Over the years, MEMIC’s construction industry safety specialists have inspected many jobs with numerous subcontractors on a single site. Now and again, some of the subs complain that the general contractor picks on them for "little safety thing...

I just got e-mail from a colleague about an injury trend we’re seeing with our customers that is worth passing on to you. Peter Koch works with our hospitality businesses and has seen a rise in cuts and lacerations during food prep. Eleven inj...

The quality of the air we breathe at work has obvious ramifications linked to our health. Although this includes both outdoor and indoor environments, I want to talk about the indoor ones today. Offices, factories and similar indoor workplaces typica...

Anyone who's been a safety professional for a few years is eventually going to be asked by someone on the floor or job site “how did you get into this safety business anyway?”  When I was first asked this very question some 20 plus y...

With the arrival of summer comes the hotter workplace.  Depending on where you live, it can be quite a swing in temperature.  The daily high here in Maine is roughly three times what we were seeing two months ago.  Factor that into wo...

Here is a morbid anxiety that sometimes can kick in on a construction site: Fear of being buried alive Fear of being placed in a grave while still alive as a result of being incorrectly pronounced dead. The abnormal, psychopathological version of th...

There was a recent incident at a school project in Maine worth reviewing. It involved a dump truck that backed into a propane tank fill pipe. Once the pipe was broken, the propane discharged and ignited. The truck driver was burned as he escaped the ...

Lyme disease is sometimes a work-related issue and sometimes not. You need to ask yourself if your employee’s job duties put them at risk of contracting the disease. Do they work where ticks thrive? Forests, brush or shorelines? If the answer i...

Every summer the warm weather brings out the roadwork crews. Although reduced speeds and stop and go driving can be frustrating for drivers—commercial and public alike—it is necessary to maintain the infrastructure. If you think about it,...

As the temperatures go up, so do the amount of miles that Americans drive. Getting to and from vacation spots is a rite of summer and even the high price of fuel will not deter families from driving to distant locations. With this increased traveling...