Business Issues

National Safety Month

In a move that was welcomed, but also alarmingly overdue, the Department of Labor says it’ s close to publishing official regulations for protecting construction workers from the hazards of heat illness while on the job. With no official heat standard in place, enforcement is murky if non-existent for OSHA and citations fall under the self-policing guidelines of the broad general duties clause.

Week 4: Slips, Trips and Falls

The last week of safety month wraps up by focusing on reducing slips, trips and falls on jobsites across the country— with an emphasis on falls. Falls can happen anywhere and despite decades of improved awareness and legions of tech-inspired prevention apparatus, falls remain the most common form of serious injury on jobsites across the country.

There are few certainties in life: taxes, death and gravity. And few folks are more familiar with the power of gravity than crane operators. As projects stretch higher and higher, the chances of anything falling and becoming lethal also increases.

A recent report from the Center for Construction Research and Training shows the number of fatal falls in the industry has surged over the past decade. An independent analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data found that 397 fatal falls occurred in the construction industry in 2022— that’ s a 53 % increase from 2011— and a vast majority of those fatal falls( 70 %) were workers employed by builders with 10 or fewer employees.

According to the same BLS statistics, there was a 6 % jump in construction-related deaths due to falls in 2021— with one in five workplace deaths, across all sectors, occurring in the construction industry, with more than a third of those deaths attributed to falls alone.

These statistics should immediately underscore what everyone already knows: falls are often fatal, preventable, yet seemingly inevitable. Proactively identifying blindspots within your own organization’ s capabilities and protocols while also engaging in meaningful training can not only assist in compliance, it’ s the best way to keep the lawyers in their offices and ensure every worker walks home after their shift.

What Lies Ahead

In order to ensure safety training gets everywhere it is needed, many safety training programs, including those offered by OSHA and other industry associations, have started integrating VR and AR to provide more effective training solutions.

Large construction firms are now working with companies specializing in VR and AR training solutions to offer jobsite-specific training in order to stay on the leading edge of keeping workers safe while also exploring what dangers continue to lurk, undiscovered.

As safety awareness continues to evolve, the inherent dangers of the future jobsite will evolve along with them, presenting us with a brand new set of issues to address next year— because, remember, safety is a year-round commitment … just like hydration.

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22 CRANE HOT LINE ® June 2024 • www. cranehotline. com