York, PA) – The Manufacturers' Association was awarded a $157,833 training grant by the Federal Susan Harwood Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which will be used to support training in electrical safety in central and southcentral Pennsylvania through December 2024. The Targeted Topic training grant, focusing on manufacturing but also other industrial sectors, will help workers and employers recognize serious workplace hazards, including implementing injury prevention measures and understanding rights and responsibilities under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. The grant audience will also focus on small businesses as well as temporarily unemployed workers seeking to enter manufacturing or industrial sectors.

The initiative will include training such as electrical safety, lockout tagout, arc flash and NFPA 70e and will be offered in English and Spanish. OSHA has noted the national increase in both electrical deaths and injuries in a 2021 announcement showing since 2018 a nearly 4% increase in deaths and over 2,200 lost work hours in the year 2020 alone. The Association will soon schedule and offer these no-cost electrical safety training courses, with dates and locations throughout central Pennsylvania. Employers will also be able to host training sessions at their own locations, in conjunction with the Association. This is the fourth grant for the Association from the Susan Harwood Program, the third electrical safety grant, which we received two years in a row and is projected to train another 500 employees and individuals.

“The Manufacturers’ Association applauds this investment by the federal government and OSHA – it demonstrates their recognition of the high caliber of training programs which the Association delivers each year to thousands of manufacturing employees in central and southcentral Pennsylvania,” noted Tom Palisin, the Association’s Executive Director. “Safety of employees is a priority for the regional industrial base, and these training funds will transfer the best practices and procedures to the workforce - reducing lost work hours or possible injuries and helping with retention of the skilled workforce,” he added.

More course information will be communicated as schedules and training locations are soon organized throughout central and southcentral Pennsylvania, including at the Association’s Center of Excellence for Apprenticeship and Training, which opened to serve the industry in January 2021.  The initiative is partnering with the commonwealth’s Industrial Resource Center Program to support outreach to the manufacturing sector and includes MANTEC, Inc. located in York and the Innovative Manufacturers’ Center (IMC) in Williamsport. 

The federal program honors the late Susan Harwood, former director of OSHA's Office of Risk Assessment, who died in 1996.  During her 17-year OSHA career, she helped develop federal standards to protect workers exposed to bloodborne pathogens, cotton dust, benzene, formaldehyde, asbestos, and lead in construction.  For questions about the new federally funded grant training for electrical safety, please contact Brian Paterniti, Director of Workforce Development at (717) 843-3891, or by email at bpaterniti@mascpa.org. 

The 2023 federal OSHA Susan Harwood Grant Program Press release can be found here.

(The training material was produced under grant funding from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor. It does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Labor, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government).

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