Fall protection should be a vital part of
any construction project, according to
Jeffrey Spatz, senior safety consultant with The Graham Company. In an industry
fraught with risks, falls are a leading cause of
serious injury and death. Virtually every construction project is going to have some sort
of fall exposures.
“Sadly, according to statistics, we estimate
that approximately 1,200 construction
workers will die in 2008 from accidents on
the job site and, of these, about 400 of
them will be from falls,” Spatz says. “This is
unacceptable.”
Smart Business recently spoke to Spatz
about this topic to learn more about the safety standards for construction workers.
What is fall protection?
Simply put, it’s making sure no one falls
while at work. Practically speaking, it’s taking
the necessary preventive and protective
steps to protect people from falls.
While this may be easier said than done,
proper fall protection has become an
absolute necessity and there are more fall
protection products, means and methods
available to implement today than ever before. Saying that it’s too hard or too costly has
become an increasingly weaker argument.
What is the Occcupational Safety and Health
Administration’s (OSHA’s) take on fall protection?
OSHA has thrown some possible confusion into their construction standards by
having different trigger heights for fall protection. For instance, if you are working at
an unprotected side or edge greater than 6
feet above a lower level without fall protection, you would most likely be in violation of
OSHA’s fall protection standard. But, someone working from a scaffold at 9 feet on the
same project would be covered under the
scaffold standard instead and, in most
instances, would be allowed to work up to
heights of 10 feet without fall protection. For
ironworkers, these heights range from 15 to
30 feet before fall protection is required,
depending upon their tasks.
This disparity has given rise to an increasing focus on what’s called ‘100 percent fall protection.’ You’ll hear that term used when
an owner of a project or the general contractor or construction manager institutes a
policy where there’s a requirement for fall
protection for any and all personnel working
at heights of 6 feet or more, regardless of the
work that they are performing.
Why don’t more contractors use 100 percent
fall protection?
Both the execution and practical application have challenges. I’m an advocate of 100
percent fall protection, but it requires a fairly significant amount of planning in the
design phase, during the bidding process
and long before contractors mobilize on the
project. Contractors who seem to have the
most difficulty are those who have not had
sufficient opportunity to plan for it or have
not chosen to plan for it.
Although it’s over and above the OSHA
requirements, it’s gaining momentum and
more general contractors, construction
managers and project owners are pushing it.
More insurance carriers, who are underwriting the risk for these contractors and projects, are pushing this policy, as well, and I
think they’ve been a major force behind it.
Who should be concerned about preventing
falls?
Employers with employees exposed to
falls. Keep in mind that OSHA holds employers responsible for protecting their employees and ensuring that they’re properly trained
in fall protection. So if you have a construction company with employees who may be
exposed to falls, it’s your responsibility to
make sure that they’re properly trained. You
can’t assume they’re adequately trained; you
must train them or verify the adequacy of any
previous training. It seems to me that verifying adequacy of training given by another
employer is tricky — you should simply
train/retrain them as necessary to be sure.
What other policies are out there?
Several of our clients have instituted a
guardrail disruption permit process. While a
building is under construction, often the
perimeters of the upper floors are guarded
by cable guardrail systems. There have been
problems in the past where a subcontractor
who wants to load materials into the floors
will take down the guardrail cable, load the
materials in and either not put the cable back
up or do it improperly. With this guardrail
disruption permit process, anyone who
wishes to disrupt the perimeter guardrail
system has to go through the general contractor first and complete the permit. The
general contractor then will have a crew of
trained personnel take the guardrail down,
allow the subcontractor to do whatever
work it has to do, and then put the cable
back up so that it meets the necessary criteria for strength and deflection. It’s something
I’ve seen in use on high-rise projects, and I
think it works well. I think it saves lives.
What else can be done to ensure safety?
Adequate training is one of the things we
need to focus on more than anything. When
it comes to training, the details really do matter. Training should be thorough. A 15-minute
video may not cut it when we’re talking life
and death.
JEFFREY SPATZ is a senior safety consultant for The Graham Company. Reach him at (215) 701-5454 or [email protected].
