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League of Minnesota Cities Program Regional Safety Groups Regional Safety Groups, open to any city to participate in, are
a flexible way for Minnesota cities to meet state and federal OSHA mandates.
The League of Minnesota Cities partners with the Minnesota Municipal
Utilities Association to deliver these services. Regional Safety Groups work
as a team to: · Establish a safety committee, hold safety
meetings, and develop safety coordinators. · Develop an ongoing meeting and training
schedule at the times, dates, and locations that work best for cities in the
group. · Identify as many as 12 safety training topics
per year. Fifty percent of training costs are covered by LMCIT, and each
group decides how to split the remaining costs among themselves. · Take advantage of free web-based training
endorsed by the National Safety Council and provided through FirstNet
Learning. For more information on Regional Safety
Groups, visit http://www.lmnc.org/page/1/RegionalSafetyGroups.jsp, or contact Chris White at cwhite@lmc.org or (651) 215-4069. MMUA
and the League of Minnesota Cities MMUA
and the League of Minnesota Cities (LMC) have worked closely for many years
on a variety of topics, particularly on legislative issues. (In fact, MMUA
sprang forth from an LMC committee, in the early 1930s.) Now,
the two entities are working ever more closely, through a burgeoning
partnership between the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust (LMCIT)
and MMUA’s job training and safety division. Several
years ago, LMCIT, in partnership with MMUA, created the OSHA/Safety Assistance
Program to provide cities with the tools needed to comply with OSHA
requirements and address employee safety needs. Kurt Rothwell is MMUA’s liaison to the LMCIT. Rothwell is
an MMUA safety assistance program leader/regional safety coordinator. “Each
group is a little different,” Rothwell said. “Meeting dates, times and
locations are flexible and worked out with the participants.” MMUA,
LMCIT and the participating cities also narrow down a list of 30 or so topics
to 12-14 that Rothwell prepares presentations for the coming year. Some
groups want a topic every month, some every two months with on-site visits or
mock OSHA inspections on the non-presentation month. The cities may rotate
the training/presentations so each city hosts them in an order that is
decided by the group. “We
would like the groups to be less than nine cities so we can visit each site
twice in the year and so there is not a lot of travel time between the
training locations,” Rothwell said. “Six cities in a group would be ideal for
training and onsite visits but we will work with whatever the groups decide
is best for them.” Should your city/utility have a safety
committee? According
to the League of Minnesota Cities, Minn. Statutes, section 182.676, deals
with safety committees and requires all employers with more than 25 workers
to have a joint labor-management safety committee. The law references safety
committee requirements for employers with 25 or fewer employees, but it is
unclear whether they would apply to a city. Perhaps the best method of
interpreting this statute would be for any city with numerous losses to
seriously consider forming a safety committee, regardless of the number of
employees. |
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Minnesota Municipal Utilities Association
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