What is lightweight, easy on the environment, free, and full of fun, helpful information that will make your life easier?

It is the Big Pigalog® 2012 online catalog.

Now finding the tools to make your job easier is just a mouse click away. PIG® Mat, Spill Kits, Wipers, Personal and Plant Safety, and much more are all online and ready for your perusal.

The Big Pigalog® 2012 catalog is packed full of amazing products, great deals, important information and, of course, lots of PIG® fun.

Check out the new Big Pigalog® 2012 online catalog for everything you need to keep your workplace clean and safe.

For those who love that new Big Pigalog® catalog smell and relish the feeling of the Big Pigalog® catalog in your hands, just call 1-800-HOT-HOGS® or send a request online.

Whether online or in-hand, the Big Pigalog® 2012 catalog is sure to be a PIG® hit!

Hammy Holidays!

Alright, it wasn’t Terry Bradshaw passing to Lynn Swann. Instead, it was an even bigger MVP (Most Valuable Pigger) who connected with Lynn. It was our very own Terry from our Corporate Sales team!

Here you can see the Hall of Famer taking the handoff from the Hog of Famer during a recent visit to Canton, OH.

And this is no ordinary Pigskin! It is the one and only Sporksball, one of New Pig’s famous promos that you can get when you order from 1-800-HOT-HOGS or visit newpig.com

One question, Terry– Did you give Lynn your autograph?

It’s true that the more often a piece of information is repeated, the more likely a person is to remember it. Take the number 3349.

3349 does not seem significant. In fact, it is hard to connect 3349 to anything. A person would be hard-pressed to even come up with a correlation to 3349.

But 3349 is important. Why is 3349 so important? Because 3349 is the booth number for New Pig at the National Safety Council’s 2011 Congress and Expo in Philadelphia, PA from October 31 to Nov. 2.

So stop by booth 3349 to meet the New Pig team who will be sharing great innovative solutions to keep your workplace safe, clean and productive.

You can even get your first look at PIG® Grippy® Mat– the revolutionary absorbent mat that stays put no matter what™.

Hope to see you there (at booth #3349, of course)

Yesterday, nine Piggers from the Blue Ribbon Sales Team headed to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. to serve dinner to wounded soldiers and their families.

The Armed Forces Foundation serves dinners monthly at major hospitals. Recently, the Foundation started offering opportunities for organizations to sponsor dinners for the troops. New Pig sponsored the dinner on April 14.

Piggers helping make life a little better for people. We call it the New Pig Spirit. We love to do that for our customers, and, when we can, we love to support great causes like this one.

Visit Armed Forces Foundation for more information.

For the first time ever, OSHA has made available to the public a decade’s worth of injury and ilness data. A searchable online database of 80,000 employers from the years 1996 to 2007 is now available.

“Making injury and illness information available to the public is part of OSHA’s response to the administration’s commitment to make government more transparent to the American people,” said David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for OSHA.

OSHA also uses the data to target inspections. The Site Specific Targeting Program helps the agency focus its efforts on the appropriate area and industries.

Sometimes, in safety, people assume. Those assumptions can lead to some very nasty incidents. When it comes to machine guarding, assumptions can be deadly. Don’t let these common mistakes hurt you or anyone at your company:

Mistake #1— People assume that machines are safe when they purchase them.

This is a common misconception that ends up hurting people. Machine manufacturers are not responsible for guarding the machines they create. The consumer who purchases the item must evaluate the machine to ensure that all areas are properly guarded.

A simple, but effective tool is a machine guarding checklist that is used to inspect each piece of equipment in your facility. Use this OSHA resource to create a machine guarding checklist for your facility.

Mistake #2— People assume everyone understands machine guarding.

The idea of safety being common sense is rampant… and wrong. Safety is learned and, if safety is learned, we must educate.

Although many guards are created to prevent any contact with dangerous moving parts, it can still happen if an employee does not understand the equipment. Machine operators must be trained annually on machine guarding and the dangers they face.

OSHA states in their Machine Guarding E-Tool that we should train on the following:

1. a description and identification of the hazards associated with particular machines;
2. the safeguards themselves, how they provide protection, and the hazards for which they are intended;
3. how to use the safeguards and why;
4. how and under what circumstances safeguards can be removed, and by whom (in most cases, repair or maintenance personnel only); and
5. when a lockout/tagout program is required.
6. what to do (e.g., contact the supervisor) if a safeguard is damaged, missing, or unable to provide adequate protection.

Mistake #3— People assume machine guarding is good enough for lockout/tagout.

One type of guard is an interlock, a device which shuts down a piece of equipment when a specific piece of the machinery is moved or opened. This is a great way to guard machinery to prevent injuries.

It is not, however, acceptable for locking or tagging out a piece of equipment. Although the machine has been deactivated, it is not locked out. The threat of restart is still there with interlocks. Always use a full lockout/tagout program when working on equipment. Never rely on machine guarding to protect you.

Remember, machine guarding is extremely important. You could save your employees from losing time at work, losing an arm or losing their life.

At least two times a year, New Pig hosts the American Red Cross Bloodmobile so Piggers have an easy and convenient way to donate blood.

During today’s visit, New Pig surpassed its goal by 4 pints by donating 24 pints of blood to the Red Cross.

Cheryl, a loyal, blood-giving Pigger, waits patiently to donate.

By the way, if any of that blood should spill … here’s how to be ready.

Don’t look now—well, actually, please do look now— but the PIG® brand has gotten some more broadcast love.

Yeah, baby, we’re takin’ over your tube.

This time it was an appearance on Horsepower TV, which appears on Spike TV (insert manly grunt here). To see the clip, click here, and look for “Click Here to Play Video” about halfway down the page. PIG® Absorbent Mat is the dressing on the table of goods in the first minute or so. It makes that cast aluminum intake manifold, 750 cfm remanufactured Quadrajet Carb, Summit hydraulic cam & lifter kit, and Summit double roller timing set look sweet—not to mention lying in wait to catch oil and grease.

I’m just about done updating the New Pig safety manual, but now I’m going to flip back through it to see if it addresses how to properly assault a vending machine.

A man in Illinois recently fractured his hip on the job while ramming a vending machine to dislodge a bag of chips for a coworker. He was judged eligible for workers’ comp because he wasn’t on break, he was coming to the aid of another worker (Illinois law recognizes “Good Samaritan” cases) and the employer knew the machine was faulty (a “reasonably foreseeable” situation in Illinois).

Good Samaritan? Yes. Safe worker? No.

Image © Stephen Finn – Fotolia.com