sightlines.usitt.org: A new alliance with a goal of improving the communication of industry best-practice information, safety standard guidance and compliance, and training resources to enhance the safety and health of entertainment-industry workers has been approved by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
6 comments:
Finally, something that might actually push the entertainment industry even further in developing a standard on safety practices. As we are an industry that is always growing and has changing technology around every corner, I could see some resistance to certain aspects though. An alliance that makes all parties aware and able to see the end outcome forces us to make our industry safer. The players involved are not small, and it is great that USITT is a part of this to help bring the larger Union and Workforce Enforcer together with the rest of the industry. Hopefully these programs will be more readily available, not only in schools or OSHA outreach, but as smaller courses even at workplaces.
In general I strongly support anything that is being done to bring safety to the attention of people working in the industry. I like the idea of these big organizations all working together to set some standards for safety. I have worked on several professional crews where they have not been mindful of these limits for their workers and it has caused me to put myself in potentially life threatening situations. The only concern that i would have would be whether the enhanced regulations would get in the way of productivity to any meaningful degree, but I guess that's a risk we'll have to take for the greater safety of the industry.
I think this is a great way to improve the safety standard and the communication between these entities. So often, there are theatres around the country that aren't certain of OSHA standards or what parts of the OSHA standards do or do not apply to our industry. This is also a great way for IATSE members to become more aware of the regulations and the expectations in regards to health and safety. Hopefully this committee can improve the standards so they can be applied more universally in our industry. I agree with AJ in that simply having this committee can make all parties more aware and in the end, safer.
The biggest struggle for our industry in regards to safety is the unique nature of our industry in that we rarely ever do anything the same way twice. We can create a safety standard but it would take years of massive databases to accurately create a standard for all the situations that we (in the entertainment industry) put ourselves into. The concentration should be on educating our industry leaders and managers on what to do in situations of potential hazard, when and how to speak up about whether you are uncomfortable with your task or uncomfortable with how someone is performing a task. OSHA does a great job at outlining a standard of safety practices, our industry just needs a better opportunity for translating those safety practices to what random feat we may be asked to do.
I think this is a brilliant move by all parties involved. Like AJ said, in an ever-changing and developing industry where there are many methods and ways to accomplish goals, it is important to have a set industry standard on safety. Also agreeing with Trent, it will definitely be interesting to see if these set standards limit productivity to any degree. And if they do, hopefully it will be worth it.
Improvements in safety standards are always good to hear about but often cause some concerns to rise. For example, often times when there are stricter regulations ease of productivity may go down. This is often an unseen side effect that majorly effects production timelines.
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