Introduction
Construction industry is amongst the largest industries in the world. It involves rebuilding of devastated areas either by natural or man-made catastrophes (E-facts 1). The industry incorporates man power, services and communications to meet the needs and expectations of people in the world.
Even with the recent technological advancement, construction industry still remains number one hirers of human labor. Statistics shows that it covers about 9% to 12% of the worlds’ working nation. It is expected to rise to 20% by 2015. According to study done by construction Industry (NACE sector F), the construction contributed approximately EUR 470 billion to the eu-15 economy.
This represents about 5.2% of the GDP of the EU-15. Additionally, survey by Labor Force Survey in 2002 showed that construction sector employed about 12.7 Million workers which represented about 7.9% of the EU-15. The construction industry has grown continuously at a steady pace of 9% (European Agency for Safety and Health Work 3).
However, this continuous growth and activity in the industry comes with a price to pay. There so many accidents recorded in the industry. It is difficult to give a statistical number of accidents in the industry as quite large number of the accidents goes undetected and unreported. Nevertheless, it is confirmed that most countries, fatal accidents in the construction accidents exceed those in other manufacturing industries.
Factors that contribute to the accidents include the nature of the working environment such as exposure to weather and are often of over short life constructions. Additionally, there are high proportion of uninsured firms and self-employed workers. Actually, the industry has a large number of seasonal and migrants workers. Often these workers are unfamiliar with the construction principles and processes (ILO 1).
Falls at the construction
Falls from constructions are very dangerous. Depending on the height through which a person is likely to fall and the kind of surface on which the falling person is likely to fall. This calls for a tough requirement for the construction companies to implement so as to ensure that employees are well protected.
Visiting most construction site one would notice one common factor- negligence on protective measures by the workers. Interview them and you would realize that they hardly know anything regarding fall protection.
For instance, on a certain Friday of the year, an estimator visited construction site A to look at a cedar shake roof to estimate the cost of the construction. Speaking to a supervisor of the site, he climbed to the roof through open skylight by climbing a metal extension ladder. He was unaware that the contractor actually had used a sheet of thin insulating roof material to cover three 2 by 6 foot skylight openings in the roof.
He stepped onto the insulating material and pooof! He landed on his back 15 feet below. As the supervisor and the employees heard the estimator fall, they hurried to the scene of accident. The estimator was rushed to the hospital five minutes later with serious spinal injuries. In this scenario, who should be held responsible of the incident? What should be learnt from this scenario to ensure safety at the construction site? (Geigle 7).
From this case study and many others not mentioned here, it is clear that falls constitute the major injuries at the construction sites. These accidents are generally facilitated by a large number of factors.
This calls for the establishment of standard for fall protection. Safety standards have been established and been revised to prevent employees from falling off at the construction sites: “The rule covers most construction workers except those inspecting, investigating, or assessing workplace conditions prior to the actual start of work or after all work has been completed” (OSHA 1).
These standards are used to find out the areas where workers require reinforcement against falls. These could include but not limited to excavations, walkways. Runways unprotected sides and edges, roofing work, wall openings amongst others (OSHA 1).
Importance of establishing safety in the construction site
According to the European Survey of Working Conditions in 2000, the average rate of absenteeism in the construction industry is said to be 30 million days annually. This implies that an average of 7.3 days of illness absence from place of work is reported.
Out of this, 32% of the absentees are due to accidents related illnesses, 28% are non accident but work related complications and a 40% non work, no-accident related health issues. European Statistics on Accidents at work (ESAW) in 2000 revealed that there are about 822 thousands accidents cases of which 1200 of them are fatal accidents in the EU-15.
This implies that about 18% of nonfatal accidents and 24% fatal accidents at work place are reported annually. This figure is not exhaustive as most of sectors do not report the accidents such as public sector and self employed sectors. Generally, it can be concluded that there are many other accidents in the construction sites and that the incidence rate of non fatal accidents at work is a twofold compared to the fatal.
Of these accidents described above in the construction industry, about 200 workers die from falls at the construction sites. About 100 000 suffer from severe injuries. These fatal accidents and injuries have led to the establishment of standards to manage the safety such as OSHA standard for fall protection (European Agency for Safety and Health Work 3).
The protection is required because the employees at the construction sites can lose grip and slip or can trip and misstep at anytime. Thinking that the workers reflexes should guide and protect him is unrealistic as people fall inadvertently and may suffer serious damage or even die. Most of falls reported at the construction sites results from ladders, roofs and scaffolds. They are often caused by loss of balance due to tripping, miscalculated steps and slipping.
The most common types of falls the construction sites includes falls from ladders, roofs, stationery vehicles, falls down stairs, from scaffolds and from girders and structural steels amongst others. This calls for a fall protection standards to be emphasized at the construction sites to alleviate the emotional, physical and economical suffering experienced by the affected individual, his relations the contractor and the government at large (Geigle 18).
Improvement of safety and healthy working conditions is very essential to all stake holders in the industry and the government. Safety measures are all efforts planned and implemented with the intention of preventing accidents and ill- health. Time and again, the construction managers have been dealing with factors to minimize injuries to the workers.
They forget that improving the working conditions of the employee enhances to a greater extent the safety of the employee. This is because in any construction industry there are more dangerous incidents than injuries themselves. Therefore, safety management refers to all activities carried out with the objectives of ensuring the environment is safe, the job itself is and in ensuring the workers themselves are safety conscious.
Efficient safety management system should focus at
- training the employees at all levels on the key operations such as crane operations, scaffolders amongst others;
- establish a safe procedure to follow in case of hazardous operations;
- identify the duties and responsibilities of the supervisors and key workers;
- establish the methods that will be used to campaign for safety and health (ILO 3).
For that reason, it is everybody’s role to prevent falls at the construction industry. For instance, the employers should familiarize themselves with all potential hazards at the site and eliminate them immediately to ensure there are no incidences of falls; and in case they occur, it will leave no one injured.
Employers should also emphasize the importance of safe practices such as proper equipment usage and provide refresher trainings on the safety management techniques. Employees on the other hand should follow work safe practices; use the machines and equipments appropriately.
They should actively participate in the safety management training and adopt what learnt into their daily operations. The employees should also be in a position to know what safe and unsafe practice is and identify the activities that increase fall risks in order to control exposure to fall hazards. Other professionals associating with the individuals at the work place should also educate on safety management trainings.
These include architects, engineers, inspectors, assessors and others. Architects and engineers should train the other workers on the hazards that expose them to falls during every phase of the project. Additionally, as they design the constructions, they should consider fall protection amongst other safety requirements required during the entire project (Excavation 1).
The owners and the managers should ensure that the inspectors of the project are acquainted adequately on measures and falls protection skills. They should insist on installation of anchorage. The manufacturers of the equipment should ensure that the equipments meets all the measures and standards set by the OSHA and ANSI safety requirements to protect the workers adequately.
The machines should be accompanied by manuals with detailed operational procedures and troubleshooting techniques. Any potential danger of the equipment should be explained elaborately especially those which involves improper use of the equipment. The last parties to be discussed are the lawyers.
It is their role and responsibility to ensure that the clients’ construction binds and comply with all OSHA requirements. Before signing of the documents, the client should be explained in an elaborative manner and clearly on his responsibilities in workers protection from falls and other forms injuries to ensure that client understands the repercussions that come with the negligence of such matters. If everyone takes his responsibility seriously, then the incidences of falls and other hazardous injuries will decline significantly (OSHA 1).
OSHA Principles and concepts on falling issues
The US department of labor has established an occupational safety & health administration (OSHA) has set up standards with the aim of reducing the number of deaths and injuries arising from the construction sites. According to OSHA, falls is the leading fatalities in the construction industry. There are approximated 200 deaths reported cases annually with more than 100, 000 an injury arising from falls at the construction sites.
The measures against falling is observed to ensure that workers as well as tools do not fall as this will be risky those who pass by and fellow workers. The standards emphasizes on the establishment of protection systems in every situation. Safety systems have to be put in place by experts to ensure that safety levels are boosted. The employees should be supervised properly and be trained on the proper selection, use and maintenance of the equipments. OSHA carried out a revision on its measures:
According to OSHA, the work area should be clearly marked and designated (controlled access zones). This is to ensure that the workers and intruders are kept out and that only the authorized persons are allowed to access. These zones should be strongly so that they a reliable support.
The working zones should be of some good stability: the surface must be rigid and tough to support heavy loads and thus avoid unnecessary collapsing. The strength of the zones should be tough. For employees dealing with excavations, the employee at the edge that is more than 6 feet deep must be protected from falling using a guardrail systems, barricades or covers.
For employees moving vertically or horizontally using a rebar requires no fall protection as OSHA considers that the rebar provides similar protection. Additionally, no protection is required by an employee moving to heights below 24 feet. However, fall protection must be offered to those climbing or moving to heights more than 24 feet. Employees in a hoist area must be protected from falling 6feet or more according to OSHA fall protection standards.
If the protection is to be removed for any reason, the worker must remain leaning on the access opening in order to be protected. In addition, the employee must be protected by a personal arrest system. When dealing with holes deeper than 6 feet, the employee must be protected by erected personal systems around the holes such as guardrail.
When working near edges of a construction higher and or lower than 6 feet, the employee must be protected using fall protection system. This also applies when working on overhand bricklaying and related work and precast concrete erection and other residential constructions that have heights higher or lower than that 6 feet (OSHA 1).
The fall protection systems and criteria approved by OSHA include the guardrail systems. If the employer chooses the guardrail to protect the workers than the top rails and midrails must be at least one quarter inch nominal diameter to prevent incidences of cuts and lacerations.
Where are “wire and ropes are used for top rails, it should be flagged at about 6 feet intervals with high visibility material” (Geigle 23). Some the materials that must not be used as top rails and midrails include manila plastic or synthetic rope. The top sedge height toprails guardrails must be 42 inches with an allowance of 8 centimeters. Additionally, the guardrail should withstand a force of at least 200 pounds. It has been noted that “at holes the guardrail systems should be set up on all unprotected sides or edges” (Geigle 23).
The next protection system advocated by OSHA is the personal fall arrest systems. The fall protection system consists of connectors, belts, an anchorage or body harness. The following criterion has been established a limit maximum arresting force on an employee to 900pounds should be used with a body belt. For employee weighing about 1800 or more a body harness should be used.
The personal arrest systems must be rigged to ensure that the worker cannot fall. It is also important to bring the worker to a complete maximum deceleration distance in order to have sufficient strength that can with stand the potential of an employee falling.
OSHA also emphasizes on the importance of monitoring safety systems. This ensures that the all fall hazards are recognized. This way the workers can be trained on the dangers of the detected unsafe work practices. Regarding warning line systems, they should not be flagged at intervals more than 6 feet. The flagging should be done with highly visible material (Excavation 12).
Lastly, OSHA emphasizes on the importance of training. The training teacher should be well acquainted in ways to identify hazards and how to minimize them.
The trainer should offer training in the following areas recommended by OSHA
- the nature of common hazards at the sites of the construction area;
- the appropriate procedure to erect, maintain, inspect and dissemble fall protection systems;
- the proper use of controlled access zones and guardrail, personal fall arrest, warning line and the safety monitoring;
- the role of each party in ensuring that safety is maintained when the all protection systems are in use;
- the limitation on the improper use of machines and equipments;
- the appropriate way to handle the equipment and materials handling and their storage and the importance of erection of overhead protection and lastly;
- the role and benefits of employees fall protection plans.
OSHA demands that all the workers have to be trained on handling emergence. The document must be signed by employer, the trainer and the trainees (Geiglen 45).
Conclusion
In summation, the safety managers should ensure that the working environment is favorable. This includes enough working space to allow employees work safely. The roofs, floors and other surfaces should be constructed and maintained to minimize the possibility of falls and to ensure movement at the work place is not hindered. Additionally, the lighting at the place should be adequate to allow easier flow of activities at the work place.
There should be no excessive glare of reflection but the lighting should be enough for safe operations. Another crucial thing is that the working environment should be well ventilated with adequate air movement to avoid too hot or too cold circulation of air in the place of work.
There should also be adequate personal protective equipment to the employees. Giving the employees enough rest regimes helps in maintaining the physical fitness of their general health. Noise should be minimized if possible or alternatively the individuals should be disallowed to be at place with excessive noise exceeding eight hours.
Lastly, other regulations should be maintained such as fire prevention, well fitted electricity cables to minimize electrocution, working heights and appropriate manual handling of machines and proper ventilations. The OSHA principles and concepts should be followed to the latter to significantly minimize the number of falls and other injuries in the construction industry.
Works Cited
E-facts. “Hazards and risks associated with manual handling in the work place.” European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 2012. Web.
European Agency for Safety and Health Work. “Actions to improve safety and health in construction.” Magazine of the European Agency for safety and Health at work, 2004. Web.
Excavation. “Excavation, Trenching and shoring safety and OSHA’s Excavation Standard.” AFSCE Training and Education Institute Manual. Web.
Geigle, Steven. “OSHAcademy Course 714study guide: Fall protection.” Geigle Safety Group Inc., 2012. Web.
ILO. “Safety, health and welfare on construction sites. A training manual.” International Labor Organization, 2000. Web.
OSHA. “US Department of Labor website.” OSHA, 2012. Web.