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Monday, July 07, 2008
Tower Crane Safety
Last week the Huffington Post blog had a commentary about construction injuries that pointed out:
"Last week, the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing to address whether OSHA is adequately enacting and enforcing construction safety rules. "
"With as many as 1,250 deaths each year, construction workers face death on the job 20 times more often than miners and 10 times more often than police officers or firefighters. While 8 percent of the U.S. workforce is employed in construction, construction workers suffer 22 percent of workplace fatalities."
With the recent crane related deaths and injuries in New York, Las Vegas, Miami and Dallas, there is a growing focus on construction related injuries and deaths, in particular crane related injuries and deaths.
If you'd like more information about tower cranes, one resource is the SMART Association web site. SMART is an association of Washington State businesses who work together to provide companies with the resources necessary to manage and control risk.
Our previous posts on crane safety include:
Unqualified Hardhats Feared As Fake Crane-Safety Papers Found
OSHA Investigates Crane Accident
OSHA Citations Issued In Connection With Fatal NYC Crane Collapse
"Last week, the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing to address whether OSHA is adequately enacting and enforcing construction safety rules. "
"With as many as 1,250 deaths each year, construction workers face death on the job 20 times more often than miners and 10 times more often than police officers or firefighters. While 8 percent of the U.S. workforce is employed in construction, construction workers suffer 22 percent of workplace fatalities."
With the recent crane related deaths and injuries in New York, Las Vegas, Miami and Dallas, there is a growing focus on construction related injuries and deaths, in particular crane related injuries and deaths.
If you'd like more information about tower cranes, one resource is the SMART Association web site. SMART is an association of Washington State businesses who work together to provide companies with the resources necessary to manage and control risk.
Our previous posts on crane safety include:
Unqualified Hardhats Feared As Fake Crane-Safety Papers Found
OSHA Investigates Crane Accident
OSHA Citations Issued In Connection With Fatal NYC Crane Collapse
Labels: Construction Safety
posted by Steve Hudgik |
Workplace Safety Post 3 Comments |
3 Comments:
I own a company, Safety Videos Now, and I am very familiar with the issues surrounding OSHA. In all fairness, OSHA simply does not have the resources to monitor all businesses. Certainly no one reading this article thinks they do...do they? OSHA can only visit 1 out of a 100 worksites so it really is up to the individual employers. OSHA should be an overseer, not a judicial body.
Safety training videos should be an important part of any business. OSHA isn't able to monitor all businesses so I think that businesses should take it upon themselves to train their employees. Why ? So that employers can protect their bottom lines whether its insurance costs, lost time injured workers, or other accident related costs.
Jason,
Thank you for your comment. What you've said is true for all industries. Unfortunately what I'm noticing in the news and Congress lately is a trend in thinking that OSHA should be able to inspect everywhere and thus prevent all accidents. I like your term "judicial body" as that accurately describes the expectations the press seems to have for OSHA. But as we all know this is not realistic. What is realistic is to lead, train, oversee and partner with employers so that employers can create a safety workplace.
I try to avoid political comments such as what I'm about to make, but we live in a political world. Notice that the article implies the accidents are the result of Bush being president. I wonder if much of the OSHA bashing that is taking place now is political in nature, not truly safety minded.
In any case one of my objectives is to let people know about safety related opinions in the news, that might not have been otherwise noticed.
--Steve
It really is up to each employer to take responsibility and make their workplace safe for their employees. The way I see it is this: whether or not OSHA gets to issue citations left and right, fines and citations alone can't deter violations. Some employers are stubborn enough to think that they can get away with taking shortcuts in safety. REally great insights here, Jason and STeve. This site might be helpful to you and your readers: http://www.safetyservicescompany.com/blog/ Some news and tips on workplace safety and health can be found here.
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