Posts for June 4, 2010

WCF PRESENTS SAFETY AWARDS TO UTAH COMPANIES

June 4, 2010 – UMA/WCF

In their annual awards luncheon at the Little America Hotel yesterday, Workers Compensation Fund honored and presented awards to a host of businesses in a variety of industries that have done an outstanding job of workplace safety in the past year. Eight of the sixteen companies honored are UMA members. They received the 2010 Charles A. Caine Workplace Safety Award from WCF, the state’s largest workers compensation carrier. UMA president Tom Bingham was an invited guest at the luncheon. UMA has a longstanding relationship with WCF and offers UMA members a discount on premiums for participation in its program.

Charles A. Caine Workplace Safety Award recipients were recognized for their innovative approaches on the job to ensure workers go home safe each day, according to Ray Pickup, WCF president and CEO. He told the luncheon audience, “Annually we honor companies for their efforts in protecting workers from workplace accidents and injuries. Since launching the Be Careful Out There campaign we have seen an ongoing trend of incorporating families in employer’s efforts to create an accident free workplace,” he said.

“With the downturn in the economy companies need to find ways to keep costs down. Preventing workplace accidents and injuries, aside from being the right thing to do, can save companies thousands of dollars on their insurance premiums and keep companies functioning at full capacity,” said Charles Pugh, vice president of Safety at WCF. “Workplace safety must become a priority for every company. The award-winners are leaders in their industries and leaders in safety. We applaud their efforts and urge other Utah companies to similarly focus on workplace safety.

“Recipients of the 2010 WCF Charles A. Caine Workplace Safety Awards are as follows:
K & J Steel
Coates Electrical & Instrument
Alder Construction Company
Daw Construction Group
SanSegal Sportswear
Zero Manufacturing
Intermountain Farmers Association
Newspaper Agency Corporation
USANA Health Sciences
Mike Zimmerman Well Services
Frontier Drilling
Mechanical Service and Systems
Alpha Transport
Garrison Transportation
Lehi City Corp

Safety Champion Award, an individual award recognizing a safety professional was presented to Brian Lichtenfels, safety director at Hunter Douglas in Salt Lake City. Hunter Douglas is also a long time member of UMA. UMA congratulates all the recipients. We are pleased that so many are UMA member companies. Great job!

ECONOMY ADDS 431K JOBS IN MAY

June 4, 2010 – Today in Manufacturing.net
Wave of census hiring by the federal government lifted payrolls by 431,000 in May, but job creation by private companies grew at slowest pace this year ... continue

SURVEY: EUROPE LACKS ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT

June 4, 2010 – Today in Manufacturing.net
EU study found that 45 percent of people in Europe said they would prefer to work for themselves -- compared to 55 percent of Americans and 71 percent of Chinese ... continue

OBAMA VOWS TO FIND VOTES TO PASS SENATE CLIMATE CHANGE BILL

June 4, 2010 – UAE Weekly - By Kathleen Hart

In a speech delivered at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on June 2, President Barack Obama called on the Senate to pass legislation that puts a price on carbon and speeds the development of clean energy in the United States.

Decrying America's dependence on fossil fuels, Obama noted that the Senate is considering climate change legislation similar to the bill passed by the House of Representatives last year. "I want you to know, the votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months. I will continue to make the case for a clean energy future wherever and whenever I can. I will work with anyone to get this done — and we will get it done," he pledged.

Given that the nation consumes more than 20% of the world's oil but has less than 2% of the world's oil reserves, Obama argued that "without a major change in our energy policy, our dependence on oil means that we will continue to send billions of dollars of our hard-earned wealth to other countries every month — including countries in dangerous and unstable regions." Continued U.S. dependence on fossil fuels "will jeopardize our national security. It will smother our planet. And it will continue to put our economy and our environment at risk," he said.

Obama made the case for aggressively accelerating America's transition to a clean energy economy. "The time has come, once and for all, for this nation to fully embrace a clean energy future. Now, that means continuing our unprecedented effort to make everything from our homes and businesses to our cars and trucks more energy-efficient. It means tapping into our natural gas reserves, and moving ahead with our plan to expand our nation's fleet of nuclear power plants," he said. "It means rolling back billions of dollars of tax breaks to oil companies so we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development."

The president argued that the transition to clean energy will succeed only if the private sector "is fully invested in this future — if capital comes off the sidelines and the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs is unleashed. And the only way to do that is by finally putting a price on carbon pollution."

Many businesses already have embraced the idea of putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions because it "provides a level of certainty about the future," Obama said. "And for those that face transition costs, we can help them adjust. But if we refuse to take into account the full costs of our fossil fuel addiction — if we don't factor in the environmental costs and the national security costs and the true economic costs — we will have missed our best chance to seize a clean energy future."

The president noted that the tax credits and loan guarantees in the Recovery Act will lead to 720,000 clean energy jobs in America by 2012. While the United States used to make less than 2% of the world's advanced batteries for hybrid cars, he said that by 2015 the nation will have enough capacity to make up to 40% of these batteries.

"Now, I understand that we can't end our dependence on fossil fuels overnight. That's why I supported a careful plan of offshore oil production as one part of our overall energy strategy. But we can pursue such production only if it's safe, and only if it's used as a short-term solution while we transition to a clean energy economy," the president added.