Posts Tagged ‘fall protection’

Fall protection at 1776 feet: One World Trade Center

Friday, July 26th, 2013

Acrohphobes, take note: this post is about working at extreme heights!

We spotted a jaw dropping video in our Twitter feed the other day — an engineer climbing the spire at the top of the One World Trade Center, a dizzying 1,776 feet. It’s a promotional video for a fall protection firm called Rigid Lifelines. It led us to more dramatic video footage of the tower completion and an interesting case history behind the safety engineering challenge that the tower construction posed, which is depicted in a dedicated website, Safe at 1776.

“A symbolic reference to the year America signed the Declaration of Independence. With its spire attached, the new World Trade Center became the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, and the third tallest building in the world. The 104-story super-scraper stands on the northwest corner of the 16-acre World Trade Center site, occupying the location of what used to be the original 6 World Trade Center.”

“To ensure the safety of workers who will perform routine maintenance atop the massive tower, builders, engineers, and the Port Authority partnered with Rigid Lifelines to design and supply 1,975 linear feet of total fall protection track, and the highest self-retracting lanyards in an occupied building. Rigid Lifelines designed two systems for the One World Trade Center building–a horizontal system for the rings and a vertical system for the spire. Each system was specifically designed to ensure that workers have 100 percent fall protection from the moment they leave the top floor to the moment they touch the flashing beacon light.”

 

We’re heartened to see this commitment to worker safety – see our prior entry You Think Your Job is Tough, which includes footage of a worker “free climbing” a 1,768 foot Antenna Tower. And on a related note, The high price for fast phones: Cell tower deaths, a Frontline and Pro Publica investigative video about cell tower worker deaths in a small industry with a death rate that is about 10 times the rate of construction. Accountability is hindered by the complex web of subcontractors on these jobs, allowing large network sponsors to deflect responsibility for fatalities.

These prior posts may also may be of interest:

 

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Safety Nets, Hard-Boiled Hard Hats & The Halfway to Hell Club: Safety Innovations in the Golden Gate Bridge Construction

Friday, April 20th, 2012

In an era when one death per million dollars spent on bridge construction was axiomatic, chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge Joseph Strauss decided his project would be different. He refused to accept the conventional wisdom that worker deaths were just a normal cost of doing business and introduced a series of safety innovations – you can see an overview in this brief video clip:

More on his commitment to safety during construction is presented in the PBS American Experience documentary “Golden Gate Bridge.” Perhaps the innovation that was most touted was the introduction of a safety net, “… similar to a circus net — suspended under the bridge. The safety net extended ten feet wider than the bridge’s width and fifteen feet further than the roadway’s length.” While there was one deadly accident when a scaffold platform fell and broke through the net resulting in 10 fatalities, there is no doubt the net saved many other lives. Nineteen survivors whose falls were stopped by the net became de facto members of “The Halfway to Hell Club.”
Strauss employed many other fascinating safety innovations, ranging from sauerkraut juice “cures” for men suffering from hangovers to special hand and face cream to protect against winds. But next to safety nets, the other noteworthy safety practice that emerged during the bridge’s construction was the reliance on hard hats. The hard hats of the era were called “hard-boiled hats,” and were made of leather and canvas. You can read more about the history of the hard hat at the Bullard site. Edward W. Bullard first introduced the hats in 1919, based on a doughboy hat he had worn in WWI. His hats were originally created to protect miners. The Bullard history says:

America’s first designated “Hard Hat Area” was set up at the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge construction site. “The project’s chief engineer, Joseph B. Strauss, shared a vision with my grandfather that the workplace could be a safer environment for the worker. One problem the bridge project faced was falling rivets, which could cause serious injury,” said Bullard. “My grandfather transformed the mining helmet into a durable industrial hard hat.”

We would be remiss if we did not note that the status of being “the first official hard-hat area” is under some dispute – some contest that the Hoover Dam construction was the first work site to mandate hard hats:

The Bullard Company asserts that the first official “Hard Hat Area” was the Golden Gate Bridge project in San Francisco. The project’s chief engineer, Joseph B. Strauss, beginning on January 5, 1933, directed all the workers to wear hard hats to protect themselves from falling rivets and other materials. However, the Six Companies constructing Hoover Dam first required all its workers to wear hard hats by November 1931.Bullard-Hard-Boiled-Hats

Here’s a picture of the vintage “Bollard hard boiled hats” of the era, courtesy of Hal’s Lamp Post, a site with an excellent and very interesting collection of mining artifacts.

Original image source

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OSHA puts residential construction employers on notice: gear up for stricter fall protection standards

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

In December of 2010, OSHA introduced stronger worker safeguards to prevent falls in residential construction. Under the prior directive, some employers were able to bypass fall protection requirements. The new standards for residential construction were scheduled to go into effect on June 15, but earlier this month, OSHA announced a three-month phase in to allow employers time to gear up to meet compliance requirements. During the phase in, however, employers must be fully compliant with the old directive.
OSHA estimates that 1.6 million Americans are employed in the construction industry, half of which work in residential construction. Each year, roughly 38,000 construction injuries are reported. Fatalities from falls are the number one cause of death in construction, with an average of 40 workers killed each year as a result of falls from residential roofs. These are preventable deaths.
In April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected a challenge to OSHA’s directive by the National Roofing Contractors Association. The trade association was seeking to maintain a provision in an earlier directive that allowed certain residential construction employers to bypass some fall protection requirements. “With the issuance of the new directive, all residential construction employers must comply with 29 Code of Federal Regulations 1926.501(b)(13). Where residential builders can demonstrate that traditional fall protection is not feasible, 29 CFR 1926.501(b)(13) still allows for alternative means of providing protection.”
OSHA says that the new directive interprets “residential construction” as construction work that satisfies both of the following elements:

  • The end-use of the structure being built must be as a home, i.e., a dwelling.
  • The structure being built must be constructed using traditional wood frame construction materials and methods. The limited use of structural steel in a predominantly wood-framed home, such as a steel I-beam to help support wood framing, does not disqualify a structure from being considered residential construction.

OSHA has provided a site that offers resources and training materials about the new directive: Residential Fall Protection.
Additional materials can be found at OSHA’s OSHA’s Fall Protection – Construction page.

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Health Wonk Review & other noteworthy news of the week

Friday, April 15th, 2011

Health Wonkery – At Health Business Blog, David Williams hosts a concise compendium of assorted health policy news at this week’s Health Wonk Review. He notes that judging by the quality and quantity of entries received for this edition, it’s a wonderful time to be a wonk. These bi-weekly digests are a good way to keep current on healthcare trends – important, given that the medical portion of comp is now accounting for more than half of every claim dollar.
OSHA’s residential fall protection upheld in court challenge – the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit backed OSHA in a court challenge to its directive to require fall protection measures for residential construction. The directive faced a challenge by the National Roofing Contractors Association’s (NRCA), which sought to maintain an option for residential construction to use alternative protection measures that bypassed some fall protection requirements. Falls are the number one cause of fatalities in construction. BLS shows that about 40 workers are killed each year as a result of falls from residential roofs. “One-third of those deaths represent Latino workers, who often lack sufficient access to safety information and protections. Latino workers comprise more than one-third of all construction employees.”
Trucking & misclassification – The National Conference of Insurance Legislators adopted the Trucking and Messenger Courier Industries Workers’ Compensation Insurance Model Act to address employee misclassification. It would establish six standards, and employees that do not meet the standards would be considered employees. There was wide participation in formulating the standards. Parties offering input to the model law included state insurance and workers’ comp regulators, American Insurance Association (AIA), American Trucking Associations (ATA), Dart Transit Company, FedEx, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Messenger Courier Association of America (MCAA), National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI), National Employment Law Project (NELP), Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), and United Parcel Service (UPS).
Social media – at Legal Talk Network, two respected & knowledgeable workers comp attorneys – Alan Pierce and Jon Gelman – join forces in a half hour podcast on Privacy, Clients and Social Media. Even if you aren’t an attorney, this is worth a listen. See Gelman’s related article: Facebook Becomes a Questionable Friend of Workers’ Compensation.
WC rate relief? – MarketScout reports that the commercial market is hardening, with workers comp rates either flat or rising. That is borne out in Massachusetts, where a deal was struck to keep rates flat until 2012. This puts a halt to the long-term trend of rate decreases in MA.
More transparency for OSHA rules process – Celeste Monforton at The Pump Handle calls the Obama administration on the carpet for a lack of transparency in safety rulemaking when it comes to meetings with industry representatives. “The President’s own Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has hosted two meetings with industry representatives who are opposed to an OSHA regulation on crystalline silica, but OIRA fails to disclose these meetings on its website (screenshot 4/11/11.) This is the second time in as many occasions that this OMB office has failed the transparency test when it comes to extra-curricular meetings on OSHA rules. OIRA did the same thing last summer on OSHA’s proposed minor change to its injury recording log. Others have identified even more serious infractions by OIRA, but have yet to receive a response from the White House.”
Reality TV – While we’ve been joshing about upcoming fictional portrayals of workers comp on TV, Roberto Ceniceros at Comp Time points us to an interesting case of reality TV catching mining safety violations in action. A spike TV program about West Virginia coal mining – created by the same folks who do the “dangerous jobs” series – revealed violations that prompted citations from Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors. It’s an interesting story – Roberto offers the full scoop complete with links.
Legal matters – At LexisNexis Larson’s Spotlight offers another round of Five Recent Cases You Should Know About, with cases spanning the Going and Coming Rule, heat-related illness, a COPD claim, and more.
Disability redefined – Complex Care Blog keeps us updated on bionic legs and other miracles that demonstrate the power of the human spirit and technology to overcome the odds.
Kudos to NAIC – National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) 2010 Annual Report Pillars of Strength offers “a testimony to the fundamental strength of our national system of state-based insurance regulation.” NAIC has been actively involved in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, including the creation of Medical Loss Ratios, a rate review process, and working with federal and state authorities to establish health care exchanges. The organization has also been active in financial regulatory reform, including a Solvency Modernization Initiative to update US insurance solvency framework, market regulation, and more. NAIC is also noted for its excellent consumer information and fraud awareness initiatives. This includes a great insurance primer for for owners of small companies and home-based businesses: Insure U for Small Business.
Of note – HR Daily Advisor features a great article on six ways attorneys will attack your investigation – not workers comp specific, but a good backgrounder of any potentially litigious employment situation.

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You think your job is tough?

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

Last week, we rocked and rolled you with a dramatic video of a cruise ship tossed in a storm, but for sheer fear factor, we think this video may top that one. Normally, we wouldn’t post another video so soon after that one, but we think this one may not stay up for long!

Note: the video we had posted was removed but a copy has been posted here:

Direct link: Climbing Up The Tallest Antenna Tower 1,768 feet

Once we caught our breath after the gut-churning visceral reaction to the clip, we had two thoughts: Massive respect for the jobs that infrastructure workers do to keep our lights on, our computers running, and our phones working, and absolute horror at the “free climbing” concept. The narrator says that OSHA rules really allow for this, but that doesn’t sound right. We’d be interested in comments from safety professionals.

Here’s what we found from OSHA: “Tower climbing remains the most dangerous job in America. The majority of fatalities are the result of climbers not being tied off to a safe anchorage point at all times or relying upon faulty personal protection equipment. Many fatalities have occurred during the erection, retrofitting or dismantling of a tower. “Tie or Die!” has become synonymous with the requirement for 100 percent fall protection.”

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