Washington — The American Chemistry Council and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration have established an alliance to encourage healthier workplaces for those working with diisocyanates in the polyurethane industry.
Three groups from ACC will lead the work with OSHA in different parts of the industry: the Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) plus the diisocyanates and aliphatic diisocyanates panels. It will operate for two years, until September 2019.
The alliance has three main goals. It wants to raise awareness of OSHA's rulemaking and enforcement initiatives, and will educate employers, workers and OSHA officials on safety issues. It also plans to develop effective outreach and communication efforts to increase the visibility of the partnership and its goals.
Those within the polyurethanes value chain, including members, stakeholders and occupational physicians, will be provided with information, guidance and access to training resources. The aim is to help them further protect the health and safety of workers handling diisocyanates.
"We're thrilled to be working with OSHA on making American workplaces even safer, which has always been a top priority for CPI and ACC as a whole," said Lee Salamone, senior director of CPI. "Our partnership with OSHA will build on our strong foundation of product stewardship and outreach and will help us identify additional areas of emphasis so we can better target our activities."
OSHA's wider Alliance Program allows the agency to work with groups committed to worker safety and health in a variety of different industries and areas. The overarching aim is to prevent workplace fatalities, injuries and illnesses. Importantly, participants in alliances receive no exemptions from OSHA inspections or any other enforcement benefits.
