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OSHA Launches Summer Teen Worker Safety Program

May 12th, 2008 Posted by Amelia

It’s spring across the country and that can mean only one thing…teens will soon begin looking for summer jobs. With that in mind, the U.S. Department of Labor recently kicked off its annual youth job safety campaign.

This year’s summer safety program began with a bang when Labor Secretary Elaine Chao appeared on the NBC Today show to announce the annual summer teen worker safety program.

According to Labor Secretary Chao, “The Teen Summer Job Safety Campaign educates teenagers on the importance of workplace safety and health habits that will help protect them and their coworkers at work.”

This is the fourth year for the OSHA National Teen Summer Job Safety Campaign. This year’s launch was at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, where OSHA officials and teens from SkillsUSA demonstrated safe work practices.

SkillsUSA is an OSHA national alliance program participant. It is a nonprofit organization serving teachers along with high school and college students preparing for careers in trade, technical and skilled service occupations.

Throughout the youth safety program, OSHA will host and participate in local events and activities around the country to help keep teenagers safe and healthy on the job. Activities include career fairs, youth programs, expos, career days and training seminars.

OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and its regional partners, are striving to reduce work-related injuries among teens by teaching them on-the-job safety and integration of principles into their work tasks from this early age. Through working with many strong national and regional Alliance Program participants and other cooperative programs, OSHA plans to reach more than three million teens.

Teens learn many vital skills on the job, and one of them is that safety is important in the workplace.

Workplaces are safer than they have ever been with fatality and injury and illness rates declining to record lows in recent years.

The injury and illness rate was 4.4 per 100 employees and the work-related fatality rate was 4.0 fatalities per 100,000 employees in 2006, the latest data available.

Since OSHA’s inception in 1971, U.S. employment has increased from 56 million employees at 3.5 million worksites to more than 135 million employees at 8.9 million worksites.

“Programs like the Teen Summer Job Safety Campaign help create a culture of safety,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Edwin G. Foulke Jr. “Our goal is to continue to drive down the number of occupational injuries among teens, especially in the construction industry.”

The campaign is part of OSHA’s Young Worker Initiative, which provides information and resources to teenagers, parents, educators and employers to ensure safe and rewarding work experiences for these summer employees.

More information about workplace safety for teens is available at www.osha.gov/teens.