"I.D.I. Works Ridiculously Safe!"

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees:  I was at a project in downtown Chicago on Tuesday and after walking the job site, I met up with the general contractor who hired us to perform steel stud, drywall, taping, acoustical ceiling installations and painting.  I asked the general contractor how we are performing as far as meeting his expectations with safety and his answer was; "Your Employees Work Ridiculously Safe!"  This should be taken as a compliment.  He mentioned things such as our employees are always wearing their hard hats when other contractors aren't, we keep our work areas clean and our employees have a positive attitude about safety.  Great job team - this is what our safety culture is all about.  Let's keep being ridiculously safe.  Sounds like a new motto for I.D.I. for the rest of 2011. 

Have a Safe Day!

Peter Graham, Safey Director for I.D.I.

Is The Height Of My Fall Protection Guardrail That Important?

As you know, in the construction industry, we are required to use fall protection when a worker is exposed to a fall of 6' or more to a lower level.  When your choice of fall protection is to use a guardrail, the toprail of the guardrail is required to be set at 42", plus or minus 3".  That means the highest you can legally set your toprail of the guardrail system would be 45" and the lowest you can legally set it would be 39".  Is it that important?  If my toprail is set at 36", is that good enough?  The answer is no!  OSHA recently issued a citation to a contractor that had an employee working at a commercial project next to a window sill.  The window sill height was 36".  The contractor should have installed a secured 2 x 4 or secured some other form of an approved guardrail across the window opening somewhere between the 39" to 45" height level.  Doing so would have saved this contractor from an OSHA citation. 
Please don't let this happen to you or to our company.  Please remember that the top rail of your guardrail system must be at the correct height.  The toprail of a guardrail must also be able to withstand 200 lbs of outward and downward force and the guardrail system must also have a midrail in place.  Should you have any questions about fall protection, please call our Safety Director, Peter Graham at (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

Tapers - Sanding Safety and PPE!

One of our tapers asked me a question last Friday about what personal protective equipment is required when sanding.  He asked if we require safety glasses while sanding? The answer is yes!  Besides our requirement for wearing hard hats and work boots 100% of the time while on job sites, we also require tapers to wear safety glasses and dust masks while sanding.  The safety glasses are to help prevent dust from getting into your eyes.  Dust in the eyes does not seem like a big deal but it can be a costly one that is easily preventable.  Medical care costs are out of control and having to go to the doctor to get your eyes flushed out to remove dust can easily cost $500.00.  A pair of safety glasses cost about $2.00 and we provide them to our employees free of charge.  The safety glasses we provide are anti-fog so you should be able to see through them even when the humidity is high.  If safety glasses aren't offering you enough protection from dust, you can also wear safety goggles which we have available to you free of charge.  If you are sanding and you need either safety glasses or safety goggles, ask your Foreman if he/she has them in the gangbox. If your Foreman does not have them on site, then contact your Superintendent or our Safety Director, Peter Graham at (847) 417-1689 and we will get them to you typically the same day or in one business day.  You only have one set up eyes so make sure you protect them!

Have a Safe Day!

Quarterly Safety Meeting on 5/21/11

Attention all I.D.I. employees:  We have scheduled our next quarterly safety meeting for Saturday, 5/21/11 at 7:00am.  The meeting will be held at our usual meeting location which is at our shop located at 1225 Karl Court in Wauconda IL.  Please mark your calendars.  This will be our 2nd quarterly safety meeting of 2011.  We had a terrific turn out at our 1st quarterly safety meeting which was held in February.  We had a total of 83 field employees on the payroll for the week ending 2/12/11 and 79 of the 83 field employees attended the meeting for a total show up rate of 95%.  We had a total of 45 Safety Coordinators and only 1 Safety Coordinator did not attend the meeting and we had a 98% Safety Coordinator show up rate at our 1st quarterly safety meeting.  The above show up rates were both record turnouts at our meetings.  We want to thank all of those who attended and we look forward to seeing you on 5/21/11.  Your attendance at these safety meetings helps us to keep the safety momentum going in the right direction.  The quarterly safety meetings are where we train on specific safety topics to help prevent you from getting injured.  We also share and exchange safety information to help sustain our overall positive safety culture.  It's all about our safety mission statment which is: 

"Everyone Goes Home Alive and in the Same Condition as they Arrived; Your Loved Ones Count On It!" 

See you at the meeting!

From the "I Caught You! Series"

Yesterday afternoon, I was at one of our industrial paint projects in the south suburbs and I caught 2 of our industrial painters working safely while exposed to falls of 6' or more to a lower level.  Both industrial painters were on the roof top of a concrete tank and they were appropriately tied off with fall arrest equipment.  They were using concrete anchors (Spider Bolts) as their anchorage points along with lanyards and safety harnesses.  Great job - Jeremy Von Behren, Daniel Diaz and David Fraire!

Green Tape on 3-Pronged Electrical Tools and Extension Cords

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees:  All Safety Coordinators should have been provided a roll of green electrical tape last week from your Superindendent.  We began a new quarter on 4/1/11 for our Assured Grounding Program.  You are to inspect, test and color-code with green tape all 3 pronged electrical tools and extension cords.  All electrical tools and cords need to be visually inspected.  If you see any defects in the cords such as bare wires, severe kinks, missing or damaged ground prong, the cord pulling away from the plug end housing, etc., then that tool or cord would need to be immediately removed from service and reported to your Foreman.  If your tool/cord passes the visual inspection, your next step is to test the cord with a receptacle tester.  First, you should test the oulet that you will be plugging your cord into to ensure that it is properly wired.  You should see 2 yellow lights lit up on your tester and the red light should be off.  This means the outlet is working appropriately.  Next, plug your cord into the outlet and then test the cord with the receptacle tester.  Again, you should see the same light pattern as mentioned above and this would mean the cord passed the test and it is good and safe to use.  Any other light pattern means that there is a problem with the cord and the cord needs to be removed from service and reported to your Foreman.  If the cord passes the visual inspection and the cord tester test, you should then remove the previous quarter's white electrical tape and install the green electrical tape about 1" down from both plug ends.  Your cord is now in compliance with our 2nd quarter's Assured Ground Program.  The green tape shall remain in place from 4/1/11 through 6/30/11.  You are not quite done yet!  You now need to visually inspect all electrical cords and tools on a daily basis and if any defects are found, the cord needs to be immediately removed from service.  Thank you for taking the time to ensure your electrical tools and cords are in safe working order.  Your actions may prevent one of our family members from sustaining an electrical shock type injury or worse yet and electrocution.  If you have any questions regarding our Assured Grounding Program, please call our Safety Director, Peter Graham, at (847) 417-1689. 

Have a Safe Day!

I.D.I.'s #1 Safety Goal - ZERO FATALITIES

The following is the most recent fatality data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  In 2009, there was a total of 4,340 work related fatalities in the United States.  Of those, 969 of the fatalities were construction workers.  27 construction workers died while on the job in the state of Illinois.  That means that right here on our own Illinois soil, we are losing a little over 2 construction workers each month to needless deaths.  We don't want that to happen to any of our International Decorators family members and that is why Zero Fatalities is our #1 safety goal. 

We have been in business since 1952 and we have never had a work related fataility.  This is something that we are extremely proud of and if you are employeed at International Decorators, you should be proud of that also and that should give you confidence in that wev'e got your back.  We aren't perfect when it comes to safety, but our goal is to be perfect.  Our # 1 safety goal is also preached in our safety mission statement which is:  "Everyone Goes Home Alive and in the Same Condition as They Arrived; Your Loved Ones Count On It." 

To see a list of our 7 safety goals, please visit our website.  You can click on the International Decorator's website link to the right of this article.  Once on our website, you will see a link or button along the left column called "Safety."  Click on the safety button and that will bring you to a list of safety links or buttons on the right side of the safety page.  The top button contains our safety goals. 

Make today another safety one; your loved ones are counting on you being there for them this weekend!