Three construction workers die every day in the U.S.

The News Tribune of Tacoma, Washington recently featured an excellent - albeit unsettling - article entitled Construction workers’ safety net full of holes:

"It took only a second for Jose Enriquez Hernandez to die.
One minute, he was on a Puyallup roof trying to yank out a tack holding down plastic sheeting. Then co-workers say they heard the 38-year-old man scream as he fell 14 feet, slamming into the concrete below.

That year, 1999, eight construction workers, including Hernandez, fell to their death in Washington state. Over the next four years, falls claimed the lives of 16 more construction workers in the state. The deadly toll ratcheted up its pace this year, with five construction workers falling to their deaths so far - three during a four-week span in late summer."

Falls are the leading cause of death in the constructions industry, accounting for nearly a third of all deaths. The tragic thing is that nearly all these deaths are preventable. The reasons they aren't prevented seem painfully familiar worksite to worksite: safety policies aren't established and enforced. In many cases, workers face supervisor and peer pressure to be "macho" or to assume risks because they need the job.

After reading this article, we are reminded of how it is essential that safety priorities and practices be established by the company "head honcho," be it the company owner, the CEO, or the president. In any company, the boss's priorities are what get attention. If safety isn't established as a priority, it will inveitably slip when deadlines get tight. The only way a safety culture will ever take root is if the business owner plants the concept and cultivates it regularly. Supervisors need to know that implementing and enforcing safety standards are vital responsibilities in their day-to-day job and will be part of their performance review. Workers need to know that working safely is a priority, and that being professional is synonymous with being safe.

We've seen numerous instances of companies that become safety disciples after a tragedy hits. A worker death is a truly terrible and a costly way to learn the importance of safety. And as this article demonstrates, that toll can be exacted in an instant.

Thanks to rawblogXport for pointing us to this item. RawblogXport and Confined Space are two of our favorite reads. Both are labor blogs that do a great job of highlighting issues of worker safety. At Lynch Ryan, we firmly believe that safety is one area where labor and managment should be sitting on the same side of the table at all times.