cnx_vinyl/docs/worker-safety.md

Worker Safety

Worker safety is a founding priority, on equal footing with the environmental commitments:

• Safety training: proper, structured training for all operators and maintenance staff, starting with the vendor-led commissioning training and extending into an ongoing in-house program. The pressing line combines hydraulics (~180 bar), saturated steam (10 bar / 180 °C), and hot PVC, and every one of these demands trained, deliberate handling.

• Clean rooms for galvanics: silvering and stamper electroforming will run in dedicated clean rooms with controlled access, proper ventilation and exhaust, and decontamination procedures for people and equipment leaving the area. Plating chemistry stays inside its containment.

• Personal protective equipment: appropriate PPE (overalls, gloves, goggles, and process-specific protection) is mandatory per work area, in line with the equipment vendor's site requirements (exhaust work benches, fire protection) and local regulations.

• Unified workwear (decided October 2026). Every member of staff, office included, wears the same Engelbert Strauss workwear (the brand now trades as Strauss, strauss.com) with the company logo. Process PPE stays on top of it: chemical protection in galvanics, heat gloves at the presses, hearing protection where the noise survey asks for it.

  • Kit (catalogue prices including 19 % German VAT, which drops out on export, checked October 2026): production gets three pairs of trousers e.s.motion 2020 (from 65.33 EUR), three e.s. polo shirts cotton (from 15.35), two e.s. T-shirts cotton (from 7.96), an e.s. sweatshirt (from 18.92) for the air-conditioned rooms, and S1 safety shoes e.s. Vasegus II low (71.28 from 10 pairs; steel toe cap, antistatic): ~293 EUR before VAT, ~338 with the logo embroidered (logo from 4 pieces per motif; ~5 EUR a piece is an estimate). The office gets four polo shirts and a softshell jacket e.s.motion 2020 (from 59.38): ~127 EUR with logos. Heavy cotton trousers are hot in the press hall; check the lighter Strauss lines with samples before the first order.
  • Ordering and import: Strauss delivers outside Germany where customs law allows, quotes the shipping when it confirms the order, asks for prepayment, and the forwarder charges the recipient duty and taxes (B2B terms). Thai duty on work trousers (HS 6203) is 13.8 % (customs-compliance.ai, March 2026); BOI does not cover clothing. The import VAT is reclaimable as input tax. Planning figure: one production kit a head a year and half an office kit, plus ~15 % shipping and ~14 % duty (estimates), so ~9k USD (~0.3M THB) a year at the start fleet's ~20 staff.

• Lifting and machine service: the overhead crane needs trained operators and slingers, a lift plan for every machine move, and the periodic engineer inspections Thai law sets for cranes. A machine is only disconnected and lifted after lockout: electrical isolation, steam vented, hydraulics depressurised including the accumulator. Welding and grinding stay in the workshop's hot-work corner under a permit. Detail in crane, workshop and tours.

• Visitors never share the floor's hazards: tours run in a glazed corridor with its own air and no PPE requirement.

• Health care for all staff (decided October 2026). On top of the statutory social security, the company provides every member of staff, office included, with group health insurance (inpatient and outpatient) and a yearly health check-up. Staff in risk-factor work also get the occupational checks Thai law requires, which the general check-up does not replace:

  • The legal minimum. The Ministerial Regulation on health check-ups of employees (B.E. 2547, 2004) covers work with hazardous chemicals, heat, noise and similar risk factors: a check within 30 days of starting such work, then at least once a year, by a physician trained in occupational medicine, physical and mental, with the records kept until two years after the job ends (summary, text). Here that is the press floor (steam heat, noise), galvanics (nickel salts, silver nitrate, acids) and maintenance; hearing, lung function and metal tests are the likely panel, for the occupational physician to set.
  • Planning costs (checked October 2026, no quote yet): group health insurance about 8,000 to 12,000 THB a head a year for local plans (Thailand Starter Kit), AXA's SME plans 9,394, 14,925 and 18,006 THB at 25 staff (CheckDi); the plan uses ~15,000. Check-ups at Rajavej Chiang Mai cost 1,290 THB (age 18 to 30), 1,790 (31 to 40) and 3,290 to 5,990 (over 40) in 2026 (programmes); the plan uses ~2,500 a head plus ~1,500 for the risk-factor tests (estimates).
  • Social security, for reference: the employer pays 5 % of salary up to a ceiling raised from 15,000 to 17,500 THB a month on 1 January 2026, so at most 875 THB a month a head (Sprout).

  The press fleet calculator costs all of this per head with the fleet's staffing.

Safety infrastructure (training program, clean-room specification, decontamination workflow) will be planned alongside the equipment, not after it.