Sunday, November 27, 2011
OSHA releases videos in the wild - hopeful that no one will be killed or injured
Theatre Safety Blog: The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has released 12 educational videos about potential hazards in the construction industry. The educational videos are easy to understand, short segments and geared to employers and workers. Each year, nearly 800 construction workers die on the job; one in every five workplace fatalities occurs within the construction industry. The videos are based on real-life incidents and include detailed depictions of hazards and the safety measures that would have prevented these injuries and fatalities.
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I watched a couple of the new videos just to see how well they were made and was positively surprised. These videos are pretty good quality even though they are all computer generated graphics. It simplifies each scenario and makes it easy to break down the example situation into what worker errors need to be emphasized. Each video starts off with references to real life situations in which failures to follow the procedures described resulted in death or injury, and then goes on to show what happened and why it did. All of the examples are said to be based on real life occurrences, which helps add to the importance of following the proper safety procedures.
Watch the pulling cable video and you can't help but not see a theater electrician. I agree that we should treat the theater as a construction site and there are parallels between the two job sites and lessons the theater can adopt. Even though there's no set of standards designed specifically with stagehands in mind, theaters fall under OSHA's general duty clause: all employers have to provide a safe and healthy workplace atmosphere. I can see general construction videos and guidelines like these being very helpful to the theater industry.
These videos show a simple and easy way in which issues can be solved. They address many common causes of fatalities which can be easy solved. Many of these videos easily address factors for how OSHA regulations can be adhered to and why you should follow them. Employees and their employers would benefit from watching videos like this together and having training sessions or refreshers in order create safer work environments. Its great that the videos are easily accessible so people can watch them and hopefully create safer workplaces on their own.
In todays industries there are safety and precautionary EVERYWHERE. its nice to see a very organized and concise set of videos produced by the people that are going to come after you after you have screwed up. I have been forced to sit through countless numbers of these time consuming videos for work and various industrial based classes. Coming from both the opinion of working in construction and coming from an EMS background these videos are helpful. As gruesome as they typically are, these videos do make a difference in how lenient workers are with safety.
watching these video, you can see how the quality and time was put in to actually produce videos that make meaningful and useful commentary on ways safety can be applied to inherently dangerous sites and procedures. it is important that products such as these are made with quality in order to ensure a better percentage take them seriously and learn and apply the knowledge and tools they offer. i hope more people take the time and watch these.
I love that OSHA has put out some baseline videos. We always think of OSHA as being an impedance and that the regulations are mostly made for the them in the "muggle world" but we make these same errors. I know that many places, in particular scene shops, which have the greatest likeness to a construction zone, have employees take tests, pamphlets, and/or watch safety videos, but these are made in house do not cover a lot of these basic things because they are hazards specific to the workplace of said company. Having a baseline set of videos for introductory and refresher safety courses on the job.
Within the theatre world we often are aware of the OSHA regulations but we disregard them. With the speed involved in all aspects of the entertainment industry we often take lots of short cuts that are against OSHA regulations. The number of people killed in the construction industry should make us look at our practices and adjust time expectations to account for better safety practices. The number of stagehands with horror stories about falls and other accidents is almost infinite and yet those people who have been hurt or see accidents shouldn't be the only ones that see the need for observing the OSHA rules and regulations even if it costs them time.
Everyone should be familiar with the content of these videos at least so that they are informed of what's safe and what isn't. Beyond that, you may chose to put yourself in an unsafe working environment, but that's your choice. Maybe you can pick up some tips along the way of how to keep yourself safer. But at the end of the day stagehands aren't usually the most risk averse people. Risk is inherent with all work, but minimizing that to a reasonable level should be the collective goal.
I think this is a great endeavor of OSHA to put out these videos, but it reminds me a little of high school driving class when they would show us the videos on how we should drive and how not to get into accidents. I think this is a modern medium that can really help people because they will be able to understand in a visual way what to do or not to do. I think one of the greatest things about this endeavor is that the videos are available in both english and spanish. As they are trying to appeal to construction workers, including the videos in spanish is a really great step. My hope is that construction companies will embrace these videos and use them actively to avoid injuries.
I think that these videos are the most clear and effective videos of this kind. Because of the media, it is able to create these situations without the horrible acting that is usually a part of these videos.
I also think that what Luke says is not really correct. We do not disregard them. In fact, the consideration in the theatre works is sometimes much higher than other places. The difference is we do things outside of normal use and so there is usually no exact rule to follow.
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