Yet some forms of stress are less “institutionalized,” and therefore easier to manage on an individual level. Small changes in daily habits and activities can bring about substantial improvements in these kinds of workplace stress levels.

Lowering stress in the workplace can enhance both physical and emotional health, while also improving job performance and personal career satisfaction.

In our recent article on managing workplace stress, we discussed Tip # 1 (Recognizing signs of excessive job-related stress) and Tip # 2 (Taking care of yourself). Hare are some additional steps workers can take to lower their personal stress in the workplace:

Tip 3: Reduce job stress by prioritizing and organizing

When workplace stress threatens to overwhelm your job, take some basic steps to regain control over the situation.

Time management

• Balance your schedule. Analyze your schedule, responsibilities, and daily tasks. All work with no leisure or recovery time is a recipe for certain burnout. Seek a balance between work and family life, social activities and individual pursuits, daily responsibilities and personal downtime.
• Don’t over-commit yourself. Avoid scheduling back-to-back activities or cramming too much into one day. We often underestimate how long certain tasks and commitments can take. If you find that you have too much on your plate, drop tasks that aren’t completely necessary to the bottom of the list – or eliminate them entirely!
• Try to leave earlier in the morning. Even 10-15 minutes can make the difference between frantically rushing to your desk and having time to ease into your day. Don’t increase your stress levels by running late.
• Plan regular breaks. Make sure to take brief breaks throughout the day to walk around, stretch, or clear your mind.  Try to move away from your desk or work station for lunch. Stepping away – even for a short window – can relax and recharge you, making you more, not less, productive.

Task management tips for reducing job stress

• Prioritize tasks. Make a list of essential tasks, and tackle them in order of importance. Complete the high-priority items first. If you must complete something particularly unpleasant, get it over with early. The remainder of your day will be more pleasant as a result.
• Break projects into smaller pieces. If a big project seems overwhelming, create a step-by-step plan. Rather than attempting to tackled everything at once, focus on one manageable step at a time.
• Delegate responsibility. You don’t have to do it all yourself. If other people can take care of the task, why not ask them? Let go of your desire to control or oversee every step. This will eliminate unnecessary stress in the process.
• Stay open to Compromising. When you ask a co-worker to contribute differently to a task, change a deadline, or alter their behavior at work, be willing to do so yourself. In many cases, if both parties bend a little, you’ll find a productive middle ground that reduces the stress levels for everyone involved.

Tip 4: Reduce job stress by breaking bad habits

As we become better at managing job stress and improving work relationships, we gain more control over our ability to think clearly and act appropriately. This allows us to break habits that add stress to our work lives – and can even change negative thought patterns concerning things that increase stress levels.

Identify self-defeating behaviors

Many of us make job stress worse through negative thoughts and habits. If you can reverse these self-defeating habits, you’ll find other sources of stress (such as manager-imposed stress) easier to handle.

• Resist perfectionism. No project, decision or scenario is ever ideal, so striving for perfection on every front will just add needless stress to your day. When you set unattainable goals for yourself or take on too much, you set yourself up for disappointment. Aim to do a good, solid job; no one can ask for more than that.
• Clean up your act. If you tend to run late, set your clocks a few minutes fast or simply give yourself extra time. If your desk is cluttered, file and throw away the mess; simply knowing where everything saves time and reduces stress. Make to-do lists and cross off items as you accomplish them. Plan your day and stick to the schedule — you’ll feel less overwhelmed.
• Reverse your negative thinking. If you see the downside of every situation, you’ll becomes drained in no time. Try to see positive aspects in your work, avoid co-workers with negative attitudes, and reward yourself for small accomplishments (even when no one else does!)
• Don’t try to control the uncontrollable. Some things in our jobs and simply beyond our control— especially the behavior of others. Rather than fretting over them, focus on the things you can control, such as the manner in which you respond to problems.

Five Ways to Dispel Stress

• Take a few minutes away. When stress at work is building, give yourself a quick break and remove yourself from the stressful situation. Take a quick walk outside if possible, or spend a few minutes breathing deeply or stretching in another room. Physical activity or just finding a quiet place to “regroup” can quickly reduce stress.
• Talk with someone. In some situations, simply sharing your thoughts with someone who is both supportive and empathetic can be a great way to let off steam and diffuse your negative emotions.
• Connect with others at work. Developing friendships and relationships with co-workers can help protect you from the negative effects of stress. Remember to reciprocate by listening to them in turn, and offer support when they need it.
• Find humor in the situation. When used appropriately, humor is an effective – and enjoyable – way to diffuse stress in your job. Try to avoid taking things too seriously if a problem does not warrant it, and lighten the mood by sharing a joke or funny story.

However, there are also smaller and more easily-managed causes of stress. The good news here is that managing workplace stress does not always require extensive changes. Sometimes improvements can start by focusing on the one thing that’s most squarely within your control: you.

The ability to reduce stress in the workplace can not only enhance physical and emotional health, but can also make the difference between success or failure in a career. Emotions can be contagious, and therefore stress can affect the nature and quality of your interactions with other workers. The better you become at managing your stress, the more positive effects you’ll have on others, and the less co-workers’ stress will negatively impact you.

Learn to manage job stress

There are many steps workers can take to reduce personal stress levels in the workplace.

Tip 1: Recognize signs of excessive job-related stress

When workers feel overwhelmed on the job, they often lose confidence or become irritable or withdrawn. This can compromise your job performance, and even make your work seem less rewarding. Ignoring the warning signs of job-related stress generally leads to bigger problems like chronic stress accompanied by physical and emotional health problems.

Common Symptoms of excessive workplace stress

• Feeling anxious, irritable, or depressed
• Apathy, loss of interest in work
• Trouble sleeping
• Fatigue

• Difficulty in concentrating
• Alcohol or drug use as a coping strategy

• Muscle tension or headaches
• Stomach problems
• Social withdrawal

 Tip 2: Take care of yourself 

When job-related stress interferes with your ability to adequately perform at work, manage your personal life, or negatively affects your health, it’s time to take action. Start by paying attention to your physical and emotional health. When your personal needs are fully addressed, you’ll feel more resilient and be in a better position to overcome stress without feeling overwhelmed.

Even minor changes can lift your mood, increase energy, and make you feel like you’re back in control. Here are some common stress-management techniques:

Get moving

Aerobic activities that raise your heart rate are highly effective for elevating mood, increasing energy, honing your focus, and relaxing the mind and body. For effective stress relief, try to complete at least 30 minutes of heart-pounding activity daily. If it’s easier to fit into your schedule, break the activity into shorter segments throughout the day.

Make food choices that keep you going

Low blood sugar can cause anxiety and irritability, while overeating can make us lethargic. Try eating small but frequent meals during the day to maintain an even blood sugar level and avoid mood swings.

Drink alcohol in moderation

While alcohol can temporarily reduce anxiety, overconsumption can cause anxiety as it wears off. Drinking to relieve job stress can also lead to alcohol abuse and dependence in the long run.

Get adequate sleep

Not only can stress and worry lead to insomnia, but insufficient sleep can make workers vulnerable to even more stress. When we’re well-rested, it’s easier to maintain emotional balance, a key factor in coping with workplace stress.

For more information on reducing workplace stress, check back with us for the second part of this article. Stay tuned for tips #3 and #4 …

Mother Jones

Each year, Workers’ Memorial Day, International Workers’ Memorial Day or International Commemoration Day (ICD) for the Dead and Injured (Day of Mourning) is observed around the world on April 28, a global day of remembrance and action for workers who have been killed, injured, disabled, or fallen ill because of their work. International events include direct campaigning and workplace safety awareness events. Public events include speeches, multi-faith religious services, the laying of wreaths and ringing of bells, planting trees, unveiling monuments, raising public awareness of worker risks, and laying out empty shoes to symbolize those who have died at work.

Workers’ Memorial Day is an important occasion to bring to light the preventable nature of most workplace accidents and illnesses, and to advance campaigns and union organization in the struggle for worker rights and improvements in workplace safety. The slogan for the day is Remember the dead – Fight for the living.

ORIGINS

Workers’ Memorial Day was first organized by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in 1984. The Canadian Labor Congress declared an annual day of remembrance on April 28, 1985, which falls on the anniversary of a comprehensive Workers Compensation Act in 1914 (see Workplace Safety & Insurance Board). In 1991, the Canadian Parliament passed an Act respecting a National Day of Mourning for those injured or killed in the workplace, thus establishing April 28 an official Workers’ Mourning Day.

INTERNATIONAL OBSERVANCE

For years, Worker’s Memorial Day events have been observed in the U.S. and Canada, and eventually worldwide. In the U.S., the day has been officially recognized since 1989. In that year, trade unions in North America, Asia, Europe and Africa publicized events and commemorations on April 28. The late Hazards Campaigner Tommy Harte brought Workers Memorial Day to the UK in 1992 as a day to ‘Remember the Dead: Fight for the Living’.

Workers’ Memorial Day is observed as a national day in countries including: Argentina, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Luxembourg, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Thailand, Taiwan, United States and the United Kingdom. Trade Unions in other countries including Benin, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Malta, Nepal, New Zealand, Romania and Singapore are currently pushing for government recognition.

Worldwide Deaths and Injuries

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), across the world:

• Each year, more than two million women and men die as a result of work-related accidents and diseases
• Workers suffer approximately 270 million accidents each year, and fall victim to some 160 million incidents of -related illnesses
• Hazardous substances kill 440,000 workers annually – asbestos claims 100,000 lives
• One worker dies every 15 seconds worldwide. 6,000 workers die every day. More people die at work than in fighting wars.

The University College London team based findings on more than 7,000 civil service employees whose health has been monitored since 1985. They suggest that doctors should now be asking patients about working hours.

Lead researcher of the story, Professor Mika Kivimäki said: “Considering that including a measurement of working hours in a GP interview is so simple and useful, our research presents a strong case that it should become standard practice. This study might make us think twice about the old adage ‘hard work won’t kill you.’”

Professor Stephen Holgate of the Medical Research Council added that the study “could also be a wake-up call for people who overwork themselves, especially if they already have other risk factors.”

Over the course of the 11-year study, 192 of participants had a heart attack.  Those who out in 11 hours of work or more per day were more than 50% as likely to have a heart attack than those who worked shorter hours.

And factoring working hours into well-established heart risk factors (like high blood pressure), made the predictions far more accurate. Studies are now needed to see if encouraging employers to cut back on working hours (or getting employers to soften their demands) will improve heart health.

“Tackling lifestyles that are detrimental to health is a key area for the MRC, and this research reminds us that it’s not just diet and exercise we need to think about,” said Professor Holgate.

Experts suspect a number of underlying factors may be at play, such as undetected high blood pressure, stress, anxiety or depression, and being a driven, aggressive or irritable personality.

The study also raises related issues traditionally managed by employment attorneys, such as unpaid overtime hours, wage and hour violations, wrongful termination and workplace discrimination. An experienced Employment Attorney at Emery Reddy can help with any of these issues. In addition, workers who have submitted an L&I Claim with the Department of Labor and Industries, and need help with their workers compensation case, should consult an L&I Lawyer at Emery Reddy.

Safety measures often to get little credit for the reduction in industrial accidents over the decades. England, for instance – the very birthplace of the industrial revolution – formed it’s current national worker safety program in 1974. At that time there were 651 employees killed at work, an average risk of 29 micromorts per year for a worker. Yet by 2010 that figure had fallen to 120, which is 5 micromorts per year (an impressive 82% decrease in risk).  Self-employed workers carry more risk, and 51 were killed in 2010, which raises the overall UK average to 6 micromorts per year.

National risks

Britain comes out ahead in comparison with other European countries. Statisticians with EU office known as Eurostat report that British workers were on average exposed to 10 micromorts per year in 2007, compared with 17 in France, 19 in Germany, 26 in Spain, 35 in Poland and 84 in Romania.

On this side of the Atlantic, the US Bureau for Labor Statistics provides some troubling statistics on the fate of 130 million workers in 2010.  A total of 4,547 workers were killed, a rate of 35 micromorts per worker per year. The most common cause was car accidents, which are not included in the European figures: without these the rate falls to around 28 micromorts per year, about on par with Spain.

But more surprising is that the second most common cause of death – bigger than falls or being struck by equipment on a job site – is “assault and violent acts.” This makes up 18% of all workplace fatalities, including 506 homicides (and this has actually fallen from 860 homicides in 1997). That means that each year US workers have on average around 4 micromorts risk of being murdered at work – not much less than the total risk to UK workers from all other causes combined.

Workers also commonly suffer from non-fatal – yet still serious – injuries including back injuries, work-related hearing loss, repetitive strain injuries, construction site injuries and occupational illness. The L&I Attorneys at Emery Reddy represent Washington workers with any form of work injury. If you are experiencing difficulty in recovering your workers compensation benefits from the Department of Labor and Industries, a workers compensation attorney at Emery Reddy can represent your interests. Every day our experienced Seattle L&I Attorneys help clients appeal denied L&I claims, provide guidance to workers who are required to complete an independent medical exam, and help others who experience difficulties with their L&I claim.

Yet it is important to keep in mind that these figures are averages. They include huge armies of workers stuck at computers all day, which – despite causing stress, repetitive strain and back injury – is not a job that usually kill workers right on the spot.

Some occupations, however, are a different matter.

Apart from highly specialized jobs like as providing security in violent and unstable regions of the world, the highest-risk occupation in Britain today is commercial fishing. In the UK, a recent study showed that 160 deaths occurred in commercial fishing between 1996 to 2005, which comes out to 1,020 micromorts per year per fisherman. This is shockingly high – about the same level of risk facing British coal-miners in 1900. Commercial fishing is also the most deadly job in the US, with a risk of 1,160 micromorts per worker in 2010. Somewhat surprisingly, work as a police officer was only the 10th most dangerous job in the US, at 180 micromorts a year.

All of this raised the question of how risky a job has to be before an organization like L&I or OSHA decides that something must be done? In the UK, the philosophy of the Health & Safety Executive (or HSE) is based on something known as the Tolerability of Risk framework, which can be conveniently related to micromorts.

Potential hazards are generally regarded as existing along a spectrum of increasing risk, which divides into three loosely defined regions. Topping the chart are “Unacceptable” risks – meaning that something must be done immediately to protect the workers, the public, or both. At the bottom of the list are “broadly acceptable” risks, which are not quite zero but are considered insignificant by workplace regulators – the kind of thing we’d consider to be normal in our own daily lives.

In between the two extremes lie the “tolerable” risks – things we may be prepared to put up with if they yield sufficient benefit, such as providing valuable employment, personal convenience, or maintaining the infrastructure of society. The logic, in other words, is that somebody must do the dirty work.

Acceptable or not?

Yet how do regulators decide what is unacceptable, broadly acceptable, or tolerable? This is impossible to translate into numbers, yet again we can look to the methods of HSE because they’ve devised some general rules-of-thumb.

First, they claim that an occupational hazard might be considered “unacceptable” if the chance of worker death is greater than one in 1,000 per year. This equates to 1,000 micromorts per year, around the level for commercial fishing. “Exceptional groups” are excluded from that metric: serving in a war-zone certainly counts as exceptional, and the average risk faced by 10,000 servicemen and women in Afghanistan reached 33 micromorts a day, or around 10,000 a year.

For members of the public (rather than employed workers), the HSE considers a one in 10,000 a year risk – which is 100 micromorts a year – as being unacceptable. At the other extreme, risks are considered broadly acceptable if they are less than one in a million per year – or 1 micromort. As it happens, this is about equivalent to the estimated risk of being killed by an asteroid.

Disaster zone

But if applied to the entire English population, even such a minimal risk would mean nearly 50 fatalities a year. This raises some interesting questions: what would happen if all of these deaths occurred once, or affected vulnerable groups like young children, or imposed risks on certain people just because of where they live?

In these circumstances, “social concerns” can trump these cold “micromort calculations.” And again, the HSE has created some rough guidelines that reflect these concerns: for any potential hazard, the risk of an accident involving 50 deaths must be less than 1 in 5,000 each year. Imagine we built a dam that, if it burst, would kill 50 people. In this case it must be designed so that this could be expected to happen only once every 5,000 years.  That’s a fairly rigorous criterion. If 10,000 people lived below the dam, this would be less than 1 micromort a year.

From the individual perspective this might be considered “acceptable”.  But since our society does not like disasters, the immense resources expended on them make tiny risks even smaller.

The L&I Attorneys at Emery Reddy represent workers who have suffered problems such as back injuries, neck injuries, work-related hearing loss, repetitive stress injuries, construction site injuries and occupational illness. If you need help with your L&I Claim for any type of workers’ compensation injury, contact a Seattle work injury lawyer today.

Workers at Republic Services/Allied Waste  – the second largest solid waste and recycling company in the U.S. – found picket lines outside the facilities when they arrived at work in Seattle, Bellevue, Lynnwood and Kent early on Friday morning.

Striking members of Teamster Local Union 991 had traveled all the way from Mobile, AL t the Northwest to expand picket lines to Republic’s Seattle-area facilities. Members of Teamsters Joint Council 28, as well as community supporters, also put up sympathy pickets.  250 workers at these facilities–refused to cross the lines.

Sanitation Worker Strike

On Thursday night, March 22, all 24 Republic Services workers in Mobile went on strike. They are protesting Republic’s repeated labor law violations. In February, Republic negotiators agreed to a contract, only to then back out when they decided they wanted to pay less for family health care coverage.

Within a few hours of Mobile workers going on strike, Republic Services workers in Columbus Ohio and Buffalo N.Y. refused to cross sympathy picket lines in support of strikers in Mobile. Trash and recycling work in those two cities was effectively shut down from Friday through Monday. Sympathy picket lines are currently spreading to other Republic facilities across the nation, where the Teamsters have nearly 150 contracts.

In 2011, Republic Services/Allied Waste reported $8.2 billion in revenues, with profits of $589 million – a 15% increase per share since 2010.

“Republic claims it can’t afford to provide quality, reasonably priced health care for its employees,” said Teamsters Solid Waste, Recycling and Related Industries Division Director Robert Morales. “Yet the employees are the ones who risk their lives every day to protect the public health and rake in profits for the company.”

“I’ve worked at Republic for 16 years,” said striking worker Steve Burroughs. “I don’t want to strike, but these top 1 percent corporations have done nothing but harass and intimidate us. As a worker, I’m part of the 99 percent in America and I can’t stand by any more while our jobs are destroyed.”

For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/RepublicServicesTeamsters and follow https://twitter.com/repubteamsters.

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents more than 1.4 million hardworking men and women in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit www.teamster.org for more information.

According to the Labor Department the number of people applying for weekly unemployment benefits fell by 5,000, to a seasonally adjusted 359,000. This marks the lowest number of applicants since April 2008.

The four-week average of jobless claims, which is a less precarious metric, declined to 365,000 — the fewest for that measure since May 2008.

When applications for unemployment benefits decrease in a consistent trend below 375,000, it is generally a sign that hiring is sufficiently robust to bring down the unemployment rate. The current decline has coincided with the best three-months of hiring in over two years.

Many economists predict yet another strong month of hiring in March.

In assessing jobless claims, Ian Shepherdson, an economist at High Frequency Economics said “The trend remains unambiguously downwards.” While he admitted that the rate of decline was slowing, he pointed out that it was “still consistent with robust, sustained payroll gains.”

In Thursday’s assessment of the October-December quarter, the Commerce Department reported no change. The 3 percent annual rate remained the highest since spring 2010. Still, economists expect growth has probably slowed to 2 percent or less in the current quarter.

Businesses have been restocking their inventories at a slower rate, and shipping a lower amount of durable manufactured goods. In addition, Europe’s debt crisis and slowed growth in Asia have dampened demand for American exports.

Yet despite promising trends overall, Washington State residents still face troubling rates of unemployment, as well as difficulties in the workplace such as wrongful termination, workplace discrimination, trouble collecting workers compensation benefits, and the complexity of handling a Labor & Industries Claim (including, for many, the need to appeal a rejected L&I claim). Since a large number of injured workers do not fully understand their rights, they are taken advantage of when they attend an L&I Independent Medical Exam. If you need help with any of these issues, contact an L&I Lawyer or a Seattle Employment Attorney at Emery Reddy today.

The Arkansas-based retailer faces up to $365,500 in proposed fines after OSHA’s Buffalo Area Office conducted inspections in response to a complaint.

“The sizable fines proposed here reflect not only the seriousness of these conditions but the fact that several of them are substantially similar to hazards identified at nine other Wal-Mart locations in New York and eight other states,” said Arthur Dube, OSHA’s director in Buffalo. “This situation is unacceptable. A corporate employer must take effective and proactive steps to assess, correct and prevent the recurrence of hazards at all of its locations.”

OSHA inspectors who visited the Rochester Wal-Mart found fall hazards; obstructed exits; an absence of lockout procedures for energy sources that would enable workers to safely perform maintenance on a compactor; an unguarded grinder; a failure to train employees on proper uses of protective equipment; a lack of eye and face protection; and insufficient information and training on hazardous chemicals in the workplace. These conditions exposed employees to serious risk of workplace injury, amounting to citations for 10 repeat violations with $288,000 in fines.

A repeat violation is issued when a place of employment has previously been cited for the same violation of a standard, regulation, or rule. In Wal-Mart’s case, OSHA had cited the retail giant for similar hazards between 2008 and 2010 at workplaces in South Mobile, Alabama; Jonesboro, Arkansas; Plant City, Florida; Rincon, Georgia; Jerseyville, Illinois; Queensbury, N.Y; Fargo, North Dakota; and Tulsa, Oklahoma.  L&I Attorneys were disappointed but hardly surprised by the news, as Wal-Mart has long been a source of a numerous injuries and workers compensation claims in Washington State.

The citations against Wal-Mart can be viewed at http://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/Walmart315502476-315502880-01-27-12.pdf.*

If you of someone you know has suffered a workplace injury and is filing an L&I claim, we encourage you to consult one of Emery Reddy’s Washington Workers’ Compensation Lawyers.

In the course of many L&I claims process, the Labor & Industries administrators may request that you complete an Independent Medical Examination; if you find yourself in this situation, we urge you to consult with an Seattle L&I lawyer immediately.

In the course of an inspection begun in August based on a referral, OSHA discovered that a worker had been injured and hospitalized due to a faulty truck-mounted crane. While moving concrete-based traffic lights, the boom of the crane broke away from the truck, striking the operator in the head and knocking him from the operator’s station to the ground below.

One willful violation (carrying a $42,000 penalty) results from the employer’s failure to conduct annual inspections on the equipment. The employer was evidently aware of safety concerns raised by OSHA in previous citations from 2002 and 2006. A willful violation is one committed with deliberate understanding or intentional disregard for measured required by law, or with obvious indifference to worker safety and health.

Two serious violations carrying $8,400 in proposed fines have also been issued for undertaking modifications to the truck-mounted crane without the written approval of the manufacturer, and for permitting the crane to remain in operation despite known deficiencies. A serious violation occurs when there is considerable probability that death or serious worker injury could result from a hazard the employer knew about.
“Because this employer failed to provide safe equipment, a worker was seriously injured and could have been killed,” said Darlene Fossum, director of OSHA’s Fort Lauderdale Area Office. “This unfortunate incident illustrates why following OSHA’s standards are so important. All employees deserve a work environment free from unnecessary hazards.”

To ask questions, obtain compliance assistance, file a complaint or report workplace hospitalizations, fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, the public should call OSHA’s toll-free hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742).

If you were injured at work and plan to file an L&I claim, contact a Washington Workers’ Compensation Attorney at Emery Reddy. During the workers compensation claim process, the Department of Labor & Industries may require you to undergo an Independent Medical Exam; if this happens to you, we urge you to consult with an Seattle L&I lawyer before attending the IME. Finally, if your claim has been denied, it is in your best interest to work with an experienced L&I attorney to appeal rejected L&I claims.