finance.yahoo.com/news: Fall Protection is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) leading #1 most frequently cited of all OSHA standards violated for the past four years running. This has led to OSHA cracking down and handing out record-setting fines and financial penalties for each safety violation found in the workplace.
4 comments:
Fall protection in our industry is something that is often overlooked at so many theatres. With the systems we use and the heights we often operate at, the chances of falls are much higher than I think a lot of people would like to believe. Additionally, the nature of our work in scenery and lighting often has us trying to navigate around wacky units to reach our working position. This all to often leads to leaning out of baskets, standing too high on ladders, and side-loading in both scenarios. In addition, we often put ourselves in positions when doing rigging work that have us holding weight away from our bodies. The theater that I worked in this summer had the grid on stage left completely open without any fall protection, and similarly with the load rail though there was a harness system for loading. When it comes to these OSHA standards, sometimes I've seen people relax the standards which should never be the case, even if we aren't working on a commercial floor or other industrial setting.
At some point I really want to see OSHA dive into the theatre/live entertainment industry and track the largest violations in our industry. I say this because I know that fall protection has got to be up there with one if not the largest issue that our industry neglects to look at. We constantly work from heights with little to no protection and I’d argue that we improperly use what little protection we have almost just as much. But it makes sense ultimately the systems that we are using are design for construction industry or for industrial use where there are different environments and circumstances. This summer for instance I worked in an outdoor theatre where on a regular basis we had to adapt rock climbing equipment with construction harnesses to accommodate our outdoor truss situation. And on our multi story set we would be 16’-18’ feet in the air with absolutely no protection on an unproven/secured structure and it would be seen as just another day of load-in to anyone else.
Given that the entertainment industry tends to slip through the cracks in regards to OSHA rules, safety issues like those of fall protection tend to be overlooked or outright ignored. As such, I really appreciate seeing OSHA crack down on fall protection safety violations! The author asks, "If an OSHA Inspector showed up at your workplace location, whether it was a manufacturing plant, factory, warehouse, retail store, facility, mining operation, or job site today, would you feel extremely confident you are within 100% OSHA compliance for fall protection?" If you asked this question to people in the entertainment industry, the answer would likely be a resounding "NO". While cutting corners on safety in the workplace may seem to save money, workplace accidents cost employers across the country approximately one billion dollars every week. Does not buying an extra safety harness so that there are not quite enough to go around seem like a cost-saving measure relative to this statistic?
I think that many of us who have worked in regional theatre or summer stock have experienced some form of "rush" when it comes to getting things done. Often it seems there are more notes than you think you can get done in time, or this unit needs to be hung and in weight RIGHT NOW. There is even the more insidious throught process of "its such a little thing, I don't need to wear my protection", like cutting a single stick of wood on the cross cut saw or just loading a single brick of weight. It is in these situations where we feel the urge to bypass safety and just get the job done. It is also in these situations where accidents happen, which hinder you or the production far more than if you had just taken the time to do it. I'm glad that OSHA is cracking down on fall protection, because falling is so easy to do. Many machinery injuries nowadays require either major malfunction of equipment or serious bypass of safety features of equipment, whereas falling literally just requires you and a ledge to exist. Gravity is inexorable, but with adequate fall protection, injuries due to it can be prevented.
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