OSHA issued $31,000 in fines to Pickathon LLC and GuildWorks LLC after two workers died at the Pickathon Music Festival in August in a lift accident, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.
Friday, February 14, 2020
OSHA Fines Pickathon, GuildWorks After Production Deaths
OSHA issued $31,000 in fines to Pickathon LLC and GuildWorks LLC after two workers died at the Pickathon Music Festival in August in a lift accident, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.
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At the end of the day, theater can be a very hazardous and dangerous job. You don’t think about someone getting hurt or dying while you are doing the job (if you did you would probably stop immediately) but it happens, and quite often too. OSHA does protect employees by keeping the employers responsible for managing the safety of their crews. It is very unfortunate that they have to take responsibility after someone lost their life. Things can change in an instant (that’s really scary to think about). There are safety measures for a reason, and even though we enjoy making fun of them and sometimes pushing the boundaries (because we trust that nothing will actually happen) we really need to be careful because you say, “it won’t happen” until it does. Safety does not come forth, it comes first. I am happy to say that I haven’t seen any overly dangerous behavior at CMU and the production managers have always looked out for the safety of the crew.
Most of us, when we hear anything that has “OSHA” somewhere in it, we tend to groan. That being said, as annoying as OSHA regulations can be, and as tempting as some of the smaller ones may be to disobey, OSHA exists for a reason. This tragic accident is a perfect example of why OSHA regulations must be followed, as trivial as they may seem. It is literally spelled out in the name – Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA exists for your safety and the safety of any working person. Theatre as a profession can be inherently dangerous. Here at CMU we follow regulations which may seem like no-brainers, like wearing hardhats while there is work being performed overhead. As second-nature as it may be to us, there likely was a time where hardhats were not a workplace requirement, and the consequences of this type of lack of safety equipment could potentially be fatal. The basic lesson learned from this tragedy, if nothing else, is that OSHA exists for a reason, and as much as it may be annoying to follow their endless list of regulations, they exist for your safety, so you don’t suffer a potentially fatal accident on the job, as the two men did at the Oregon festival.
What a terrible situation. Everyone talks about OSHA and how annoying it may be at times. It feels ridiculous to have to strap up in a harness to hang lights on the box booms, but it is circumstances like these that give us a harsh reminder of why they are there. OSHA is in place to protect people in so many different industries. They have dug through what it means to be safe and have established a set of standards. These standards are there for a reason. It is so important that we follow these standards every day because we never know when the next dangerous situation will happen. I appreciate how serious some of the professors and staff at CMU are about safety, but I feel like we could be a little safer sometimes. There should be more strict reinforcement of these standards to ensure that we are all operating in the safest way possible.
I feel like whenever we think or talk about OSHA, we often joke and laugh about how strict the rules are and how no one really abides by every single rule 100% of the time, but in reality, those rules are there for a reason. I guess people often forget how dangerous theatre can be. I've personally seen a few OSHA violations here at CMU school of drama, and no one really bats an eye about it seeing the genie move across the stage while still being elevated becomes a normal thing when, in reality, it's incredibly dangerous, and OSHA would not be happy. It's terrible to think that we really do take for granted our own safety, and we put getting a job done as efficiently as possible about our personal and collective safety. It's definitely an eye-opener to read a story about how a company did just that and it ended up costing a life. I hope the families of the two workers are doing ok, and that this becomes a sort of wake up call for companies who often do dangerous work all over to wake up and think about the dangers of the work before making potentially harmful or lethal decisions.
Safety is of the utmost importance in our industry, just as it is in many other industries. Some industries have internalized rules when it comes to safety. The public safety community is all about taking the time to do things right, once because it can be a matter of life or death. Sometimes I find that our attitude in theater can be kind of gung-ho which can be quite problematic for the health of employees. Because we are in the business of fabricating something once, we’re less likely to figure out the safest way to do something because it’s happening over and over. We also have time constraints that are very real, like the curtain going up on opening night, and getting the job done is important, but not important enough to risk your health and safety. The other safety issue is that in a theater shop, sometimes you might not have the correct tool for the job, but you have to complete the task anyway. All good things to keep in mind, especially when there’s a time crunch and you say to yourself “it’ll be fine.”
I think my favorite quote for these situations is that “every OSHA guideline was written in blood”. The regulations that we follow and often complain about are in place because at one point they weren’t, and people got hurt or killed. We work in a dangerous industry, and as annoying as it can be to deal with things like wearing a harness while focusing the box booms, the alternative is serious. This situation is terrible and I feel awful for the workers and their families - a lift tipping over is terrifying and very serious, and it’s frustrating that this was preventable. But I also understand the thought process that lead to it - oh, it’s fine, we won’t be up for very long, we need to get this done, the ramp isn’t very steep, it’ll be fine, don’t worry about it, what’s the worst that can happen - and then the worst happens. Tragedies like this often have us all saying “we need to be more careful” and then quickly fall again into complacency because nothing bad has happened to us yet so it’ll be fine all the time. We need to avoid this mindset and be mindful that safety is the most important thing, even if it takes more time and annoyance.
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