Updates from the Leading Association for the Cleaning Industry Worldwide

Gingrich to give Keynote Address at
ISSA/INTERCLEAN® North America 2007
CNewt Gingrich, former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, best-selling author, and current transformational change consultant, will bring his global insight to Orlando, Fla., on Thursday, October 25, as keynote speaker at ISSA/INTERCLEAN® North America 2007. With his talk, “Living in the Age of Transformation,” Gingrich hopes to empower attendees from every nation to respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by the Information Age and the global marketplace.

Gingrich will discuss his study of the natural world, the biological revolution’s impact on health, the state of information systems, the effect of mass communications, the infrastructure and implementation of international finance, the benefits of lean manufacturing, and, of course, politics. He will demonstrate how lessons learned in one discipline can apply to another — and how all fields of study share a common connection to information technology.

Following his career in public service, Gingrich became chairman of the Gingrich Group, a communications and consulting firm that specializes in transformational change. Gingrich also is a news and political analyst for the Fox News Channel and has published 11 books, including the best sellers “Winning the Future,” “Contract With America” and “To Renew America,” as well as “Saving Lives & Saving Money,” “Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War,” “Grant Comes East,” “Never Call Retreat,” and his newest, “Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8th.”

EPA Decides NOT to Pursue Training
At the prodding of ISSA and other industry groups, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced in late May that it will not pursue extensive certification and training for employees (such as custodial personnel) who apply disinfectants, sanitizers, and other antimicrobial pesticides as part of their job.

According to the EPA’s Kevin Keaney, the agency decided not to pursue training requirements for occupational users of antimicrobial pesticides largely because it determined, after careful review, that the Occupational Safety & Health Administration’s (OSHA) Hazard Communication Standard thoroughly addressed the EPA’s concerns regarding worker exposure and that any additional training was not necessary.

From the outset, ISSA opposed the EPA’s proposed training requirements because they would be duplicative of existing federal training requirements established by OSHA and would impose unnecessary and unreasonably burdensome costs upon businesses that would provide no measurable safety and health benefit to workers.

Keaney noted, however, that the agency would continue to explore training requirements for specialty applications of antimicrobials, such as in HVAC systems and mold and mildew remediation. In addition, the EPA will pursue certification and training requirements for workers who apply nonagricultural general-use pesticides, such as ant and roach or wasp and hornet sprays.

Background
The EPA initially floated the concept of training for workers who apply antimicrobials in early 2006. The additional training requirements contemplated by the EPA would have required extensive training and certification of all occupational users of disinfectants, sanitizers, and other antimicrobial pesticides. As a consequence, the EPA would have required extensive training for custodial personnel, restaurant workers, and millions of other employees who apply such products as part of their job.

Throughout the process, ISSA has maintained that such additional training as contemplated by the agency is not necessary. ISSA argued that employees at institutional facilities who apply antimicrobials already receive substantial training and information to ensure their safe use of disinfectants and sanitizers under OSHA regulations.

ISSA argued that any additional training imposed by the EPA would be redundant, unnecessary, and overly burdensome to industry and business in general. Ultimately, the EPA concurred with ISSA’s position and agreed to discontinue its pursuit of these additional training requirements, saving the industry millions of dollars in unnecessary training.

University of Michigan First to Certify to CIMS
The University of Michigan Plant Building Services Department has become the first cleaning organization in the industry to certify to ISSA’s Cleaning Industry Management Standard (CIMS).

Following a third-party assessment of its operations and management, the building services department was recommended for CIMS certification with honors. This is the highest designation available to those who comply with the Standard, indicating that the cleaning operations meet 100 percent of the mandatory management requirements and 85 percent of the recommended “should” elements set forth in CIMS (see CIMS checklist at www.issa.com/standard for more details).

“The university clearly demonstrated during the assessment that their comprehensive management program is not just talk,” said ISSA Standards Manager Dan Wagner. “They truly believe in and have put to work the quality management principles that are required by the Standard. The university has shown precisely the kind of top-down commitment we were striving to promote during the development of CIMS.”

The University of Michigan is one of 24 case-study organizations that have committed to being the first in-house and contracted operations to undergo third-party assessments to achieve possible certification to CIMS.