These Numbers Are Heading Down; That’s A Good Sign
by Ron Hall, Office of Communications

The stats are now in--and they reflect that USDA employees were generally more injury-free and healthier at work last year, as they reduced their rate of injuries and illnesses on the job by 4.6 percent. In addition, that percentage exceeded the federal government’s goal for such reductions.

Jim Stevens, director of the Safety, Health, and Employee Welfare Division in the Office of Human Resources Management, explained that, as part of an initiative called “Federal Worker 2000,” federal departments and agencies were called on to meet individual goals for reducing the rate of workplace injuries and illnesses. “The overall federal goal for FY 2000 was to achieve a reduction of 3 percent in the rate of workplace injuries and illnesses,” he noted. “But the stat we got from the U.S. Department of Labor show that USDA actually reduced its rate of workplace injuries and illnesses by 4.6 percent--so we actually exceeded that federal goal.”

That’s significant, since workers’ compensation costs can add up to big dollars. In fact, a memorandum dated July 3, 2001 and titled “Workers’ Compensation Program Costs,” which Assistant Secretary for Administration Lou Gallegos sent to agency-level deputy administrators for management, reported that USDA’s annual workers’ compensation costs exceeded $64 million in FY 2000--up from $59 million the previous year.

Ella McKoy, manager of USDA’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Program, noted that workers’ compensation at USDA is generally defined as the monetary benefit which the Department provides to those eligible employees who were injured on the job and are therefore at least temporarily unable to perform their normal USDA duties. The November-December 1998 issue of the USDA News carried a story on the Department’s efforts to reduce its workers’ compensation costs.

“An analysis of this [workers’ compensation] program shows that much of the cost increase is due to increased medical costs,” Gallegos’ memo continued. “The major causes of injury were slips, falls, and strains.”

Stevens said that the Food Safety and Inspection Service, the Forest Service, and the Agricultural Marketing Service were the three agencies in USDA which reduced their rate of workplace injuries and illnesses during FY 2000.

Victor Randecker, chief of FSIS’s Environmental, Health and Safety Branch, noted that his five field safety and health specialists, located at FSIS district offices, have now been encouraged to travel up to 50 percent of their work time to meet with FSIS employees located onsite at federally inspected meat, poultry, and egg product plants around the country. “Their role is to help make those plants a safer working environment for our meat, poultry, and egg processing inspectors.”

“Our specialists, working in conjunction with our agency’s safety and health manager and our headquarters-based certified industrial hygienist,” Randecker added, “initiate such actions as conducting air contaminant measures in the plants--looking for substances which may cause respiratory problems--and assessing other possible hazards 'on the floor’ of those plants.”

Laurie Hileman, chief of the Forest Service’s Safety, Health, and Uniforms Branch, said that four years ago the agency had only 14 full-time safety and health managers at both headquarters and regional locations. “But we’ve been increasing those numbers, plus putting an increased emphasis on having those positions located not only at the regional level but specifically at our national forests across the country,” she noted.

Jim Schott, AMS’s safety and occupational health program manager, said that AMS relies on its collateral duty safety officials to work with agency field managers to spend time at staff meetings discussing safety and health issues--and to ask for employee input on what might help reduce the potential for injuries and illnesses on the job.

“We’ve also been emphasizing the financial costs to the agency of those injuries and illnesses,” he pointed out, “and those monetary stats have hit home.”

Schott added that each AMS commodity program pays for all protective equipment items for its employees working on-site, such as protective gloves and eye-wear for lab personnel and shoes with slip-resistant soles for agricultural commodity graders in fruit and vegetable processing plants around the country.

“Our initiatives haven’t been anything glamorous,” he observed. “They’re just good, basic safety practices.” ¤