Beijing Printing Workplaces to Follow New Occupational Health Standard on Trial from August 1

On June 18, the Beijing Municipal Administration of Work Safety posted the Occupational Health Management Standard for Printing Industry Workplaces in Beijing (Trial) (the Standard) on its website. The Standard is scheduled to begin trial implementation on August 1. It governs occupational health management for printing companies in Beijing engaged in book, newspaper and periodical printing, booklet printing, and packaging and decoration printing, and addresses basic requirements, control measures and management measures.

The Standard lays out expectations for core occupational health management in printing companies. On processes, enterprises should prioritize technologies and processes with lower occupational hazards and actively use non-toxic or low-toxicity raw materials, replacing toxic substances with non-toxic ones and high-toxicity substances with low-toxicity ones. On equipment, they should favor highly automated, low-noise machinery and strengthen enclosure to reduce occupational hazards. On layout, operations should be arranged rationally in line with the process flow, separating hazardous work from non-hazardous work, isolating high-toxicity areas from other work areas, and keeping work areas apart from living areas. On the working environment, companies should install ventilation, detoxification and dust-removal protection facilities according to production processes and hazard characteristics, so that the concentration and intensity of hazardous agents in the workplace meet the requirements of the Occupational Exposure Limits for Hazardous Agents in the Workplace.

The Standard also contains several provisions protecting the rights of printing employees. When making labor contracts with workers, printing enterprises must truthfully disclose possible occupational hazards and their consequences, occupational hazard protection measures and benefits, and state them in the labor contract. Enterprises must provide pre-job occupational health training and regular in-service occupational health training for workers, and keep records for inspection. For workers in jobs exposed to occupational hazards, enterprises must arrange pre-job, in-service and pre-departure occupational health examinations and establish occupational health surveillance records.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362305.html