a Printing facility.

Having seen most of our workers’ compensation injuries related to inadequate LOTO (Lockout Tagout) procedures and where the majority of our members have the most questions; I directed our conversation to the LOTO requirements and what they are looking for. What I found out was in the 1990’s OSHA and ANSI came together as a board to interpret and clarify what actually applies to the printing industry, since there are a variety of printing presses with different technologies, and most of them spanning many years.

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