Technicians for Change: Whether you have taken a safety class or not, those of us working in the entertainment industry know there are hazards in the environment where we work. In our industry we have heavy things moving all around us, holes we can fall into, heavy machinery zooming by, chemicals we can be exposed to, high voltage running through temporary systems, hazardous weather we are exposed to, and don’t get me started on the sleep deprivation that some of us wear as a badge of honor.
3 comments:
It is unfortunate that many hazards are in the category of using ppe to “get the job done”. It is important that people in the entertainment industry are not given long term health problems for simply doing their job. As with many components of the entertainment industry, communication is the most important factor in this situation because if people who are being exposed to these hazards were given a more impactful voice to their superiors, their concerns would be taken seriously. This is especially the case for examples given in the article such as choosing an alternative option to spray paint that will give the same effect rather than exposing someone to damaging fumes. A term I hadn’t heard before is “passive controls” which prevents us from interacting with a hazard in the first place. Even though I am currently studying theatre in an educational setting, I experience a range of the precaution levels listed in this article with ppe being the most prominent “solution”.
Before reading this I had known a little bit about the hierarchy of hazard controls. I had read about it at the start of the year. Going into this article the first thing I of course thought of was spray paint, and I’m glad they addressed it. I feel like everything they addressed fit into this category of not really being able to fully go on the pyramid, but at the end of the day the article didn’t come up with a solution for how to handle these issues, which does make sense as if there was a solution to these issues this article wouldn’t have been written. Something the article points out is how fast paced theater is. Yes, you could use a less hazardous paint than spray paint or have more people move the boxes, but that is inefficient. Why take more time and more labor aka money?
While seeing the pyramid is nice, I do agree that more of an effort needs to be made to plan our processes around as much of the widest part of the pyramid as possible. It is stunning to me how seldom something like ventilation is taken into consideration given how much of our work is done indoors. I have always liked the habit of opening the shop door in addition to our various other ventilation measures, but it seems whenever I want to do that here people like to get up in arms about it.
It's get that safety training and hazard awareness is becoming something people are becoming more stringent about. I feel like people bringing up hazards even jokingly in response to training they are forced to take makes it more likely that individuals will be thinking mindfully about the dangers present in their work. As far as I'm concerned that means it's working.
Post a Comment