Safety is on people’s minds more these days, so we asked the safety
directors of eight contractors, large and small, around the country,
as well as an OSHA inspector, what was successful about their programs.
We received some impassioned responses.
Like all the contractors we canvassed, a Connecticut contractor ran
“weekly job meetings in which the guys talk about anything they have
seen in the field that was unsafe, as well as weekly job safety meetings
in which a foreman reads different items from an OSHA book. Everybody
then signs that they attended the meeting and the GC collects
the paperwork to ensure everybody attended.” He also provided all the
usual safety equipment.
Taking a slightly more proactive approach, a Delaware contractor
charges his general superintendent with the job of “making sure the
employees are working in a safe manner. All of our lead foremen are
trained in safety. We have biweekly job safety talks to discuss different issues. They were effective at first, but after they’d heard them several times, they stopped listening. If somebody has an accident, we immediately
investigate, report and then let everyone know what that person
may or may not have done wrong.
“We have half-a-dozen minor injuries a year requiring a doctor visit,
but no lost workdays. Every few years, someone ruptures a disk or something-we just had a guy on a scaffold in a tight location and instead of climbing down, he decided to save a few seconds of effort by swinging around to the side of the scaffold. He forgot that he hadn’t locked
the wheels and the scaffold shifted on him. He dropped to the floor
awkwardly not from a great height, and broke his leg, tore his knee and fractured his ankle in several places. He’s not going to be able to do his
job anymore and will limp for the rest of his life. He could have done
it right, he knew how and nothing was stopping him from doing it.
He’d probably done that move a hundred times before and nobody
knew. If we had a safety man on every job, we’d be out of business! Most of the time they can get away with unsafe practices, but one day the inevitable ‘accident’ will come about. You’re not supposed to be on a scaffold while someone is moving it, for instance. But after a while, they
become tired of climbing up and down. ‘Hey Joe, push me over there,’
they’ll yell. Again, that works fine until Joe pushes him over there and a wheel hits something and the scaffold stops suddenly, jettisoning its load.
“Someday it might come to GCs having a safety person on every job,”
adds the man from Delaware. On the other hand, maybe GCs could
install wireless cameras on any site where things are not running
smoothly in terms of safety, security or production. The cameras would
be known to the workers and they might not even need to function (as
with the speed cameras on European roadways), keeping the men guessing
and on the up and up. But some GCs have gone down a different
road as a solution to safety violations on the work site.
“Right now,” continues the Delawarean, “GCs put in the contract a
‘hold harmless’ agreement that indemnifies him—even when they’re
100 percent at fault. That’s what their insurance companies tell them
to do to lower the GCs’ exposure and insurance rates. But my insurance
company tells me, ‘We’re not insuring him, we’re insuring you.’ I
don’t know how many contracts my insurance agent insures, but he says
I’m the only sub asking questions. All the others just sign these contracts and maybe do not realize they’re self-insuring and will have to pay for the GC’s defense and fine themselves!
“Last year, we had one of these ‘slave labor contracts’ for $500,000 that made us responsible for everything, and
the GC, owner and architect responsible
for nothing. I sent this contract to
my agent, and he sent it on to my insurance company who sent it back with a laundry list of what they would and
would not do. It went back and forth for
a while with the GC, who was dealing
with his insurance company. Our insurance
companies couldn’t agree on what
to do! It turned out that we both had the
exact same insurance company! It’s
schizophrenic! I called two other contractors
with large contracts on that job
and neither one had actually read the
contract! They just said, ‘We don’t worry
about that, we’re just concerned with
getting the job.’ I never signed the contract
but did the job anyway, was paid
for it and retained my rights under the
law.
Carrots….
Positive incentive programs seem to
work with some employees but not with
others.
A Californian contractor scrapped its
incentive program as there was no
change in accident rates. Maybe pizzas
and T-shirts were not that desirable to
people from the Golden State.
A Floridian runs a safety bonus program
that has achieved the desired result: “If
everyone stays healthy for four months,
they receive a $40 Wal-mart gift certifi-
cate. If someone is hurt, the bonus drops
to zero for a week and then climbs $10
a month until it reaches the $40 payout
amount. We also have a drawing every
week for one individual to win a cash
bonus. So now they expect to receive the
bonuses and get mad at anyone who acts
unsafe, in effect keeping each other in
line.”
… And Sticks
OSHA Inspector Juan Chavez handles
safety for one of AWCI’s members in
Arizona. He runs “an incentive program—
baseball caps, a bag or a tape
measure, some tool of the trade—each
week.” He also uses a stick when needed.
“I visit the sites weekly, write a site-
survey and enforce the codes with the
help of management. We have a three-strikes-
you’re-out policy: verbal warning,
written warning and third violation and
you’re out. If there’s an immediate danger,
we’ll send the employee home for
the day, and they have to come through
the safety department to return to work.
“My message is that I can’t take care of
them, OSHA can’t take care of them,
and the company can’t take care of
them. Safety starts with them.” But
Chavez makes it easy for them with
training “We walk new hires through an
orientation for an hour. All the foremen
and leadership have the OSHA 10-hour
(training program) in construction.”
The result of his approach? “This
[AWCI member] company did not
receive an OSHA violation last year.”
Asked what the main safety issues were
in his neck of the woods, Chavez
answers: “Not wearing personal protection
equipment except when the GC
demands it, seems to be the biggest
problem. With some GCs, you wear it
or you don’t work, so they wear it. But
fall protection is number one in the construction
industry. Guys will get up to a
height and won’t take the time to do a
hazard analysis. OSHA has given fall
protection citations to three of the five
companies that I deal with in the construction
industry.”
Chavez adds that the high turnover in
the construction industry means he is
constantly teaching new people, and
when 80 to 95 percent of the workforce
is Hispanic, the fact that OSHA did not
have many materials available in Spanish
until recently made it difficult to get
them up to speed on safety.
A Colorado contractor also uses the
stick-and-carrot approach to good
effect. He says, “The superintendent
gives a verbal and then two written
warnings, and we rarely have had to go
to a fine after the third violation. Generally,
the fine is whatever the home-builder
would fine us if they were going
to fine us. And when we are fined, we
just pass that through to the employee
who was cited. Most builders follow the
same verbal, two written and then fine
sequence with us. Right now, the fine
for no hard hats is between $50 and
$100 per incident.
“I am in the process right now of
putting together a safety reward program
and tying it in with the superintendents
as part of their bonus structure.
Crews who have made it through three
months without incident, injury or
report, will receive a tool as a reward.
They supply their own tools to work
with, so that gives them something to
help them do a better job and that they
can keep for a while. It’s not just spent
at a Burger King and forgotten about
the next day. We’ve tried barbecues and
games, but the employees respond
much better to a direct reward.”
In addition to providing training programs,
weekly meetings and PPE, Air-Tite
Interiors of Chicago campaigns to
create respect for self and coworkers.
Their employees are aware of the consequences
of unsafe practices, realizing
that it is not OK to endanger coworkers
or themselves and that any accident
impacts not just the rest of the crew, but
the families who rely on and love that
employee.
The safety director invites their participation
in various ways, including coming up with their own safety posters or
slogans. One poster shows a beaver squashed under a tree he had been
gnawing. ‘Just because you were born to do this job, doesn’t mean that this job can’t kill you,’ reads the caption.
Morning safety huddles
and weekly tailgate
safety training
encourage group
discussions and
participation.
“Out of 182,000 hours worked in the
field last year,” reports the safety director, “we had 12 reportables, none of them lost-work cases”—impressive by
any measure.
Safety lncreases Production and Profits? Get Away!
The corporate safety director for San
Francisco-based Anson Industries, Les
Kanyuk, has the last word. He talks of a
company that changed from paying lip
service to safety to being paid hand-somely
for riding safety hard on the
work site.
“It took us almost three years to change
the mindset and attitude of employees.
It had to start at the top, which is what
happened for us when the CEO decided
one day that making money wasn’t
everything, and that our insurance rates
going up like crazy with huge
deductibles was not acceptable.
“Good training was followed by a citation
system, whereby I, our superintendents
and project managers wrote up to
three citations to an individual if we saw
him doing something unsafe. Any repeat
after three citations, that person never
worked for us again. If we saw something
where the guy was doing something stupid
and could fall and be killed, we’d
write a citation and send him home to
think about it for a couple of days. Until
we began writing citations, the superintendent
would warn the same guy 14
times and maybe the 15th time, he’d fall
and die. But when he received that citation
the first time, the guy was never
going to do that again!”
Morning safety huddles and weekly tail-gate
safety training encourage group discussions
and participation (the guys would fall asleep when they just read the
weekly topic).
“We do monthly hazards training,” continues
Kanyuk, “and we’ve made a training
video for new-hires followed by a
questionnaire to ensure they watched
and understood it. Then we give them
our corporate safety guidelines, safety
rules and regulations that they have to
read and understand.
“People we rent scaffolds or lifts from
provide certified training to our employees,
or we have our own trained people
provide the training, as well as on power
guns, ladder and scaffold safety. We
have one person providing forklift training,
repeated every three years per
OSHA requirements.
‘Although many people don’t believe in
it, we do have a reward system. We have
a point system so foremen receive gifts
when they do well. Employees who have
not received a written citation, nor been
injured nor involved in an accident or
incident, receive a safety award. Just
about everybody receives a T-shirt or
jacket, sweatshirt, hat-we give different
prizes or awards every month. As we
have so many different divisions—
tapers, fireproofers, deckers, [wallboard
hangers], framers, roofers—one tool
does not apply to all trades, so it’s easier
not to award tools.”
Kanyuk does more than provide PPE.
“We have made safety glasses, hard hats,
work boots, knee pads, ear protection-all
mandatory. And we’re experimenting
with voluntary stretch exercises in our
Northwest offices after the morning safety
huddle. The guys spend three to four
minutes stretching. They say it has really
improved their back situations, etc.
“The guys who wear regular glasses have
to wear side shields. And we have a full-face
shield in conjunction with the safety glasses when they are doing certain things like using chop saws, drilling
above them, drilling with saws. We have
not had one eye injury since then-yet
we had many before that. Wearing
kneepads has stopped many of the
injuries from screws and obstacles on the
ground.
“We examine the work from an
ergonomic standpoint, too, building
benches, for instance, instead of putting
the saw on the ground.
“We had a lot of safety issues before we
started this program. We were a production-
oriented company with the
approach of ‘Just get it done any way
you can.’ We had a lot of eye injuries,
back injuries—you name it, we had it.
But we have discovered that good safety
practices and good housekeeping have
resulted in increased production!
“Before, people used to climb over crap
to do their work. They don’t have to do
that anymore because good housekeeping by the guys themselves and also by
scrap boys or utility men—often
apprentices—keeps the floors clean so
everyone can produce much faster. Poor
housekeeping is the source of 40 percent
of job-site injuries. So housekeeping is a
key focus in our safety program: We
demand all our floors be swept clean
and, as a result, we’ve had hardly anybody
slipping or tripping, no back
injuries. It makes a difference, and it
doesn’t cost that much to implement.
“Deckers are up there 20 feet and not
tied off, so no wonder they make up 33
percent of construction fatalities. We’re
the only company in the country that
has made tie-off for deckers 100 percent
at 6 feet. All other deckers in any other
company have to tie off at 15 or 30 feet.
Last year we had no one fall, whereas we
used to have eight. A good fall-protection
program means no one is worried
anymore about falling.
“Overall, three years ago we had about
280 first aid and lost-time incidents
combined. The next year, we went down
to about 240, the next year 180. Last
year, the figure rose to 200, but that was
with an increase of 15,000 man-hours.
And that included having to hire as
much as 60 percent of neighborhood
people on some jobs—folks who often
come with no training and with a different
attitude toward safety. They generated
a high percentage of our incidents
and accidents last year. Three of them
claimed their backs went out after four
hours ofworking, and for six months we
had to pay for them with nothing to
show for it.
“I always used to hear, ‘Oh no, we gotta
do this? All this safety is going to cost our
company a lot of money!’ It really doesn’t!
When the [wallboard hanger] comes
into a work area, he can hang [board] like
crazy, instead of either cleaning the place
up first or climbing over piles of studs
and materials. Increased production
from proper housekeeping alone is
between 25 percent and 35 percent.
Kanyuk
continues: “In Los Angeles,
three weeks ago, I sent a foreman home
for two days for standing on the outside
of the cables, not tied off. I then had that
guy come to the quarterly safety meeting, in front of 80 foremen, and explain to them why he thought his life wasn’t mportant enough for him to tie off. Hewas embarrassed—and his wife had just
had a baby.
“I do a lot of dramatics. We had a decker
in Los Angeles fall 18 feet and break his pelvis because he didn’t tie off. So we had the foremen at the district safety
committee with the construction managers, superintendents, foremen and
employees from the field. I told them all,
‘If this guy had died, I wouldn’t be
standing here, his wife would be standing
here telling you guys that she trusted
you every day to take care of her husband.
She had planned to live with him
for the rest of her life, and now he’s gone.
“I could see tears. They’re the shepherds,
their guys are the sheep. They have to
watch out for them all the time. Many
contractors just aren’t with it. They just
don’t believe. You’ve got to believe. I do.
“We do perception surveys, too, asking
employees questions like, ‘What do you
think of the way this company does safety?
’ ‘Does your foreman believe in safe-ty
or does he just talk it?’ We completed
the first one four years ago and the
answers were, ‘This company talks the
talk but doesn’t walk the walk;’ ‘This
company just tells me to work safely and
then turns around and tells me to hurry
up and get the job done quickly, no matter
whether safe or not.’
“Now they’re saying this company has
really changed. Employees come up to
me and thank me: ‘This is the greatest
company, it really cares about us and our
safety.’”
Hmm . . . a no-nonsense safety program
creates loyalty, increases production,
increases profits and reduces injuries.
Could be something to this!
About the Author
Steven Ferry is a free-lance writer based
in Clearwater, Fla.
