From the "I Caught You" Series

At International Decorators, we have a habit of catching our employees working safely. Below are a few action shots of our employees being caught in action working in a safe manner.

Great job everyone! You are helping us to live up to our safety mission statement which is:

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

Rodrigo Galvan was caught working safely on a ladder while tied off with fall arrest equipment using a Spider Bolt concrete fall protection anchor, retractable lanyard and safety harness.


Great job - Rodrigo!

 Jamie Martinez was caught doing the exact same thing as Rodrigo mentioned above.

You guys are doing it right!

Also, great job to Reynaldo Lagunas for coming up with this fall protection plan for this challenging situation!

Nelson Martinez was caught appropriately tying off with fall arrest equipment while working on a roof that has a low parapet wall.

Nelson is using a Standing Seam Roof Anchor as his 5,000 lb fall protection anchorage point along with a 30' cable retractable.       Great job Nelson!

Framer, Vince Cavanaugh, was caught working safely on a concrete roof while building a parapet wall.  Vince had some help with his fall protection planning from our "Competent Fall Protection Person," Kent Cutshall. Great job with planning and implementation - gentlemen!

 Drywaller, Jose Perez was caught using a portable A-frame step ladder in a safe appropriate manner.  Alejandro has the spreader arms fully open and in the locked position and he is standing on the ladder at a safe rung level height.  Jose remembered that you cannot stand on the top 2 steps of portable step ladders!

 Our tapers at Centegra Hospital have installed rebar caps over the end of their mud mixing paddles to serve as impalement protection.

Great job - Gildardo, Rafael, Fernando and the rest of your crew!

Filimon Mendez was caught safely tying off with fall arrest equipment while climbing in and out of a shaft at Centegra Hospital.

I asked Filimon what he was doing and he said - "Safety Pete, I am just hanging around."

This is what International Decorator's safety culture is all about and it is our employees/family members that make it happen!

Have a Safe Day!

I.D.I. to Participate in National Fall Prevention Stand-Down on 5/11/15!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees,

OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) is promoting to all construction companies to participate in a National Fall Prevention Safety Stand-Down.  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, accounting for 302 of the 828 construction workers that died at work in 2013.  Those deaths were preventable!

What is a Fall Prevention Safety Stand-Down?  A Safety Stand-Down is a voluntary event for employers to talk directly to employees about "Fall Hazards and to reinforce the importance of the "Fall Prevention."

OSHA is promoting this Fall Prevention Safety Stand-Down on billboards in the Chicago Area.

I.D.I. will be participating in this Safety Stand-Down and here is how: 

On Monday, 5/11/15 we are advising all Safety Coordinators 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 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?  After gathering your crews and performing the toolbox talk, have our employees, including yourself, sign the toolbox talk signature roster and turn that into our Safety Director as usual.  We in turn have to advise OSHA as to how many employees participated in the Stand-Down.  OSHA's goal is to have 1 million construction workers participate in the Stand-Down. 

Let's work as a team to make this Safety Stand-Down a success by getting everyone involved and participating.  We thank you in advance for your help and for being a leader of safety.  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!

Ladder Safety - 6/6/15!!!!

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees, 

As most of you know, our next volunteer quarterly safety meeting is being held on Saturday, June 6th from 7:00am to 9:00am.  We have finalized our safety training topic and it is going to be on Ladder Safety.  We have had a few incidents over the past couple of months involving employees incorrectly using ladders, which fortunately did not lead to any injuries.  We will have representative from Werner Ladders at our meeting helping out with this safety training session. 

Ladder related fatalities are one of the number one killers in construction.  It is difficult to find current exact data on how many construction workers died involving a ladder, however, in 2011 there were a total of 34,500 employees of companies who sought medical care for ladder related injuries.  There were 15,460 employees of companies who had lost-time injuries involving ladders and 113 ladder related fatalities.  We don't want for our employees/family members to become one of these statistics. 

Please mark your calendar for June 6th at 7:00am. 

Final note - our last 2 volunteer quarterly safety meetings went way past 9:00am and that can be aggravating to those who expect to get out of there by 9:00am.  We understand this aggravation and we will ensure that our June 6th meeting is over by 9:00am.

We will advertise this meeting further as we get closer to the meeting date.  If you have any questions about this meeting or about safety in general, you are encouraged to contact our Safety Director, Safety Pete at (847) 417-1689. 

Have a Safe Day!

Da Hawks Win!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees,

In case you live under a rock and just crawled out from under it this morning, the Blackhawks won a triple overtime thriller last night that ended around 1:30am in the morning.  Many employees of I.D.I. are Blackhawk's fans and many of the diehards may have stayed up until the very end of the game.  We could have some fatigued employees this morning.  For everybody's safety, we need to ensure that our employees are "fit for duty."  We are asking everybody to keep an eye on eachother today.  If you notice an employee is overly fatigued, drowsy, etc., please talk to that employee about stopping work and going home safely.  If you observe an employee working unsafely due to the fatigue, it should be reported to your job site supervisor or superintendent for the safety of the fatigued employee so that he/she doesn't get injured or injure somebody else.  Please help out our family members by keeping an eye on eachother for everybody's well being.  If you have any questions, you are encouraged to call our Safety Director, Safety Pete at (847) 417-1689. 

Go Hawks - Have a Safe Day!







Online OSHA 30-Hour Course for $115.00

Good afternoon I.D.I. employees,

As you all know, as part of our 2015 Volunteer Safety Training Incentive Program, we offer 100 safety training incentive points per hour for safety training courses taken outside of our company.  If anyone is interested in taking the Construction OSHA 30-Hour course online over the internet, it is now being offered through the Lake County Contractors Association (LCCA) for $115.00.  The is the lowest price that we have found anywhere.  LCCA is now offering this to its members only at this low price.  I.D.I. is a member of LCCA. 

If any employees want to take this course or if you have any questions about this course, please contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham at pgraham@4idi.com.  Just send Safety Pete an e-mail and he will contact you. 

Unfortunately this course is not yet being offered in Spanish at this price. 

Have a Safe Day!

Green Tape on All 3-Pronged Electrical Tools & Extension Cords as of 4/1/15!

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees:

We begin a new quarter on Wednesday, 4/1/15 for our Assured Grounding Program. We provided green tape for distribution to the Safety Coordinators at our volunteer quarterly safety meeting that was held on 2/28/15.  To all Safety Coordinators - please help keep our employees safe and help keep us OSHA compliant by following our assured grounding program. Please 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 the lead person. 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 lead person. 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 Grounding Program. The green tape shall remain in place from 4/1/15 through 6/30/15. You are not quite done yet! All employees 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!

Next Volunteer Quarterly Safety Meeting on Saturday, 6/6/15

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees,

Just getting the word out that our next Volunteer Quarterly Safety Meeting has been scheduled for Saturday, June 6th, 2015 at 7:00am at our Barrington office. 

We will advertise this further over the next few months including the safety training topic, etc. 

That is all!

Have a Safe Day!