Over in the UK during the 70s there was a guy called Fred Dibnah – a steeplejack by trade who had a thing for steam engines as well as an old Victorian way of demolishing old mill chimneys.
The north of England was the spine of the Industrial Revolution that fueled the Empire -the predominant industry being cotton.
Fred was a no nonsense type of guy who’d strap a load of ladder together with rope to clamber up a 300+ ft chimney prior to setting fire to the bottom where he’d placed wooden struts, which, once burned out would cause the chimney to topple – hopefully in the direction of Fred’s choosing.
He never used dynamite. He was also something of a national hero.
Anyway, if you enjoy this kind of thing and hark back to more innocent times when you could climb up chimneys unaided without safety harnesses and be stood next to a chimney as it topples, then the following video might interest you:
And if you liked that then you may be interested to hear his thoughts on health and safety – especially how he felt better climbing chimneys with a couple of pints inside him!
According to a recent federal study, both North and South Carolina have been deemed to be the safest places to work in the country with the least number of injuries reported.
North Carolina’s Labor Department said Thursday the state’s rate of injuries or illnesses at private companies dropped to a historic low in 2009. The 3.1 percent rate compares with 3.4 percent in 2008.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said there were just over three cases of illness or injury per 100 full-time workers in both Carolinas. Injury rates in both states were near the country’s lowest along with Texas, Louisiana, Virginia and New York.
But, the workplace safety in South and North Carolina has been heavily criticized by the US Labor Department for suggesting paltry fines to companies flouting the laws and not taking safety issues seriously enough.
Another state OSHA that has also come under fire recently, California, has hit back at the US Labor Dept’s audit suggesting that its criticisms asking for better complaint resolution and improved safety training are irrelevant due to the audit relying heavily on out of date information and lacking understanding of the state’s process.
Cal/OSHA chief Len Welsh said in an interview Thursday that the federal audit didn’t provide documentation for many of its claims, making it difficult to pinpoint failures and make effective changes.
Cal/OSHA could change the way it responds to complaints as a result of the audit’s criticism that the state takes an average of 24.5 days to initiate an investigation after a complaint is received, a process that should only take three days.
To speed up the process, Welsh said the department may stop sending on-site inspectors to workplaces for low-priority complaints — those alleging non-serious hazards — to reduce inspection workload. Cal/OSHA can make the change unilaterally, Welsh said, but it wants to vet it with stakeholders before changing protocol.
“As time goes on and resources dry up we’re going to have to find ourselves prioritizing what we do more and more,” Welsh said.
If you were to put a list together of unsafe workplaces, you’d be hard pressed to have office spaces somewhere near the top. Office safety always seems a given. After all, how dangerous can a 2B pencil, a ream of paper and a Xerox machine really be?
Well, according to the following Mad Men era-ish video it’s positively strewn with all manner of near death possibilities.
This week, a Center for Progressive Reform report highlights a lack of workplace safety procedures as being a key contributing factor of health issues and complaints reported by some Gulf oil spill cleanup workers.
Besides safety training and chemical exposure monitoring, there have been concerns regarding the lack of protective equipment used by cleanup workers.
One of the main problems, according to the report, is the programs themselves (known as the National and Regional Contingency Plans) don’t contain any method of ensuring workplace safety regulations are adhered to.
“These documents, beginning at the national level, consistently pass responsibility for ensuring worker safety down the line to the next entity that has a duty to participate in planning process,” the report states. “But as they pass the buck, they never establish mechanisms for ensuring accountability at the next level for worker safety and health.”
On November 24, 2008, a new standard for hi-visibility safety apparel went into effect. The standard 23 CFR 634 applies to any person that works on a federally funded highway, and requires either a Class 2 or Class 3 high-visibility safety garment to be worn.
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has issued this new standard in an effort to help protect the lives and well-being of the workers who are exposed to potential hazards while repairing our highways. 23 CFR 634 states that “All workers within the right-of-way of a Federal-aid highway who are exposed either to traffic or construction equipment within the work area shall wear high-visibility safety apparel.”
High Visibility Safety Apparel is defined as “personal protective safety clothing that is intended to provide conspicuity during both daytime and night time usage, and that meets the performance requirements of ANSI/ISEA 107-2004.”
To see the Hi-Viz 23 CFR Part 634 standard that recently went into effect, please click here.
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