Y-12 receives two significant safety awards

For the 10th consecutive year, the Y‑12 National Security Complex received the National Safety Council’s Occupational Excellence Achievement award. This award recognizes companies, units, or facilities that have reported injuries and illnesses that involved days away from work equal to or less than 50 percent of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics rating for their industry and have had no fatalities during a calendar year.

“We want to reduce our lost workday case rate to zero,” said B&W Y-12 President and General Manager Chuck Spencer. “During calendar year 2012 (for which this award was given), our rate was 0.17. The comparable industry incident rate is 1.6. Y-12 employees can be proud of making safety a value in their daily lives.”

The second award received was the U.S. Department of Energy Voluntary Protection Program Star of Excellence. As the award states, employees have “achieved an outstanding level of performance in meeting established safety and health goals, actively conducting outreach to others and in achieving an injury and illness rate significantly below the average of similar businesses and operations.”

“Receiving this award shows that our employees understand the Safety for Life journey that we continue,” said Yvonne Bishop, acting vice president of B&W Y-12’s Environment, Safety and Health. “We care about our own safety and that of our co-workers.”

The Star of Excellence recognizes sites that have a recordable incident injury rate that is 75 percent better than the average of other U.S. businesses in the same industry code.