OSHA Fall Protection Requirements - Construction

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OSHA Fall Protection Requirements - General Industry

 
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“Best Practices”? Or Safety Run Amuck.

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Occasionally I am asked by attorneys to serve as an expert witness on lawsuits involving workplace injuries and fatalities. One of the most fascinating cases I worked on involved an office worker suing her employer for gross negligence because a maintenance man operating a scissor-lift ran over her foot as she exited her cubicle. Now why, you may wonder, would a scissor-lift be traveling down an aisle way in the office? The short answer is, the company was following the “best practice” for changing a light bulb. Perhaps I should back up several years to explain how this accident came to be. But be warned, while reading this story you may not know whether you should laugh or cry.

Quite a few years before this accident occurred, another maintenance man working for the same company had set up a 20-foot metal extension ladder against the exterior of the building to change a burned-out bulb that provided light to the parking area. Apparently the light fixture was mounted about 23 feet above the ground, and the soil was soggy from a leaky sprinkler pipe. You can probably see where this is headed, so to make a long story short; the maintenance man was standing on the next-to-the-top rung of the extension ladder, stretching to reach up over his head to change the bulb, when he received a small electrical shock that caused him to recoil. And that in turn caused him to fall off the ladder to the ground below, where he was seriously injured.

As a result of this accident, the owner of the business insisted that the safety manager implement “best practices” for ladder use to insure something like this never happened again. “Best practices” was the new buzzword in corporate America at that time, so everything the company did, the owner insisted be done in line with “best practices”. Personally, I get tired of hearing people, including safety professionals, pronounce every single policy they implement as a “best practice”; in fact, I’d guess you have to say it is one of my pet peeves. But none the less, it is something that is firmly entrenched in business vernacular, even though there is no organization or mechanism in place to validate most of these claims.

Back to my story; as you can probably guess, the safety manager quickly developed and implemented a comprehensive ladder safety program that included written policies on the proper selection and set-up of ladders, followed by training for affected workers. But the safety manager did not stop there; he decided to go above and beyond to mandate that employees always wear a fall protection harness attached to a lanyard or safety line before they set their foot on a ladder. One hundred percent fall protection all the time. No exceptions. Period!

Apparently the safety manager did not give deep consideration to the potential ramifications of this new policy. So it’s no surprise that the poop hit the fan a few months later when the company owner stopped by the safety manager’s office and chewed him out because he saw a (different) maintenance man who had climbed onto a step-ladder in the office lobby area, and he was not following their established “best practice”. So the safety manager responded by running downstairs to the scene of the crime and sure-enough, there was the worker standing on the third rung of an eight-foot stepladder changing a fluorescent light bulb, and he was not using fall protection gear. The safety manager chastised the worker for not tying off, and you can probably guess what the worker’s response was; “exactly where the heck do you suggest I tie off?”

The safety manager grabbed a broom from a nearby janitorial closet and used the handle to push over some ceiling tiles. Then he shined a flashlight into the hole so he could see up into the area above the ceiling grid. He was trying to find a suitable tie-off point for the safety line, but all he could see was a bunch of conduit, sprinkler pipes, and a flimsy-looking bar joist. Then the maintenance man told him to quit wasting his time, because even if he could find a suitable tie-off point, they had no way to climb up there to connect the safety line because they were not allowed to use a ladder unless they were already tied off!

So the safety manager told the maintenance worker to put off changing light bulbs in the office area until he could come up with something else that would work. And after racking his brain for a couple of days, the safety manager implemented a new “best practice”; from now on, workers must utilize a scissor-lift when changing light bulbs inside the office building.

Over the next few years they discovered a few bugs in their “best practice” that required the procedure to be further revised, such as on the day they realized they needed to change a light bulb on the second floor of the office building. Their elevator was too small for the scissor-lift to fit inside (and the lift was probably too heavy). So they ended up purchasing another scissor-lift to use on the second floor, disassembled and transported it upstairs in pieces, and then reassembled it, where it would remain exclusively for use when a light bulb needed to be changed.

Of course, the Fire Marshall had to express his displeasure when, during his annual inspection a few months later, he found the scissor lift parked in an aisle-way in the back corner of the office area, blocking access to an emergency exit. Due to a lack of an adequate parking spot for the scissor-lift, the company decided their only choice was to have someone move out of one of the offices situated along the outer wall, and then use that office to store the lift. But it couldn’t be just any office; clearance restrictions created by the rows of cubicle wall panels adjacent to the offices required them to park the scissor-lift in one of the corner offices; the Vice President of Human Resources was not pleased! So she booted the safety manager (who happened to report to her) out of his office and into a cubicle, and she relocated to his old, smaller office. Not the ideal situation, but a sacrifice that had to be made for the sake of “best practices”.

Over time, other challenges resulted in the evolution of their “best practice" for changing a light bulb, such as the time when the scissor-lift was being driven down an aisle-way and one of the carpeted floor panel that was situated over a hollow chase for computer wires collapsed. That resulted in the need for the revision of office floor plan maps, originally created for displaying their emergency evacuation routes, so they could also pinpoint where similar false floor panels were located. Then they fabricated special “floor plates” out of sheets of precisely-trimmed 1-inch thick plywood that they would place over portions of the floor with a void beneath when they drove the scissor-lift over them so they could prevent another collapse .

But a couple of years after that, they had to go back and bevel the edges of the sheets of plywood and paint them safety yellow, because a worker stubbed her toe on the edge of one of them as she was walking over it to get to the copy machine and split a toenail. Then about two years ago, the company had to revise their “best practice” once again, this time to require the placement of orange traffic cones to block off all pedestrian traffic in the area when the plywood sheets were laid down because an employee claims to have jarred his back when he stepped off of a piece and had to have surgery.

So now we approach the day of the accident that resulted in the lawsuit I told you about. In spite of the company implementing the “best practice” for changing a light bulb (a procedure that had been developed, formalized, and refined multiple times into a seven page document and an investment of thousands of dollars for equipment, materials, and labor), it became apparent that their procedure did not address one other potential hazard. As the maintenance man was backing the scissor-lift down an aisle-way and around a corner, he accidentally struck one of the cubicle walls, causing it to collapse.

Luckily nobody was inside that particular cubicle at the time, but it did create quite a racket. And a brand new laptop computer and printer were trashed when they were struck by the falling wall. As soon as he realized what he had done, the maintenance man shoved the scissor-lift into the opposite gear and lurched forward; at about the same time the plaintiff in this lawsuit came running out of an adjacent cubicle to see what had happened. And that was when her foot got run over by one of the wheels on the scissor-lift.

Now the moral of the story is NOT to discourage someone from trying to make a job safer by improving upon the procedure in place. That’s what safety people are supposed to do when they find a hazard that is not being adequately addressed. Frankly, I’m impressed the safety manager implemented a comprehensive ladder safety program that consisted of proper ladder selection, set-up and use after the initial accident occurred many years ago. But in hindsight, he probably wishes that he would have stopped right there, at least when it came to applying their "best practice" of requiring 100-percent tie-off when using a ladder to change burned-out light bulbs in the office. Now I’m just hoping the company does not implement a new "best practice" that requires office workers to wear steel-toe shoes! And still lost in all of this was the irony that every time the maintenance man had to mount the scissor-lift, he actually had to climb up a short built-in ladder affixed to one end of the lift.  

No, the point of my sharing this story with you is just to remind fellow safety professionals that we should not implement a new or revised safety procedure without thoroughly considering all the potential ramifications. And while I’m at it, let me ask you to do me a favor; the next time you develop or update one of your safety policies, please try and avoid pronouncing it a “best practice”, unless you have some kind of validation to back it up. Perhaps you could instead say something like “this is the safety policy or practice that works best for us”.

If you’d like to share a story about your experiences with a safety improvement that ran amuck, or make some other comment about this blog post, please do so in the “comments” section below. And last but not least, please pass a link to this blog post along to others in your network who you think may benefit (or at least be amused) by this information.

The Most Overlooked Paragraph in the OSHA Standards

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How OSHA Nearly Killed Christmas!

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Every December, my wife and kids beg me to put Christmas lights on our house, like all the neighbors do. But I cannot for the life of me figure out how to do it in a way that is both safe and affordable, or that does not violate at least 23 OSHA regulations. After all, I’m a safety professional, and I’ve gotta set a good example. So I gave them a made-up story about how our home owner’s insurance policy has a “special rider” that disallows Christmas lights because they’re considered a fire hazard, and that got me off the hook for one more year.  But this year, I also began to wonder; how would Santa Claus comply with OSHA regulations?  So I did a little research.

Now everyone probably realizes that Santa’s workshop is exempt from OSHA regulations, because it is not located in the United States or one of its territories; it sits on the North Pole at the top of the Arctic, out of OSHA’s jurisdiction. This is made further evident if you watch the animated Christmas special, “Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.” Did you ever notice that the machinery in Santa’s workshop that has no guards installed? All the nip points on the belts and pulleys are exposed to contact, in violation of 1910.219(d). Also, not one single elf is wearing safety glasses or ear plugs as required by 1910.133(a) and 1910.95(b)(1), respectively, in spite of all the sawing, drilling and hammering that is going on!  But once Santa gets into the good ol’ USA, things are different; because here, he must comply with OSHA regulations.

It wasn’t until recently that Santa Claus decided that he needed to do a much better job of following OSHA safety regulations, because his workers comp insurance rates were going through the roof. Also, he wanted to avoid the bad press associated with one of those news releases that OSHA started issuing to embarrass “bad actors” with multiple violations. So Santa decided to bring four elves along on his annual Christmas Eve trip to assist him with complying with the OSHA rules.

When Santa landed his reindeer-powered sleigh atop the first roof in the US (somewhere in northern Maine, I believe), he jumped out of the sleigh and started heading over to the chimney when one of the elves shouted for him to “STOP”! It was Sammy, Santa’s first-ever Safety Coordinator elf. “Claus, you have no fall protection”, explained Sammy, “So we’ll have to perform a JSA to figure out the safest way to get you over to the chimney without you falling off the roof”.

Ol' Saint Nick had only read enough of the OSHA fall protection standards to be considered dangerous, so when he said “Let’s designate one of the elves to be our safety monitor, per 1926.502(h)”, all the elves started snickering. "No can do, Claus”, cried Sammy. “This work is not covered by the construction regs, it falls under general industry. So we’ll have to build a set of guardrails from the sleigh over to the chimney, with 42 inch top-rails, mid-rails and 4 inch toe-boards per 1910.23(c).” “Wait,” declared another elf, “all the hammering will wake the kids inside the house; we’ll have to figure out something else.” So they convened a meeting of the Safety Committee to figure out what to do.

They decided Sammy should use his smart phone to access the OSHA website to look for an alternative. He eventually found an OSHA letter of interpretation that allowed them to use an alternate means of fall protection, such as a properly engineered fall protection system, in lieu of guardrails, as long as the alternate system offered equal or better protection than the guard rails. So Sammy called on Johnny, one of the other elves sitting in the sleigh, to help; Johnny is a RPE (that’s registered professional engineer, not registered professional elf). Johnny designed a fall prevention system for Santa to use, complete with safety harness, lifelines, retractable lanyard, and designated points of attachment that can support at least 5,000 pounds per man attached.

Then Santa slipped on his safety harness (probably one of those special body harnesses designed for “husky” workers), attached his lanyard to the horizontal lifeline, and slowly crept across the roof over to the chimney. But when he started to climb up the chimney, Sammy again shouted for Santa to stop. Seems there was an overhead electrical line running overhead near the chimney, and Santa was about to encroach into the danger zone, a direct violation of 1910.333(c)(3). Because Santa had not been trained as a “qualified person” per the OSHA electrical standards, Sammy called for another elf, Ernie the Qualified Electrician, to install insulators on the overhead electrical line, per the requirements specified in 1910.269, the Electric Power Generation, Transmission, and Distribution standard.

Once that hazardous situation was rectified, Santa attached his double-legged lanyard to a vertical lifeline, climbed to the top of the chimney, and was ready began his decent down into the house. But first, Sammy had to use his gas detector to check for a hazardous atmosphere inside the chimney (confined space). “Too much CO” asked Santa? “Nah, only 15 ppm, so we can set up the blower and then enter under the alternate procedures specified in 1910.146(c)(5)”, said Sammy. Once the blower was in place, Santa started sliding down the chimney.

Halfway down, Santa mumbled something about it being a little warm inside the chimney. “Getting hot” asked Sammy?  “Better stop right there, Claus.” Then Sammy pulled out his smart phone again and downloaded OSHA’s new app designed to protect workers from heat-related illnesses. Sammy entered all the necessary data into the program to get guidance on proper procedures to follow; however the app crashed three times before he could finally get it to work. But after several minutes, Sammy finally got the life-saving instructions he needed, and shouted down to Santa; “Claus, OSHA says you need to take a drink of water.”

But Santa never carried a canteen of water on him; he was accustomed to drinking all that free milk that families leave on the mantle with the cookies. So the elves improvised; they put some snow in an old McDonald’s cup they found under the sleigh seat and used their body heat to melt it into drinking water for Santa (an unintentional violation of 1910.141(b), potable water). Of course, that took several minutes, as the elves had difficulty finding snow that was not yellow (it seems that reindeer have small bladders). “Next year”, declared Sammy, “we need to bring a cooler full of drinking water for Claus”. “I prefer Sqwincher”, shouted back Santa. “But not the lemon-lime kind, I like the fruit punch flavor”!

Once Santa and his safety coordinator elf finally made it to the bottom of the chimney, they noticed there were some glowing embers beneath the ash in the fireplace. So Sammy declared that the operation was now considered “hot work”. Santa had to stop work while Sammy filled out a hot-work permit, then he called down the fourth elf, Fred, to act as the designated fire watch. Of course, Sammy had to first make sure that the portable fire extinguisher was fully charged and had its annual inspection tag attached, per 1910.157(e)(3). Then Sammy conducted a quick training session for Fred on the use of the extinguisher, since he was due for his annual refresher training per paragraph (g)(2). And Santa really had to bite his tongue when Sammy reminded him that they would have to wait 30 more minutes after they completed the “hot work”, because OSHA required the fire watch to stick around that long to make sure there were no stray sparks smoldering that could start a fire.

After confirming that all the elements of a fire prevention program were in place, per 1910.39, Sammy pronounced that Santa could proceed with distributing the gifts, just as soon as Ernie finished replacing the electrical plug on the extension cord for the tree lights; it seems the home-owner broke off the grounding pole (1910.304(g)(5)). And finally, after much ado, all the gifts were placed under the Christmas tree. Sammy announced they completed their tasks with no OSHA-recordable injuries or illnesses to enter on the OSHA Form 300, per 1904. So Santa and the elves gave each other high-fives, had a “safety luncheon”, and then everyone headed back onto the roof to load up in the sleigh so they could head to the next stop.

As soon as they were airborne, Santa decided to send a text to Mrs. Clause to let her know he would be running later than normal this year, due to the extra time it took them to comply with all the safety rules. But when Sammy saw what Santa was doing, he quickly snatched the phone out of Santa’s hand and chastised him for texting while driving.

“Claus, didn’t you read the new OSHA Alert about the dangers of texting while driving?” asked Sammy. “You need not worry”, replied Santa, “I’ll be careful. Besides, there’s not even an actual OSHA regulation that says I can’t text while driving.” “True”, said Sammy, “but you do have a General Duty, Claus, to provide us with a place of employment free from recognized hazards!”

(Note: if you did not get that last joke, refer to paragraph (5)(a)(1) of the OSHA Act of 1970).

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This will be my final post to the OSHA Training Blog for the year. I’m going to take a couple of weeks off to relax and enjoy the holidays with family and friends, and I hope you get to do the same. But don’t worry; I’ll be back early next year with another blog post on some important (and probably much more serious) OSHA related topic. Also, I am getting closer to having our new website, oshatraining.com, ready to launch; I think you’ll be impressed with the end result.

If you have a comment you want to make about our blog, including suggestions for future posts, please do so in the space provided below. And feel free to pass a link to this blog post along to others in your network who you think may benefit from this information. Happy Holidays, and I look forward to re-connecting with you in January.