I[00:00:00] :  this, this, this show is brought to you by safety FM. We had a little issue last night with the recording and I forgot to hit record for the first minute or so. So we picked it up from there. Have a great day. It helps when you record the program record. I hope everybody enjoy their holiday weekend here in the United States and everywhere else for that matter are program was on sporadically last week. We had some issues going on here. I'll describe them in a minute. So Wednesday, I'm on the way home from my project and I get a phone call from my son and he says, Daddy, you gotta come home right now. I'm stuck in traffic. It's a holiday weekend. James. This is daddy, Mommy got hit with a baseball. So my wife was playing catch with my son and uh, he's an avid baseball player. I mean really into it. I mean when I say into it, I mean into it and he's and my wife caught the ball and the ball came out of his, out of the glove, sort of like a deflection sort of and hit her in the face. So we ended up going to uh, I said, well everything's gonna be okay, but she's got a black eye. So I end up going to urgent care and spending her Wednesday night in urgent care and then uh, we had weekend's festivities and everything dealing with thanksgiving and I wanted to just thank everybody too, can uh continue to lead here, uh, continue to listen to us. I'm sorry and we're trying to be the leaders of the safety world here on safety FM. I think all of us are out there with high quality programs where we're trying to make a difference in the safety uh world. So I got into a little bit of a discussion over the weekend when someone on linkedin and I'm not gonna go into the whole detail, but it has to do with safety statistics. So uh here we have in the United States, right? And the debate was that uh A certain country was much better and much safer than the United States because they only had 123 deaths at in the workplace. And this is the whole statistics to be. There was a book that I grew up with. Let's see if I can look it up real quick here. It's a classic book How to Lie with statistics. Who wrote this, Daniel huff. I mean this is like a I have like a 1950s version of this book. I think the book was written in 1954 and presenting an introduction to statistics for the general reading. However, it was uh on basic statistics. So for example, mean median and mode right? We know what the difference is. You have as a mathematic mean right? Where you have uh you add the numbers up, then divide by the number of uh then take that result of divide by the number of numbers that you had up. So you had added up to seven numbers. The end result would have to be divided by seven. I think we all remember this from high school math or median would be the middle, right. That's another kind of median, right? An average median, right, right in the middle where there's so many things, uh, there's an equal number of uh, statistics above or below that number. And you have the mode, which is the most common, right number. All of them can be called average. So when someone says average, the average person, the average, Well, what exactly do you mean by average? And here we go with this. And you know, that's basic statistics. Well, here we have this, Well, this one country is much more safer than the United States because they had 100 and 23 workplace fatalities in the United States had 5000, for example, ran through the numbers. And I said, and we came up with accident rates and it turns out that the United States uh collects data on workplace fatality is different than this other country. It doesn't matter what the other country is. It's irrelevant. And when we started to find out how many hours worked between the United States and this other country, we started to address them. Count apples to apples here, the kind of workplace fatalities, to workplace fatalities, What do you figure out You figure out that? Okay, the United States still has a higher rate of accidents. So in reality, once you address the numbers for the number of working hours in the, in the countries and everything else turns out that the United States does not have close to 50 times the number of fatalities Per se. But when you addressed it for the numbers, it's actually 1.7 times the number. Now you're gonna say, how do you get from 5000 to uh, you know, 1.7 times. Right? Which, and what it comes down to is we address things with accident rates, things of that nature. That's why next month, when we start to post our in february, it happens. We generally get all the statistics in january and get everything all compiled from the previous year, we have an accident rate and we're able to average things out and put things in perspective. And when you have a formula and everything else and there to try to sort of able to compare apples to apples. So that's what I want to leave you with initially here is apples to apples, right? I guess you can name this apple on this uh thing. Apples, apples, and we're trying a new format here where we're doing all this stuff ahead of time on our commentary or main event and then we get into the news and right, because a lot of people, I'm finding out, listen to the first five minutes and the and then, you know, and then they come in later on and this and that again, this is afternoon drive time in California and uh eight o'clock on the east coast here. But what we're uh what's the point? My point is when somebody gives you a number, don't accept the number. Say, how did you come up with that number? Right, What kind of number you're looking at and everything else? And there's a lot of information that goes in behind that number. And this is how people, why with statistics, this is how they push forward a political agenda. Uh because the average person out there, whatever we call that, however, we're going to define that is not going to go into the numbers. However you have people like jim postal me go into the like say, well you came up with that number, How did you get that number? And are we talking? How is that? That's an important thing to do. Because what happens is you're gonna end up with egg on your face and especially in the workplace, you're gonna lose credibility with the, if you're not communicating the numbers accurately or upfront or honestly, or defining numbers. Same thing. Whenever you go into your writing an industrial hygiene report or your uh during a training class, include the calculations and the way I preface it when I need to do is look, I know not everyone is going to understand these numbers that are not mathematicians, not statisticians, but here are the numbers. Here's something come up with the numbers. And that's because that helps because remember you do not have to communicate to everybody in that training class, you only have to communicate to the leaders of that training class, get to the leaders and then the leaders will communicate it to everybody else. Alright. Uh sort of thing. They're going to follow the leader, right? That's what it comes down to. So let's say you have a very large workforce, You have several 100 people and a workforce. Do you go through and uh communicate everything to everybody? Oh, we have to make sure everybody understands you say, hey, look like in a safety meeting we're not talking credential or where someone has to get a certificate, but in a safety meeting or in a presentation. Well, let's communicate to the, to the decision makers. The people in the C suites get them to understand and then we get everybody else understand just my two thoughts. Uh, we're going to uh take a brief break here and we're gonna get to the news is your safety training old stale and Hackney is your safety trainer still preaching a warped version of behavior based safety. How about safety training that actually addresses your hazards in your workplace is and it's not standardized bologna from 25 years ago. Contact the safety ward's team at safety words dot com or call jim postal at 845 to 69577 to remember if you're receiving this message, you are the solution to unsafe workplaces. Alright. To illustrate what we just talked about about statistics. Yahoo came out with a wonderful article here on the Qatar or gutter, I believe they pronounce the gutter World Cup and uh article by Henry Bushnell, it's actually a really good article. I'm not going to read the whole thing here, but basically there's been uh uh a lot of debate on how many people did it die during the preparation for the World Cup since 2010 and cut and uh gutter Alright, the Qatari number has been widely panned as misinformation or at least disingenuous spin the number that they're throwing out. There is like 6500 workers Alright, The widely regurgitated line about thousands of deaths stems in part from misreadings of a guardian article whose headline and deck were amended a week after publication, whose claim was this, more than 6500 migrant workers were killed uh right since 2010. And preparation for the World Cup mostly due to uh uh mostly due to uh stadium construction. So, the article, according to a Mr Henry Bushnell, the article was corrected and amended later on the from the initial the article did not say that that those 6500 workers were stadium workers And later noted that there were 37, that's a big difference. Right, coming back to our discussion at the beginning. Right? Once we go, we look, we'll double check that right. Uh, none of that is his freedom. Uh in fact, according to government figures, over 17,000 migrants of all nationalities have died in Qatar. However, uh, what's misunderstood is that of those 17,000 people that helped build the World Cup stuff? Not all of them uh, 17,000 people? Uh Some of those 17,000 people build the World Cup facilities, but not all of them. Not all of them did. Right, So, again, what's the actual number? I don't know because we're getting different reports here. Ah You know, some of those, no, okay, those 6500 people died, but when they did they die at home, did they die at work? Did they die uh, in an accident, deliver it? Who knows? Right. But it's a little bit misleading and everyone acknowledges that nobody knows what the actual number is. So, this number being thrown at their 6500. Not accurate. We don't know. We don't know is what the answer is. And uh, thank you. Uh Mr Bushnell for actually going and uh delving a little bit deeper into the numbers here. Okay, next, this is from an Ocean Newser Police last week, we're gonna we were going to share it. Uh, last Wednesday, but I couldn't do that. Schaumburg Illinois contractor found exposing workers to a deadly trench cave in. Hazzard. Again, federal safety investigators have found a Schomburg. Excavating contractor has failed to follow federally mandated safety measures to protect workers from potentially deadly cave ins. Right? So what does OSHA always recommend for? Uh, this stuff? Right. Everything has to be evaluated by a confident person trained in excavations and that person has to have the authority. What has to be able to have the ability to assess either through education or training or experience, Right, preferably all three, and then be able to assess hazards and be able to correct them if the person can't correct them, they're not the confident person. We, I got into a debate with this recently on a job where someone had, again, this is an ongoing debate on all the jobs. Do you have the authority to correct the mistake? No, Well then, guess what? You were a problem? No, then you're not the confident person who does well, the owner of the company is the only one I think about, Well then that person is the confident person, Right sort of thing. Uh so trench collapses are the construction and are among the construction industry's most lethal hazards. In the first six months of this year, 2022, OSHA reports of 22 workers suffered fatal injuries and trenching and excavation work. And uh basically, uh two employees of this company were in a seven ft deep trench. Uh working on a municipal sewer and water line without adequate cave in protection. So what are the basic ways that you protect yourself? OSHA always mentions is right on their website, slope sure. Meaning you're gonna bench or slope the walls first. You need to evaluate what kind of soil, what type you have. Then you slope the walls and then sure them meaning you put up some type of walls that support the sides of the trench and then you have a shield, all of this stuff. I'm gonna say this, all these assessments should be documented in writing, checklist something. Uh So, and the article goes on and says, look, trenching standards required protective systems on trenches deeper than five ft and soil and other materials kept at least two ft back from the edge of the trench. I think everybody here who listens every day knows and I disagree with the two ft should be back much further than that. All right. That's my experience and that's my training and education. I have a background with that formal education and pathology, right. That was part of our, my undergraduate work ideology is come on everybody. What is pathology? The study of soils. Okay, Some news from Houston, Houston boil water notice forcing schools to shut down. So right now Houston texas is under a boil water order. Uh basically the, it's expected to be lifted sometime on Tuesday, but basically there was a drop in water pressure and guess what, when there's a drop of water pressure, the likelihood of uh uh soil contamination on water contamination from the soil from the water surrounding the water supply pipes. No, the chances of there being an increase in contamination and everything else might be there. So they're recommending boil water orders and also uh, bottled water and you know, follow your local government on this one. Uh, here is a local story that became a nationwide story here for us. We have a local airport here called Westchester County Airport. It's in Westchester, It serves western Connecticut and also uh southern new york. Uh, large planes fly into there as opposed to Stewart airport up north where that's smaller and also Teterboro. So if you don't want to go to JFK Laguardia or Newark, you go to West Chester. I've flown out of there a couple of times myself, my wife has flown out of there several times, but one person was rescued from a small plane that slammed into a Maryland para line and that person on monday. So it took off from Westchester and slammed into a power line in Maryland causing a power outage uh, to about 12,000 homes. Nobody was uh killed with this. Thank God, But let's face it, what do you need to, what do you need? What do you need? Uh, here need to be prepared for a power outage because this kind of stuff happens for that warning and you need to have a plan and planning for disasters. That's what the idea is here, this happened in New york city today. Now, this is interesting with fall protection so often when you're setting up fall protection depending on the situation, OSHA might allow. Right might big quotes here. I'm using air quotes by the way, we're going to be videotaping this stuff from now on. Probably might uh OSHA might require uh might what no, not require fall protection when you're setting up fall protection. Right? Because if you have, if you're setting up fall protection by definition, you're not wearing fall protection or there may not be things in there. But let's remember if you get hurt at work, your employer is liable. Right? So that's the other thing. Uh So uh here we have a construction work. You're setting up a fall protection Netting reportedly in the news, allegedly, and the reporter at and the uh worker died doing that. Uh something very interesting. They're construction workers. Here's D. O. B. Spokesperson Ryan, the Ryan J. Degan uh Construction workers in our city deserve a safe working environment and instance like today's fatal flaw are unacceptable. We are conducting a thorough investigation along with our partners in law enforcement into exactly how that's going to happen and to determine whether any quarters are cut on the job. That might have been continued contributing factors. Alright again, uh earlier this year in New York, legislature passed Carlos is law named after construction worker Carlos Montoya, who died on the job in 2015. The law which has not yet been signed by Kathy Kathy Huckle. The governor seeks to protect workers by drastically reducing the fines employers face uh for unsafe working conditions, leading to deaths between 500,000 and a million Dollars up from the current maximum 10,000. Alright, so we have pending legislation there. Mhm. So here we have a story in New Jersey uh from a certain warehouse company that most people use that I've heard of. But basically the injury rates increase by 54% in New Jersey and 20% across the country. Now basically they want to uh they wrote this company letter ah as this pattern of insufficient response by such and such a company continues and the effects are evident. It's even more important for this company to address exasperated safety issues during this. So basically cory booker. So we're gonna we're going to be watching uh with this. Alright. Uh And specifically uh Senator Booker and Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Booker's from New Jersey. Sherrod Brown from Ohio, called on this company to immediately implement paid comprehensive workplace safety training for all employees, including temporary workers. Take steps to improve warehouse ventilation and air quality, improved shift rotations so that workers are not spending for long periods of time working close to significant heat sources, right? Allowing encourage workers to take preventative, cool down rest in cool areas, address sky high rates, some MSD injuries uh musculoskeletal disorders, right provide adequate and timely medical referral for doctors care to injured workers and hire enough workers. Now, this is what I was reading over the weekend, right. We had a lot of time to read this past weekend. This particular company, uh, has uh, pretty much exhausted because they're very strict. They have a, pardon me, very high turnover rate at this company. They, and likely in a lot of their markets, they're going to exhaust the warehouse worker. Uh, what's the word I'm looking for? The warehouse work? The supply of eligible warehouse workers eligible to work at their factories within the next year, if not already. Uh, basically because it's very strict. Uh, there's reports of people complaining of a hellish working environment. People are easily fired. Things of that nature. I know uh, some I've, I know talking to people that work there. It's very difficult. What's in the public record and people have a lot of complaints. And I say, look, every company out there, house complaints. I was a warehouse worker for three summers with my brother Wally. I know what it is to be a warehouse worker. It's not easy. And you had quotas that you had to meet and everything else. So in a lot of ways that warehouse that I worked in safety was dis incentivized people. We took risks all the time. There are people getting hurt every week that the local hospital said no, not another one of your folks from such and such a company again here. That was one of the comments. So I don't know. Uh, it goes to show you Right. It's the drive to zero. That seems to be where the problem is. All right, Jay Allen had a brilliant commentary on this morning's raided our safety show for Monday November 28 out of roughly 28 minutes after the hour. Uh, on the run into zero isn't even know. Well, I go out to a job where I go somewhere and I hear, Oh, we have a 000 tolerance. We have zero accidents. We have zero that zero that I have to think, well, yeah, all that trim. Do you believe all accidents are preventable? Yeah. All of them are preventable, but you can't prevent all accidents, right? And his drive to zero and this drive to zero then eventually gets means that the employee gets blamed for everything for normal human error type stuff. And there is human error and a lot of stuff. Um, last week or two weeks ago we had a meeting with my son's baseball team and that a certain software program, they used play by play and people, one of the reasons why they stopped using it was parents were complaining that the play to play was inaccurate and what I learned was that even in the major leagues, the play by play, the official play by pilot. We don't, we're not talking about the radio announcers over there saying, oh, look at that. That's a strike, that's a ball. So guess what? The official play by play often gets updated at the end of the inning on what's a hit? What's the ball? What's an error? What's this, what's that? How things are scored? It gets updated all the time and that's on the major league level. On a minor league level or in our case dad league, right? Dad D. A. D. League or dad coaching or parent coaching I should say now because a lot of women like my wife coach helped coach, helped run the teams. Uh all of them make mistakes. So this uh person was getting grilled a little bit. Well this not at the meeting but outside the meeting. I said look 78 errors an hour you're gonna make on that on that program. That's normal. That's what to be expected. But we gotta be reasonable here with that uh with that. And it's the same thing here. Workers are gonna make mistakes. Workers are going to have issues, right? You're dealing what you're not dealing with a freaking machine. You are dealing with a human being with this, right? We're gonna save off on that. Here's another uh press release from OSHA from last week. The U. S. Department, OSHA US department of labor's OSHA seeking nominations for membership of the maritime advisory committee on occupational safety and health committee nominees should have strong interest in safety and health of workers in the shipyard. Long sharing and commercial fishing injuries. Industries. The Secretary of Labor will select 15 members create broad based, diverse committee representing the interests of employers, employees, safety and health, professional organizations, government organizations with interests or activities related to the maritime industry. Members will serve two year terms. And the advice service committee uh, meets approximately twice per year and you can go onto the website and figure out how to submit your name or somebody else's. This is from a retailer that has been targeted, uh, from with OSHA right, as a high frequency violator or whatever the appropriate term is. But again, they got whacked again here at an Ohio columbus Ohio location and it's real basic stuff. Not keeping the storm room clean orderly and sanitary meaning it's disorganized. The housekeeping issues not storing material safely, Exit signs and store rooms, right, exit, uh, ensure the ability exit safely, failure to failing to Mount Fire extinguishers. Uh, they're up to 15 million. Right? And proposed penalties. That's when it starts out with that. That's not where it goes to since 2017. It's incredible. Uh, I interviewed one of the or not interview and spoke to one of the employees or hey, do you know anything about this or? Oh no, we're not told hey anything. Hey, what kind of safety training you have? Oh, we don't get safety training. What's that we got, you know, like 10 minutes. Okay, great. And again, all of this is easily remedied. We're gonna start talking a little bit about financial issues here with this. Let me pull up the Alright, so we have some stuff going on here with this where uh Chevron has gotten the go ahead to pump more oil out of Venezuela. Really well, I guess that's to uh increase the supply of order, order, increase the supply of oil and then hopefully drop the prices with that here we have also, where is that? I'm sorry. Bear with me. This is story out of the Wall Street Journal where they have a guy up in Rhode island, right? This reminds me of the old thing from a certain delivery company that wears brown shirts and brown pants where they used to have a uh what do you call it? A contest every year? And a pool to see who could, who was the last person put on a pair of pants. So you had people out there like a foot of snow, they're out there in shorts, right? Uh delivering uh packages and everything. And apparently this guy, there's a guy by the name of Ryan Chevalier and Rhode Island. Uh he has this whole thing where uh he was going to uh how late does he turn on the heat? Alright, last year is december 19th for him and I didn't know there was like a thing out there. Well, we're gonna wait to see how long it takes for us to turn on the heat. Apparently this guy. Uh now this guy has a lot of interest this year, he keeps a facebook page and everything and twitter page, but basically now with part with the soaring costs of energy and the reduction in the supply of fuel, oil and other fuels in New England people are taking interest. We have a lot of people out there not turning on the heat. My question is this and other countries, they do this at a necessity, right? I don't know if this is not a necessity for this gentleman and they're freezing to death. And this opposite thing happens in the summer where you have countries in europe where they had power issues a number of years ago and into the five figures people dying because of lack of edge of air conditioning and they die of heat strokes. I don't know, I don't wanna die. I don't know what's worth dying from the heat stroke of dying from freezing to death. So uh anyway, uh my parents were like this also The heat never got turned up above 67° in the house unless you had a pretty darn good reason and I tried that out of my house. It didn't work so well, I'm sorry. Uh everybody likes it hot in here. And let's remember during the heat of the uh Jimmy Carter administration, late 1970s people were making fun of Jimmy Carter because during the energy crisis, he he had put on a sweater. Guess what my father said, That's a damn good idea jimmy. You've thrown your cold, you put on a sweater, here's some woolen socks, We're not going to and forget, you know, and God forbid you leave the door open. Right. Uh, funniest story was my uh, I got into trouble in kindergarten or in kindergarten, I think it was. And my teacher says, uh, and the principal said, well, jimmy is a very good kid, but he keeps on turning the lights off when he, you know, every time he leaves her in and turns the lights off, my mother was couldn't have been prouder. She said, yeah, because if he doesn't do that at home, he gets punished because we're all about saving energy here. So they said, if no, I'm sorry. He turned does that. But that's the instructions that he has that when he leaves the room, he turns the light off every time. Right. And that and the schoolhouse rock uh, you know, taught me to be energy conscious. And of course, uh, you know, I get a good pat on the back here. We have Montillo, a volcano hit in Hawaii erupts for the first time in nearly 40 years. No evacuation orders were issued. But officials advised residents review their preparedness plan. Again, preparedness. Second story today. First story on electrical stuff. Right? With the crashing the plane into the electric uh, into a power lines right down in Montgomery, uh Montgomery Maryland area? Right, again, you don't know when this disastrous might hit. Sometimes. I'm not saying be paranoid, right? We're not going to run around and be paranoid out there. We're gonna be empowered, not paranoid. Right? And here we have Mauna loa, right, located on the big island of Hawaii erupted for the first time in 38 years. So, uh, You know, so in 1984, right, we had another eruption. What was it? Hold on, okay, That was 1978. Van Halen's eruption was in 78. Wow. Uh boom boom, hold on. When was that? I'm sorry, I'm getting off topic here. That was okay. That was running from the devil. I thought it was in 1984. But anyway, I was wrong. So, uh, basically the uh, mana loa is erupting largest volcano around my wife was shocked because she uh uh, was there and she's a man, that's the big one. Right, mana loa Summit is inside Hawaii volcanoes National Park. I just hope I get a good supply of macadamia nuts. Right, Because it's Mono loa mauna loa, macadamia nuts. I know, bad joke. I hope it's not impacted. Safety wars are streaming Now. Safety F M dot com in the professional safety community communication and planning are just a few keys to your program? Success. The question many practitioners have is where do I start dr J allen? The creator of the safety FM platform and host of the race. Our safety show has built a global foundation to help you along the way. Go to safety FM dot com and listen to some of the industry's best and most involved professionals, including Blaine Hoffman with the safety pro sam Goodman with the hop nerd Sheldon primus with the safety consultant, Jim proposal with safety wars, Emily, L Rod with unapologetically bold and many others. As India individuals, we can do great things. But as a team, we become amazing, dial into safety FM dot com today and surround yourself with a powerful force of knowledge and support. OSHA. Recordable first aid cases, catastrophic losses. You want answers. So do I. This is jim proposal with safety wars. Okay. We are back from our break, there was working on some other cut ins or whatever we're calling them over the weekend. Right. And we'll try them out the next couple of days here. We're going to talk about some financial stuff. Dow jones Industrials has failed today. 30 8 33,049. S and P. 500 is down 39 63 94 NASDAQ at 11 0 49. Falling Russell 18 2030 fell US Treasury, 10 year notes dropped 3.7 to 3.7 Bitcoin is down again. 16 1 92. I think it had 15,000 over the weekend. Somewhere in the 15,000. But A crude oil is trading at uh, $77 a barrel. And that's down from 90 from the beginning of last week. I think it was so probably because we're increasing the supply precious metals, Gold at 1752, 21, 20 platinum at 1007, and palladium at 1887. So that's financials for the day and a lot going on right over in uh Ukraine. Some developments over there, Ukraine warned, some more strikes, some power points as Russians dig in, Russian forces are fortifying positions in southern Ukraine retreating from Kherson. And the Kremlin denied planning to withdraw from Sopore. Really see I'm I'm gonna have to start over here. Is that poor rich caesar? How nuclear planned? Right. So, uh, basically Moscow reportedly is preparing for a new wave of strikes on energy plants, basically putting the squeeze on them. Um however, right, the war goes one way this today, another one tomorrow and everything else. Uh, there's been a lot of unrest reportedly in uh Russia on all this stuff. Uh, all this stuff, uh why has it taken so long sort of thing? I'm not rooting for Russia, I think everybody knows that. Uh but now it's a bad situation war. So reportedly for european foreign ministers from seven countries met in Med Zelinsky in Kiev. Alright. Uh and what this is basically, it uh Mr Zelensky, the president. Zelensky is requesting more military aid for Ukraine to preserve what remains of its energy grid and they want more anti aircraft defense systems, defend against Russian missiles and Iranian drones. So, uh, the representatives from Estonia Iceland, Latvia Lithuania Sweden. So if you recall Estonia Latvia Lithuania or the Baltic Republics of the former soviet union Luther way Nia used to be part of Poland, uh, Sweden, Finland and Norway. Right. A lot of these countries have historically have had issues with Russia or the soviet union. Right? Three of them being former soviet satellite Republics here. Uh, now that's the whole thing is a freaking mess, pray. That's all I have to say, pray Congress. Uh, hold on Russia, we're still talking about the war. Russia cancels arms control talks according to the US Washington had hoped the Cairo meeting would lead to resumption inspections under the new start treating right. Uh, so what they're hoping is, is to that television Washington Moscow will resume to try to shore up the last of the, uh, last major arms treating with nuclear weapons with Russia. Uh, since we're in for all intensive purposes fighting a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine. I don't hold that hope on that any meetings anytime soon. Unfortunately, let's talk about Covid Here. We haven't talked about biological stuff. We're gonna do an extended program. We're probably going to repeat some of these articles tomorrow. Us life insurers fade. A record $100 million 2021 in death benefits, right? Because of COVID deaths. So, this is basically what it comes down to, you have a life insurance. Um, these life insurance companies are hoping that they're never going to have to pay out on stuff. That's no, so you can have a term or whole life policy. They're hoping that you, they don't have her, uh, have to pay out. The term policies are typically cheaper because people have them for a term, they cancel them out. Right. So there's not a lot of payouts on those. So, guess what happens? They don't know, they're cheaper and they make a lot of mullah on them. Uh, now, let's talk about the whole life insurance policies. There's going to be a death benefit eventually without assuming you keep paying into it. So, guess what? You have 1.1 million deaths in Covid, you're gonna have a lot of payouts. That's what the current number is. So, uh, payouts rose 11% to in 2021 200.19 billion Most likely due the pandemic. According to the American Council of Life Insurers, the increase was on the heels of a 15 year, over year, over year rise in 2020. When the death benefit payouts were $90 billion 90 billion. But it's, I don't know. This is basically it. Now. Apparently during the flu pandemic of 1918, they had an increase in payouts also. So what does it come down to Covid, Right? Covid has a lot of, uh, unforeseen circumstances here. It's a shame. Okay, deadly fire in china feels protest. So if you've been looking at the news all weekend long, right? China has had now they what do they have? The they have the gold to zero. There was a quote and I forget who said it over the weekend. But it was very apropos if your tyranny costs a lot of money and a lot of effort to administer and to maintain and everything. And it was specifically to the zero Covid policy of china, maximum effort, maximum resources and everything to maintain the situation there. When you apply it to your organization, like J Allen was talking about this morning with a zero accidents, right? That's a lot of effort that goes into that. If you have 00 accident policy where we're not going to have any accidents here. And that's your goal the minute that there's an accident, guess what? You failed in your thing, your safety professional, You bear the brunt of that usually. And the person getting hurt. Well, you weren't doing your job because you weren't worth this person when they got hurt. I've heard that your multiple multiple times. Now we have a response to that, right? Where your zero accident policy doesn't make sense for a whole host of reasons and it's a bunch of on that baloney, right? And that's what it is. And guess what? You don't want to say that in front of people. But you can hold the person who's in charge. Look, you're being unrealistic. Guess what? You're gonna chances are you're not gonna get fired, chances are they're gonna be like, wow, he's talking about what this is what happened to a former boss of mine. He said, jimmy, you're talking that way to me. I want you on my side with that because you're right. And it was on another issue on that? No, because I know you're gonna look after the company's, uh, the company's, uh, interests. My interest says I'm the owner of the company and everything else with that. Uh, so here we have chinese sunrise over Lockdown upends global economic outlook. Growing protests in the world's biggest manufacturing nation is from the Wall Street Journal And a new element of uncertainty atop the Ukraine war, an energy crisis and inflation. So people in a lot of parts of china have been locked down up to a certain certain level since the beginning of this pandemic. Some of these cities over there have been under lockdown for three or four months. People are getting cabin fever. People were killed in an apartment fire reportedly last week. This is not a good thing here. So what happens, you put this is what happened in this country. We had people under lockdown. What do we have? We had people who were able to sit down for the first time ever. I suspect this is what's going on in china. And they say, what the hell am I doing with my life? They start researching the internet, They start getting conspiracy theories. They get riled up. They're unhappy with the way they because they weren't able to think, well, they had no time to reflect on their life. And what happens. They end up, We have riots, we have social unrest, We have all this other stuff, stuff that had been under the surface boiling away for years now. People have time to organize and it doesn't matter whether you're on the left or the right, because you see it on both sides here with all of the riots that cost 2-3 billions of dollars in damage throughout the United States with all of the okay, okay, I'm getting the signal here. Put on that swamp music and the swamp. Okay. You want the swamp? You got the swamp, alright. You're where we have it on one end where we have people destroying cities and rioting in cities because they had a lot of stuff that wasn't resolved for years and they were unhappy. With and then you have on the other end you have the January six, situation. which by the way, no, I wasn't on the air with safety. FM. Then I mentioned one of my friends said, jimmy, are you going down to Washington or I said, are you crazy? There's gonna be a problem down there. You're guaranteed to have a problem down there with the way things are going. And he went, he said, you know what? You're right, I'm not going down there and other people I know when and guess what? They have a problem, right? They're not personal associates or anything. But you know people I know friends are friends and they have a problem now because of what happened. Well, I guess this is probably what's going on in china. If I had to and I'll speculate a little bit, keep people locked up, take away their agency, their decision making options and everything for three or four months. What the hell are you gonna expect that if china very intelligent people in china, they couldn't see that. This is going to add two more and more problems. So now what's gonna have, let's bring this full circle now you're gonna have a situation here in china where they're gonna have to put out more resources to control the population here and to enforce this. And this doesn't seem to be coming to an end here to zero uh covid policy that they have here. Right? And this is what this is. Zero accidents. We know what we have problems or safety professionals. Zero covid policy. You think they're going to have problems because it's impossible to do. They've had reportedly last week, uh two days where they had over 40,000 infections. 37, 30, something like that doesn't matter exact number. Talking about statistics. You can look it up and try to figure out how they come up with these numbers, but not a good thing. Right With this in china. So we're gonna take a little bit of a break here. I gotta get some water here and we will be back. Safety wars are streaming now. Safety FM dot com is their safety training old stale in Hackney. Is your safety trainer still preaching a warped version of behavior based safety. How about safety training that actually addresses your hazards in your workplace? Is and it's not standardized below Tony from 25 years ago. Contact the safety words team at safety words dot com or call jim postal at 845269577. To remember if you're receiving this message, you are the solution to unsafe workplaces. You are listening to safety wars. Tomorrow's safety today. God, I love it when computer is locked up here. All right, let's talk about some stuff. Right. And this came across one of my newsletters today that pointed out that OSHA has a new website out there with an emphasis on workplace stresses from OSHA dot gov. And I'm going to go through some of the stuff. So we understand the workplace stress. What does know, uh, Uh, cause causes a lot of problems. What are some of the stressors that may induce some type of workplace stress. And reportedly 80% of the workers that reported experience workplace stress at one time or another and more than 50% believe their stresses related to work and impacts their home life. I'm going to run through some of the things. Job security might be a workplace stress or lack of access to tools and equipment. You need to perform the work safely. Fear of employer retaliation, facing confrontation from customers and other people in the working environment, adapting to newer, different workspace or schedule or work rules. Having to learn new or different ads to take on more responsibility, having to work more frequent or extended shifts and being unable to take adequate breaks physical than demanding work, learning new communication tools, learning work life boundaries. So, for example, we went into that as an example when we were doing talking about Saul Alinsky's rules for radicals keeping the pressure on people. What what what sort of the strategies? And I used to get it all the time. Uh, no. Calling you up on a holiday weekend with a work problem that could wait until monday. Right. And that happens all the time. So, we had an issue, for example, one of my projects on Wednesday. Guess what? I didn't talk about it till this morning and the email I sent out last night had specifically on it. Don't don't read this until tomorrow. Right. Why? Because I don't want people because it happened to me more than one time where I go out on vacation for a week and then they whack me in the day before I get back to work with all this crap. Right? Not cool. Right? Learning new communication tools. Yeah, that's me trying to learn to operate this computer and do this program. Finding ways to work simultaneously caring for Children, including overseeing online schooling and juggling caregiving. We So my wife had this and I went to Children with remote learning during covid concerning that work performance. So what do you do about it? Right. Well, if you're an employer you can create a judgment free shame free workplace be transparent as possible, right? They'll be stupid about it, but be transparent as possible, provide access to mental health resources, encourage workers to seek help when needed And trained managers now I think and to recognize and talk about mental health and substance abuse. I think europe specifically the UK does a really good job because this is a requirement in their work rules where you have to have mental health programs, things of that nature. What can you do if you're a worker talked to workers and supervisors share ideas about reducing workplace stress, take advantage of the existing mental health resources and ask for help. So, for example, with my employees, I I had to let them know that the word our insurance company was supplying free mental health uh resources. All right. What can you do if you're an employer or worker talk openly about workplace stress and collaborate and identifying solutions. That's a good a good thing for your career to do. Right? Talk openly about workplace stress and collaborate and identifying solutions monitor one another and talk about mental health concerns. Watch for changes in attitudes and behaviors and tell someone if a person signs or symptoms worry you last week with a workplace shooting. This might have helped. Might have We're still finding out information on that uh where a supervisor reportedly went nuts allegedly right, reducing workplace stress benefits. Uh we're reducing workplace stress benefits everyone through enhanced quality of life, lower blood pressure, strong immune system, better sleep, more positive outlook, increased productivity, improved morale, fewer sick days, better focus, fewer workplace injuries. And I can tell you, I've known a lot of people who have had a lot of health issues. I had a very close family member had health issues because of stress, ended up killing him. That's my brother at 55. Alright, so this hits a little bit close to home for me. Part of what we do here on safety wards, the broadcast and the podcast, we've tried to identify areas and ways of people how to manage stress, how to identify problems. That's the whole idea of teaching leadership. Uh Saul Alinsky's Rules for radicals, Gaslighting Sea Lion ng, all these concepts was to give us tools on how to fight that safety war and how to reduce our stress in the workplace and that's what this is all about, right. We're safe workplaces fighting that safety war for safety wars. This is Jim Postal. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the host and its guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the company. Examples of analysis discussed within this podcast are only examples. It should not be utilized in the real world as the only solution available as they are based only on very limited and dated. Open source information, assumptions made within this analysis are not reflective of the position of the company. No part of this podcast may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the creator of the podcast, J Allen.