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I wonder how long before we are the ones on OSHA’s radar. The “it needs to get done right now” attitude of working in theater often prevents people from doing the safe thing rather than the fast thing. Whether it’s pushing people around in extended Genies or climbing over the safety rail to reach something, I see a lot of close calls and eventually our luck will turn and enough people will get injured that we have to start being more careful. A couple years ago I saw someone in a Genie fall and roll out. Luckily he was unharmed, but he just pushed the Genie back into position and went up again, he didn’t try and straighten it out at all or inspect the Genie. I don’t want people to get injured but I wish we would report it more readily when something was being done dangerously.
The point that I think that Isaac has somewhat missed is that theatre and entertainment is almost always on OSHA's radar its just that smaller theatres that have the same crew that do most of their work don't bother reporting incidents. It falls on the people supervising to enforce safety regulations and make sure that their employes and workers are performing their tasks as safely as possible. It will always be difficult to break people of their bad habits of "just get it done" but thats why someone within the organization needs to take responsibility and put a stop to those habits. This article is pointing out what issues and violations OSHA is concentrating on due to large numbers of these violations and issues coming to light.
This summer during a fall protection class that everyone in the rigging department is required to take, the instructor was reinforcing the idea of why we are always clipped in with at least one line at all times. He addressed how we are always going to run into those old school riggers who wont clip in because "they aren't planning on falling" which is a bogus reason to not do something safely. I plan on not falling and thats why I wear my fall protection gear and always clip in.
Yeah, theatre and entertainment is on OSHA's radar, but it is also in a much diminished capacity. We're not that big of an industry to warrant constant watching unfortunately. However, when there are issues OSHA does respond, but most of the time you pay the fine, which are never that large, and go from there. I spent a part of the summer reading back copies of Monona Rossol's A.C.T Facts newsletter and she does a good job of reporting whenever there is an OSHA citation in the theatre world. They are some but really not that many. San Francisco Opera seemed to be the focus of quite a few in the past few years. As well as the Spider-Man and Cirque situations. But the thing to remember is that many times it's the employer and the employee's obligation to train everyone in preventative measures so that problems don't arise. But I was a fan of the article talking about how important it is to train temporary workers, This summer I had to train people even if they were only working for an afternoon. It was exhausting but looking back I'm glad that the company cared that much to make sure things were done properly. Fall protection is another thing I was glad to see mentioned since it's often one of those that is ignored by technicians in the theatre.
Three of the four things listed by this article as items on OSHA’s radar could be particularly applicable to theatre. I think they are also things we should be looking at more often.
Safety training for temporary labor is something I haven’t really thought about much. Where I worked this summer there was very little temporary labor, but those that were there did not have a basic understanding of the hazards that could occur on stage.
I think in the entertainment industry we are typically pretty well attuned to fall arrest requirements, but often times we don’t use the proper gear, or don’t know how to use it.
Silica exposure is something I have never thought about. I’m interested to look into some of the abrasives and materials that we use to find the silica content and exposure limits.
Cranes and Derricks aren’t things we run up against on a regular basis, but while these are on OSHA’s mind, they could be particularly sensitive to all overhead rigging that employees operate on a regular basis.
I think safety training for temporary labor is something we don’t think about often enough in theater. This summer I got to work in several different theaters, with their own rules and safety regulations, and more often then not there would be a safety concern that was unique to a theater, but wasn't spoken about before work started. I think that in theater, because we get to know our personal equipment and venues so well, we forget that people who come in for things like over hire might have no idea how to avoid a safety issues that we’ve been dealing with for some time.
Something that I've been thinking a lot lately hasn't been what isn't OSHA covering, but are theaters remembering to follow OSHA? This past for various reasons I ended up reading a good portion of the OSHA rules and amendments. Having done that I can truly say that it covers a ton of stuff. What prompted my reading was the need to bring important safety issues to people's attention. I might be making too big of an assumption, but I feel that many people that work in theater feel that they are special. Thus making them feel like they don't need to follow OSHA. However, they are not special and need too. I feel like a little checkin from OSHA on organizations would make theaters a lot safer.
6 comments:
I wonder how long before we are the ones on OSHA’s radar. The “it needs to get done right now” attitude of working in theater often prevents people from doing the safe thing rather than the fast thing. Whether it’s pushing people around in extended Genies or climbing over the safety rail to reach something, I see a lot of close calls and eventually our luck will turn and enough people will get injured that we have to start being more careful. A couple years ago I saw someone in a Genie fall and roll out. Luckily he was unharmed, but he just pushed the Genie back into position and went up again, he didn’t try and straighten it out at all or inspect the Genie. I don’t want people to get injured but I wish we would report it more readily when something was being done dangerously.
The point that I think that Isaac has somewhat missed is that theatre and entertainment is almost always on OSHA's radar its just that smaller theatres that have the same crew that do most of their work don't bother reporting incidents. It falls on the people supervising to enforce safety regulations and make sure that their employes and workers are performing their tasks as safely as possible. It will always be difficult to break people of their bad habits of "just get it done" but thats why someone within the organization needs to take responsibility and put a stop to those habits.
This article is pointing out what issues and violations OSHA is concentrating on due to large numbers of these violations and issues coming to light.
This summer during a fall protection class that everyone in the rigging department is required to take, the instructor was reinforcing the idea of why we are always clipped in with at least one line at all times. He addressed how we are always going to run into those old school riggers who wont clip in because "they aren't planning on falling" which is a bogus reason to not do something safely. I plan on not falling and thats why I wear my fall protection gear and always clip in.
Yeah, theatre and entertainment is on OSHA's radar, but it is also in a much diminished capacity. We're not that big of an industry to warrant constant watching unfortunately. However, when there are issues OSHA does respond, but most of the time you pay the fine, which are never that large, and go from there. I spent a part of the summer reading back copies of Monona Rossol's A.C.T Facts newsletter and she does a good job of reporting whenever there is an OSHA citation in the theatre world. They are some but really not that many. San Francisco Opera seemed to be the focus of quite a few in the past few years. As well as the Spider-Man and Cirque situations. But the thing to remember is that many times it's the employer and the employee's obligation to train everyone in preventative measures so that problems don't arise. But I was a fan of the article talking about how important it is to train temporary workers, This summer I had to train people even if they were only working for an afternoon. It was exhausting but looking back I'm glad that the company cared that much to make sure things were done properly. Fall protection is another thing I was glad to see mentioned since it's often one of those that is ignored by technicians in the theatre.
Three of the four things listed by this article as items on OSHA’s radar could be particularly applicable to theatre. I think they are also things we should be looking at more often.
Safety training for temporary labor is something I haven’t really thought about much. Where I worked this summer there was very little temporary labor, but those that were there did not have a basic understanding of the hazards that could occur on stage.
I think in the entertainment industry we are typically pretty well attuned to fall arrest requirements, but often times we don’t use the proper gear, or don’t know how to use it.
Silica exposure is something I have never thought about. I’m interested to look into some of the abrasives and materials that we use to find the silica content and exposure limits.
Cranes and Derricks aren’t things we run up against on a regular basis, but while these are on OSHA’s mind, they could be particularly sensitive to all overhead rigging that employees operate on a regular basis.
I think safety training for temporary labor is something we don’t think about often enough in theater. This summer I got to work in several different theaters, with their own rules and safety regulations, and more often then not there would be a safety concern that was unique to a theater, but wasn't spoken about before work started. I think that in theater, because we get to know our personal equipment and venues so well, we forget that people who come in for things like over hire might have no idea how to avoid a safety issues that we’ve been dealing with for some time.
Something that I've been thinking a lot lately hasn't been what isn't OSHA covering, but are theaters remembering to follow OSHA? This past for various reasons I ended up reading a good portion of the OSHA rules and amendments. Having done that I can truly say that it covers a ton of stuff. What prompted my reading was the need to bring important safety issues to people's attention. I might be making too big of an assumption, but I feel that many people that work in theater feel that they are special. Thus making them feel like they don't need to follow OSHA. However, they are not special and need too. I feel like a little checkin from OSHA on organizations would make theaters a lot safer.
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