Facilities Management Safety Committee

Safety Committee Purpose

The purpose of this safety committee is to bring a cross functional team of employees together to achieve and maintain a safe, healthy workplace and increase overall safety awareness at UNCG Members should be employees who perform various trade related hazardous work operations that require safety training or meet the requirements of Environmental Health and Safety programs/policies.  Current “operations” employees include the following departments on campus, Housing and Residence Life (Facilities Services and Utilities), Facilities Operations (Facilities Services, Building and Trades, Utilities), Athletics (Event/Facilities Managers), Campus Enterprises (Auxiliaries Services, POCAM) and Facilities Design and Construction.  Other academic groups or additional departments who are represented on the EHS committee may be asked to participate in the future.  

Goal

The goal of this safety committee is to eliminate workplace injuries and illnesses by involving employees and managers in identifying hazards and implementing mitigation methods to prevent them.

Objectives

The safety committee has six objectives:

1. Involve employees in achieving a safe, healthful workplace.
2. Promptly review all safety-related incidents, injuries, accidents, illnesses, and deaths.  
3. Conduct periodic workplace inspections, identify hazards, and recommend methods for eliminating or controlling the hazards. 
4. Participate in external regulatory inspections at the request of EHS. 
5. Review all revised or new safety related standard operating procedures or policies. 
6. Annually report the committee’s activities (safety concerns, inspection findings and other pertinent information) to EHS Committee. 

Membership

The safety committee membership will include:

Members should be front line staff or supervisors not more than one level removed from front line.

2 year membership is required.  Members may request to serve additional time. 

• Facilities Operations (Maximum 10 Members)
  • Facilities Services – 2 members.  (At least one member should be from 2^nd shift operations) Zone –2 members.Carpentry Shop –1 memberGrounds –1 member HVAC –1 memberElectric –1 memberPlumbing –1 member
  • Steam Plant –1 member

• Environmental Health and Safety will have at least one member in the committee.

• Housing and Residence Life
  • Housing Maintenance – 1 member
  • Housing Housekeeping – 1 Member 

• Athletics (2 Year Membership)
  • Facilities and Game Operations –1 member. 

• Campus Enterprises
  • Auxiliaries –1 member 
  • POCAM –1 member 

• Facilities Design and Construction
  • FDC – 1 member

* Members of management or EHS Committee may attend the December and June meetings. 

Officers

The safety committee will have two officers: chair and chair-elect. Chair and chair-elect each will serve a one-year term.  Terms will begin and end with the start of fall semester (August). 

Duties of the chair

• Communicate safety-related information to/from committee and management.
• Coordinate semi annual inspections, including selecting topic of inspections, selecting committee members to participate, develop report of inspection findings.
• Develop written agendas for conducting meeting.
• Conduct the committee meeting.
• Approve committee correspondence and reports.
• Ensure that all committee members have a copy of the current committee bylaws.
• Serve as a member of the Environmental Health and Safety Committee – And present information to this committee. 

Duties of the chair-elect

• Schedule regular (monthly) committee meetings
• Preparation of meeting minutes including list of attendees (sign in sheet).
• Provide notice to chair of 2 absences by any committee member.
• In the absence of the chair, assume the duties of the chair.
• Perform other duties as directed by the chair.
• Participate in committee activities and planning to prepare for becoming the chair. 

Duties of the Environmental Health and Safety Representative

• Assist both the chair and chair elect with their duties.
• Facilitate/advise on the overall goals and objectives of the Facilities Operations Safety Committee.
• Provide additional support to committee members in the form of safety training and coordination of safety training as recommended by the committee.
• Conduct annual committee purpose training (August) each year. 
• Assist with minutes/sign in sheets for the meeting when needed.

Election of chair and chair-elect

The election of a new chair or chair-elect will be held during the monthly committee meeting before the month in which the incumbent’s term expires (July).    Election will be based on nominations from the committee members or a volunteer basis and a committee majority vote will be used to select the officers.  Half of the committee membership will be considered a quorum sufficient for election purposes and election of officers will be by majority vote of those present.  The terms of elected officers will begin on August meeting when incoming officers will be recognized.

If the chair or vice-chair leaves office before the term expires, an election will be held during the next scheduled safety committee meeting; the elected officer will serve for the remainder of the term.

Meetings

Monthly schedule. The safety committee will meet on the third Thursday of each month.  Inspections will take place outside of committee meeting times at a schedule developed by the Chair. 

Attendance.  Attendance to safety committee meetings is required and mandatory for all members.  Failure to attend to safety committee meetings may result removal from the committee through employees’ chain of command.  Missing three or more meetings in a calendar year may be grounds for termination of appointment to the committee. 

Each representative will attend regularly scheduled safety committee meetings and participate in periodic workplace inspections and other committee activities. 

Agenda. The agenda will state the order in which the safety committee conducts its business.  The agenda also will include the following when applicable:

• A review of new safety and health concerns
• A status report of employee safety and health concerns under review (work orders etc)
• A review of all workplace near misses, accidents, injuries, or deaths occurring since the last committee meeting.
• Report on periodic workplace inspections. 
• Safety policy or procedure updates

Minutes. Minutes will be recorded at each safety committee meeting and will be made available to all committee members in a box account for the committee.

Voting quorum. Half of the committee membership constitutes a quorum. A majority vote of attending members is required to approve all safety-committee decisions. Issues not resolved by majority vote will be forwarded to management for resolution.

Incident and accident investigation

The safety committee will review new safety- or health-related incidents in the form of Root Cause Analysis reports at its next regularly scheduled meeting.  Safety-related incidents include work-related near misses, injuries, illnesses, and deaths.  When necessary, the committee will provide written recommendations to management for eliminating or controlling hazards.

Workplace inspections

Task groups shall be appointed by the safety committee to conduct periodic workplace inspections of departments campus wide in Fall and Spring Semesters.  The focus or format of these inspections will be decided by the committee members and will be dependent upon recognized hazards, injury trends or overall safety and health compliance matters. 

Written report of Workplace inspections

The task groups will prepare a written report for the Chair to be discussed at the next Safety Committee meeting.  Any items requiring corrective action will be added to the appropriate corrective action method including work order systems or delivery to management for consideration and review.  If an item requires the review of management this review shall take place before the next committee meeting and EHS rep will report on the status of this request or corrective action. 

Policy or Standard Operating Procedure Review

Any standard operating procedure or policy related to safety that is updated during the course of the year will be shared with the committee for comment before finalization if possible.  Comments will be recorded during meeting minutes. 

Evaluation 

The safety committee will evaluate Operations workplace safety and health program annually and provide a written evaluation of the program to management.  In addition to annual review the Chair will report the pertinent committee activities to the EHS committee on an annual basis.