Welcome OSHA as a partner - includes related articles on Occupational Safety and Health Administration consultation services and on voluntary protection program - Cover Story

HR Magazine, Oct, 1999 by William Atkinson

Gerry Catanzaro - an OSHA program analyst in Naples, Fla., who has headed more than 50 VPP week-long on-site inspections - recalls his visit to the International Paper Leola Lumber Mill in Leola, Ark.

"On Monday when we arrived, I looked at people's faces in the plant and they're thinking, 'Have we really invited OSHA in?' It's a little worse on Tuesday; we're finding some things that are wrong. By Wednesday, they realize that OSHA guys are human beings. By Thursday, they realize it's been a good thing for them and us. We've got a good model for a sawmill, and they've learned how to do some things better."

Todd Riggan, Leola's environmental health and safety coordinator, has seen quite a few benefits from VPP participation. "Without it, we would not be accident-free like we are now," he says. "We just celebrated our second quarter without a recorded incident. For us, VPP means working with OSHA and not being against them. They're not policing; they're helping us."

Robert J. Grossman, a contributing editor of HR Magazine, is a lawyer and a professor of management studies at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

William Atkinson is a business writer based in Carterville, Ill. He specializes in safety, health and workers' compensation issues.