OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) is promoting to all construction companies to participate in a National Fall Prevention Safety Stand-Down during the whole week from 5/8/17 - 5/12/17. The purpose of the Fall Prevention Safety Stand-Down is to raise awareness of preventing fall hazards in construction. Fatalities caused by falls from elevation continue to be a leading cause of death for construction workers as 350 construction workers died from falls in 2015. Those deaths were preventable!
What is a Fall Prevention Safety Stand-Down? A Safety Stand-Down is a voluntary temporary stoppage of work for employers to talk directly to employees about "Fall Hazards and to reinforce the importance of Fall Prevention." It is to heighten everyone's awareness and a reminder to everyone of the serious nature of how a fall can change your life and the life of your loved ones!
I.D.I. will be participating in this Safety Stand-Down and here is how:
On Monday, 5/8/17, we are advising all Safety Advocates/Coordinators & Superintendents to gather our crews and to all perform the same fall protection toolbox talk. The toolbox talk that we want everyone to perform is in your Safety Advocate/Coordinator Manuals. It is under the Fall Protection tab of your manual, it is toolbox talk # FP8 and it is called: What is Fall Protection? We in turn have to advise OSHA as to how many employees participated in the Stand-Down and we will be gathering those numbers from our toolbox talk rosters. OSHA's goal is to have 1 million construction workers participate in the Stand-Down. During your fall prevention safety stand-down, share stories with each other about falls you may have been involved with, witnessed or know of, to help make it personal and to make each other think about what could happen to you by taking a short-cut on safety. During the rest of the week, we want all of our 5-Minute Morning Safety Huddles to include discussions on fall protection. You can discuss falls from ladders, scaffolding, roofs, wall openings, holes in the floor, shafts, pits, etc. An example would be that if you have a portable step ladder at your site, have the ladder present during your safety huddle and show all employees the hazards of working on ladders such as, no standing and working on the top 2 steps, must use in the fully open position with the spreader arms locked, keeping your belt buckle or belly button between the ladder rails which prevents you from leaning out to far so the ladder doesn't tip causing you to fall. If you need help with fall prevention discussion topics, you can always refer to your Safety Advocate/Coordinator Manual.
Let's work as a team to make this Safety Stand-Down a success by getting everyone involved and participating. Your efforts help us to live up to our safety mission statement: "Everyone Goes Home Alive And In The Same Condition As They Arrived; Your Loved Ones Count On It!" Should you have any questions, please contact our Safety Director, Safety Pete at (847) 417-1689.
Have a Safe Day!
