New partnership promotes workplace safety, health in Tennessee | Opinion
Our organizations — the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Tennessee Safety and Health Conference — recently announced a major partnership to promote workplace safety, culminating in a conference open to all Tennessee employers. As the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare, employers took their responsibility seriously to provide a safe and healthy workplace for their employees and customers.
That is one reason this announcement is so significant. The annual Tennessee Safety and Health Conference is a unique opportunity to connect all things workplace safety related. Offering an agenda including training, expertise and exhibits by vendors displaying products and services used for the promotion, increased awareness and improvement of safety and health equipment and practices in the workplace, it is the largest safety and health conference in the Southeast. Held annually since 1977, it has been attended by more than 50,000 people, and data suggest it has made a difference, resulting in safer and healthier work environments. The injury and illness rates in Tennessee are lower than the national average and have consistently fallen over the past decade. This event helps employees and employers drive the rates even lower.
Our new partnership will result in greater opportunities for health and safety training and networking opportunities for private businesses, government employers and labor organizations. Everyone should be moving forward in the same direction — ensuring the health and safety of employees is given top priority.
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The Tennessee Safety and Health Conference is unique because it brings together the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the American Society of Safety Professionals and now the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
For Tennessee employers and all of our organizations, employees are our most important asset and workplace safety is of the utmost importance, and something we take very seriously. The pandemic brought into sharper focus a need to recommit to these measures. Tennessee Chamber of Commerce members alone employ more than 600,000 people in Tennessee and have a deep reach into Tennessee’s business community, from Mountain City to Memphis. We believe this partnership can take the conference to the next level and ensure that even more workplaces across the state have the expertise and equipment they need to make their workplaces safe and healthy for both employees and customers.
While ensuring the safety and health of employees is first and foremost, workplace safety is an important part of addressing the workforce shortages and issues facing nearly every industry in our state. In a recent survey of Tennessee Chamber members, over 90% of respondents noted that workforce challenges are their most pressing concern.
The event will be held at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel Aug. 29-31. To learn more about Tennessee’s largest workplace safety and health event, register for the conference or become an exhibitor or sponsor, visit www.tnsafetycongress.org and join us. Our goal is for the state of Tennessee to be the safest and healthiest place to work in the United States.
Wendy Fisher is Tennessee Safety and Health Conference co-chair and administrator of Tennessee OSHA. Lee Fortier is conference co-chair and president of Fortier Loss Control Consultants Inc. Bradley Jackson is president and CEO of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: New partnership promotes workplace safety, health in Tennessee
