OSHA News

(April 30, 2007)--The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has signed an alliance with the West Texas Safety Training Center, aiming to expand its safety training efforts.

"We'll work with OSHA on different projects," said Vicki Watson, operations manager at the non-profit West Texas Safety Training Center. "They can use our facilities to train their own people, hold training classes here or assist with our classes. This alliance gives OSHA more leeway in working with the center and co-branding."

She noted the agency has been an ex-officio member of the centers' board since 1994, consulting on its safety curriculum and sending inspectors to discuss various regulatory changes or other compliance issues, often at brown bag lunch meetings.

"They answer what I call gray area questions," Watson said. "We'll interpret a regulation one way, but this way we'll get the interpretation straight from the horse's mouth."

The center, she continued, will offer safety training for not just the oil and gas industry but all industries. "We even do workplace violence training and pediatric CPR -- we train daycare workers on CPR for infants and children," she said.

Rich Tapio, area director of OSHA's Lubbock and El Paso area office, said that, in his view, the alliance takes steps to increase awareness of safety and health in the West Texas region.

The training center, Tapio continued, will become a focal point, "along with other organizations in alliance with OSHA, many already members of the center."

Like Watkins, Tapio said the alliance will target all industries with a focus on oil and gas, construction, refining and petrochemicals.

"The oil and gas and its service side is an area, from OSHA's standpoint, that we spend a lot of time looking at from an enforcement standpoint," he said. "The more we can get companies practicing health and safety, to get ahead of that curve, the better off we all are."

He continued, "it doesn't take someone who doesn't live in West Texas long to see that, with the price of crude, all industries are being affected to some degree."

The focus on safety and health, Watkins said, "is not only for you to get home safely, but for the people you work with to get home safely. Something you do may not hurt you but it may hurt a coworker."

Tapio agreed, adding that "Our concern is the younger workers just entering the business. And we often find older workers can sometimes learn some new tricks."