CSB promotes employee participation

WHAT ABOUT THE WORKERS

PROCESS SAFETY • THOSE ON THE SHOP FLOOR OFTEN HAVE THE BEST IDEA OF THE RISKS THEY DEAL WITH AND, CSB SAYS, SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN ANY CONVERSATION ABOUT SAFETY

US FEDERAL REGULATIONS require worker participation in matters of process safety and industry standards similarly call for worker participation. Nevertheless, according to the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), recent incident investigations have identified numerous cases where opportunities were missed to include workers in discussions around process safety.

“A lack of effective worker participation can lead to an increase in the risk of injury to workers and, in the event of a serious safety incident, can impact the company and members of the public who live near these industrial facilities,” CSB says in a recent Safety Digest on the topic.

CSB quotes the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) which, in its Guidelines for RiskBased Process Safety, says:

“Those workers directly involved in operating and maintaining the process are most exposed to the process. The workforce involvement element provides and equitable mechanism for workers to be directly involved in protecting their own welfare. Furthermore, these workers are potentially the most knowledgeable people with respect to the day-to-day details of operating the process and maintaining the equipment and facilities and may be the sole source for some types of knowledge gained through their unique experiences. Workforce involvement provides management a mechanism for tapping into this valuable expertise.”

A ROLE NOT PLAYED CSB notes that, in several investigations, it has identified ineffective worker participation as causal to the incident and has pointed out that workers and their representatives “play a critical role” in hazard identification, risk reduction and an overall increase in an organisation’s ability to prevent chemical incidents. It has also issued a number of recommendations to companies, individual facilities, labour unions, industry groups, state governments and federal agencies that aim to improve worker participation. These have included: •Creating or improving opportunities for workers to participate directly in matters relating to process safety management and major incident prevention •Empowering workers to provide input on how work is performed, through safety committees, special projects, inspections and audits, hazard analyses or other specific measures •Providing opportunities for workers to be trained and share information on the nature of the hazards present in the workplace, lessons learned from other sites, incident investigation outcomes, industry best practice and the like, and • Strengthening requirements for worker participation in industry standards and state and federal regulations.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING CSB has been alert to the issue for more than 20 years, as evidenced by the first of four cases referred to in its Safety Digest. This was, indeed, CSB’s first investigation and report, and concerned an incident at the Sierra Chemical Company explosives manufacturing plant in Mustang, Nevada in January 1998. Two massive explosions occurred seconds apart, killing four workers and injuring six more.

CSB’s investigation found that the absence of worker participation in process safety activities at the Sierra Chemical Company was a “major cause” of the incident: workers lacked sufficient understanding of the process hazards at the site and the controls that were in place. While there was a worker participation programme in place, it made no provision for employees to be involved in the development of safety policies. Further, workers did not use and were not aware of written operating procedures and safety information. They knew only that they were handling explosives and

were required to wear dust masks. Most of the employees were Spanish-speaking and could not in any case understand safety warnings printed only in English.

CSB did make a recommendation to Sierra Chemical that it should ensure its employee participation programme effectively resolved safety issues raised by its workforce, although that recommendation was closed without implementation as the company went out of business after the accident.

STATE REGULATIONS CSB’s Safety Digest also highlights the incident at the Tesoro Refining plant in Anacortes, Washington in April 2010. This involved a catastrophic rupture of a heat exchanger in the plant’s catalytic reformer/ naphtha hydrotreater unit, resulting in a leak of hydrogen and naphtha at high temperature and causing an explosion and intense fire that killed seven employees.

The Board’s investigation found that concerns expressed by the refinery workforce and its union, the United Steelworkers (USW), had not been adequately addressed by managers; in a 2006 process hazard analysis, workers had identified 31 near-miss incidents in the unit over the previous five years. As a result of its investigation, CSB recommended that Tesoro establish a process safety culture oversight committee and that USW should participate in its work; it also recommended that the plant implement a refinery-wide safety culture improvement programme. All of this has now been put in place, to CSB’s satisfaction.

A further aspect of CSB’s report on the Anacortes incident was to recommend that the state of Washington enhance its existing process safety regulation with respect to worker participation, in order to require an increased role for workers in the management of process safety by establishing the rights and responsibilities of workers and their representatives on health and safety-related matters. CSB notes that the state of Washington is working to strengthen its process safety management systems for petroleum refineries and it urges the state to ensure that the process is completed.

HELP THE INVESTIGATORS A similar recommendation was made to the state of California in the wake of CSB’s investigation into a fire at the Chevron refinery in Richmond in August 2012. This involved a catastrophic pipe failure on a crude unit, which released light gasoil that formed a large vapour cloud that engulfed 19 employees; they all escaped, although six were injured. A large plume of particulates generated by the subsequent fire spread across greater Richmond, resulting in some 15,000 nearby residents seeking medical treatment.

Among its recommendations following its investigation, CSB said California should seek to enhance worker participation by instigating mechanisms for the regulator, the refinery, and workers and their representatives to play an “equal and essential” role in preventing major incidents. In response, the state of California implemented significant regulations in 2017 that strengthened process safety management standards and included a requirement for more comprehensive worker participation.

The fourth incident reviewed in the Safety Digest involved a boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion (BLEVE) and fire at the Williams Olefins plant in Geismar, Louisiana in June 2013. Again, CSB identified a failure by the company to adequately implement safety improvement identified in a process hazard analysis and said that, in the years leading up to the incident, the plant had “exhibited characteristics of a weak process safety culture”.

More specifically, in its report on the incident CSB highlighted various facets of worker participation as being key to a successful effort to improve process safety culture. Companies should assess whether workers feel they can report safety issues without fear of retaliation, and whether the company or its individuals proactively investigate worker safety concerns and implement timely and effective corrective actions.

Perhaps most importantly, CSB asks companies involved in high-hazard operations to critically look at whether their workers are effectively involved in process safety decisions and whether an open and collaborative process is used to consider all viewpoints when analysis potential problem areas.

In October 2018, CSB adopted a new policy for worker participation during CSB investigations. Under this policy, workers and their representatives have the opportunity to participate in certain CSB activities. The policy can be found on the CSB website at www.csb.gov/assets/record/bo40a.pdf.

CSB STRESSES THAT IT IS WORKERS ON THE GROUND WHO

HAVE THE BROADEST KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE OF

THE RISKS THEY FACE; THEIR EXPERTISE IS VALUABLE IN