Take a moment to imagine the following; you are a safety manager responsible for multiple worksites along the West Coast of the United States, ranging from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest. These worksites, known as marine terminals, vary in size, ranging from fifty to four hundred acres. The stevedoring industry, at times, has been defined as high-hazard with a heavy man/machine interface. This is a twenty-four-hour operation composed of three working shifts. As the sun breaks the Eastern horizon, today is just like every other day on a marine terminal; you have no idea who's coming to work to move cargo; IWLU membership will fill the jobs. However, who precisely will be determined as that shifts' workforce arrives through the terminal turnstiles. Welcome to the world of stevedoring and marine terminal operations.
This document provides a brief overview of West Coast containerized cargo operations and the unique safety challenges presented with a transient workforce. I will share my prior experience in the role as a West Coast safety manager and the solutions generated by reducing not only the traditional incident frequency rate, but also, the quantity of severe injuries sustained within the workplace. The most meaningful solution developed was a visual three-dimensional model relating two traditionally non-relatable spheres of safety: regulatory requirements and critical safety " to-do's" with the concept of workplace culture. The design is meaningful as all individuals within the work environment can visualize the components required of an effective safety management system. To see is to understand, and with understanding comes forward momentum.
This presentation will examine the fundamental building blocks of the model, the structure they support, and the resulting culture. Exploration of the model, in its current state, can be applied to most work environments. I will share a few particular " wins" impacting both the company's resulting culture as well as the industry.
