Thursday, November 20, 2014
Why is fall protection the No. 1 OSHA Citation in Construction?
Concrete Construction: "Safety first!" It's an easy mantra, but too often, too many in the construction industry fail to live up to that standard. Construction industry safety expert Matt Murphy says one of the biggest issues–and the biggest reason for OSHA violation citations–is fall protection.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
When I took the OSHA course and he did say that this was a major cause of on-site accidents and deaths. Though it is terrible it is easy to ignore OSHA regulations to get the work done faster and more easily. I can say from personal experience some of the protocol is annoying and just seems like an inconvenience. At the same time so is a fine for violating safety procedures. After all the climbing and the whatnot, what happens when that simple task goes wrong and that person on the top rung of the ladder slips? These accidents happen and people can die. This article just reminded me just how often these things occur, and it’s not just in the construction business, but theater as well. Or this article would not be in the green page, obviously. I hope people read this article and remember to follow proper protocol.
this past summer I was up in a scissor lift and I had to flip a chain motor hook (the CM was motor down) and the motor was a double fall so I was trying to untwist the chain. I got up to height and pulled the hook but the amount of weight from the chain was too much for me to manipulate so I hooked it back on and started to come down. I was not comfortable handling the amount of weight so i went down and got someone to help me rather then risk falling or dropping the chain. its simple hazard recognition that everyone is responsible for doing something about. Yes it might slow the process but if I had dropped the chain or worse fallen out of the lift while trying to move it that would have caused a far more drastic stall in productivity.
What I take from articles like these always amounts to something along the lines of 'don't be a damn idiot'. And truthfully, that is something that is far easier said than done. In a workplace where people can be extremely tired and extremely eager to get something done, it becomes human nature to ignore some of the proper safety procedures in order to get the task done. But that is a dangerous game, and you only have to lose once for it to have catastrophic consequences. All you have to do as a worker is actively think about what you're doing. Like the article said, hazard recognition. If you don't know you can do it, don't, get someone to help. If you don't know what you're doing, don't, get someone to help. There's always a way to get the job done without killing someone, just put in the thought to get the job done in that fashion.
For a while I always had this mindset that Safety and Productivity were kind of at odds with one another. It was always like, ugh wait for "the safety guy" to finish droning on so I could go back to getting actual stuff done. But lately, I think my mindset has been changing. This article hits it pretty spot on. By having a culture of safety, operating in a 100% safe and compliant manner because the default, not the other way around. I feel that operating in a safe manner without having to talk or lecture about it while you are working somewhat mitigates the slowdown I had sometimes previously felt. Granted, there are some OSHA regulations that sometimes feel plain silly, but on the whole most of them make good sense. And the article makes a good point that work grinds to a halt if you have an incident anyways, so not taking any safety risks is really a productivity measure anyways.
Post a Comment