A manufacturer in Crittenden County has received the Governor’s Safety and Health Award.
In conjunction with an event celebrating National Manufacturing Day on Friday, Deputy Secretary Rocky Comito of the Kentucky Labor Cabinet joined employees of Siemens in the city of Marion to present the company with the Governor’s Safety and Health Award for logging more than one-million hours without a lost-time incident at the facility.
Kentucky Labor Secretary Larry L. Roberts applauded the accomplishment, according to a release, and said seven years without a workplace injury, even with a major expansion and the addition of so many new employees, is a safety streak that deserves the highest recognition.
Siemens engineers, manufactures and assembles rail signaling and automation products, such as grade crossing warning lights, bells and gates, for rail lines around the U.S. and worldwide at its 288-mperson Marion facility. In addition, the manufacturing facility also assembles and wires the complex control equipment required for train control systems, wayside signal systems and grade crossing warning systems. According to officials, the facility has completed a 2-million dollar expansion, has added 80 jobs over the past five years and plans to continue to grow by adding traffic controller manufacturing operations to the site this year.
National Manufacturing Day is the first Friday of October. In August, Governor Beshear proclaimed October Manufacturing Month in Kentucky, stating that there are more than 43-hundred manufacturing facilities in the Commonwealth that employ more than 231-thousand Kentuckians. The governor’s official proclamation said manufacturing represents 3-billion dollars (about 18 percent) of Kentucky’s gross domestic product.
The Governor’s Safety and Health Award is presented in recognition of outstanding safety and health performance. An establishment may qualify for the award if its employees together achieve a required number of hours worked without experiencing a time-lost injury or illness, and is based on the number of employees. In the case of Siemens, the requirement is 750-thousand.