SAFETY MEETING TEAMWORK

Teamwork wins games - - and prevents accidents. We all know how important teamwork is to such sports as basketball, baseball and football, but how can teamwork prevent accidents?

When we work together as a team to prevent accidents, we lockout equipment and replace guards, when repair work is necessary, we keep walkways clutter free, and store tools, grease, oils and other equipment in their proper place, and we volunteer to help co-workers lift and carry awkward or heavy material.

However, teamwork involves more than just these tangible examples. It involves keeping our workplace team intact. Like athletic teams that require a different number of players per sports team, our company’s workplace teams vary in size according to the work requirements. However, unlike athletic teams we do not have substitutes warming the bench just waiting their chance to get into the game. Here everyone has a job and no one is sitting on the sidelines. Therefore, we must prevent accidents in order to keep everyone on the job. How do we do this? Like athletes we follow the rules, wear any required personal protective equipment and work as a team. For example, football fields are clearly marked so that the players know where the boundaries are. The rules for fair and safe play are clearly defined and set up, with referees and field officials assigned to each game to decide if any rules have been broken.

Of course these rules and regulations are agreed upon before the game begins and all the players accept them. Then, if a player breaks a rule an official penalizes that person and his or her team. In basketball you can be put out of the game after five fouls, in football your team loses yardage gained in the previous play and in hockey you have to sit in the penalty box for a rules violation while your team continues play minus a player.

In industry if you break a safety rule, your penalty could be much harsher than returning to bench warmer or having your side lose yardage. It could put you out of the game permanently. No one - - You, Your Family or the Company can afford to have you sidelined by an injury. Production suffers, your co-workers suffer because they have to make do with one less employee and you suffer from the pain of an injury.

Unquestionably, one of the best examples of teamwork can be found in a NASCAR Pit Crew, when the car comes to a stop, every man has a job to perform, the jack is placed under the car, tires are changed on one side while gas is being put into the tanks, one man cleans the windshield, another gives the driver a drink, men move the other side of the car and change two more tires, and another makes a track bar adjustment. The car is dropped off the jack and the driver is back in the race in about 15 seconds. If one member of the pit crew is injured before the race and cannot participate in the pit stops, then the movement of the crew will be jerky instead of smooth and flowing and pit stops will take more time and the driver cannot win the race.

As with the athletic team or pit crew, none of us can afford to go it alone. If we all pull together, no one will have to carry an extra workload and the entire crew will run smoothly. Teamwork can win games, keep the mine running smoothly, and prevent accidents.

THANK YOU for WORKING AS A TEAM