Tag Archives: 10 hour OSHA

Feedback on Drugs, Morons, and Steel

September 3, 2014 Wade Leave a comment

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Today I thought I would post some of the feedback comments. Mostly from the Drugs, Morons, and Steel post.

Concerning the incident in Norman, OK. I wanted to say how sad it is that those climbers yesterday got hurt. I hope they are OK. Let’s all pray that they will be OK. They all were working together to make it home and hopefully they will be with their families soon. Read more here.

First off, I had no idea there were so many experts on pot. Second, I had no idea that harder drugs were so rampant in the industry. Third, so many people thought that this article was about everybody in the industry. So I had many different kinds of feedback.

My overview. I was hoping to point out that when something bad happens the first thing that most people will look at is the drug test. If you don’t believe this, maybe you should wake up. The interesting thing is that most people took this to the extreme and thought I was calling all climbers potheads, which I was not. Some said I should have pointed out that climbers are doing hard drugs like crack and cocaine. I just wanted the tower worker to realize that if something bad happens the first thing that will be looked at will be the drug test when making a final evaluation on what happened. I want people to be conscientious when going to work. Granted there are so many things that could go wrong, why make your bad habits one of them to be blamed whether is had anything to do with it or not. Why risk your reputation or your job? If you still don’t understand this, then maybe it’s time to move on. Many tower workers I know are outstanding workers and people, it’s a shame that there are a few that make the majority look bad. Trust me, this is a hard job that deserves respect. Hard for more than the physical aspect or the fact you need to know so many different things to be successful. Most travel and are luck to be with their family for more than a weekend. It takes its toll on your personal like. Most climbers are a jack of all trades from steel to electrical to rigging to RF to Telecom and so much more. It’s not an easy job. It’s not just labor. It is a skilled profession. Many others in the industry forget all of that, they just expect it to be done quickly and on time. I believe it is time to start demanding skilled workers. With all of that said, I would bet there are still guys out there that crimp with pliers.

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STEEL

Let’s start with Steel, some people got back to me about what should be done to help make steel safer. Someone mentioned how dangerous it is to work on lights atop the tower. Here is what they said.

“Working on lights on top of masts there is rarely anything to tie off too. It’s excessively difficult to work inside a flash head when the flash head is your only way to hang on. I’ve been climbing 5 years and that’s the only time I get scared for my safety is when I’m at the top and cannot work safely due to lack of points to tie off too”

Another comment was about the guy wires and anchor points and that we should inspect them. So here are some pictures of some rusted guy wires someone gave me on Facebook. Comment, “Everybody is forgetting that the guy anchors need to be inspected. If rust is found please dig down to see if it is safe I have had to tie heads to heavy equipment then do repairs (install new anchor) to make tower safe.”

DRUGS & MORONS

OK, let’s move onto the drugs section. On Facebook so many people mentions the drugs section. Some of them mentioned that I should not bring this up because it is only a small amount of climber, which I believe. Then others brought up about the heavy drug use in the industry. I had no idea that crack and cocaine were so common. Most of the information I got back was about the time that THC stays in your system. I just have what is on the websites. That is why I put 3 sites up there to use as references.

Here is a great response, “I see you forgot to mention that THC metabolites can stay in your system for up to 90 days. So if I smoked legally on vacation in Colorado or Washington last month and get drug tested at work, I would fail and lose my job. Even though I was more aware and alert (being sober) than the other workers who are on prescription drugs with a huge list of side effects. Or what about the guy who smokes meth or crack? That crap is out of your system in 1-2 days. They would pass the drug test. If you want to test do an impairment test.” If you wrote this, all I ask is that you send me a link or a book to back it up. I honestly have no idea.

Another powerful comment, “I’d just like to say that weed is probably the smallest problem when it comes to climbers doing drugs. It’s just the one that stays detectable in your system the longest. There are much bigger problems with heroin, crack, coke, meth and the most widespread issue drug, alcohol. I would rather climb with a pot head than a drunk any day of the week.
Weed is addressed all the time in terms of safety while alcohol seems to be forgotten about. Someone who is hung over is much more likely to cause an accident that a pot head but they’ll pass a drug test almost every time.
It’s time that as an industry, we start looking towards the individual who is actually responsible for the incident rather than the one crew member who smoked some dope three weeks prior. We should be using drug tests to see who is more of a risk instead of using them to place blame after an incident.” This response makes some great points! However, if something goes wrong they will look at the blood work to see what they can find. It will become a legal issue, like it or not.

A note about drug testing from LinkedIn, “All safety sensitive positions should be mandatory drug tested. Blaming the pot head gets you nowhere. Start at the top (I know, shocking). When you do not implement proper procedures to manage your “safety sensitive” employees, you will have people do things on their own time that will no doubt have an effect on others. Legally you cannot test someone under federal law if they are employed and you have probable cause to test. It must be corporate policy. Only corporate policy can mandate when a random test can take place. It’s expensive and today, employers are gambling with everyone by not following their own policies. It’s not the pothead or the moron……it’s the CEO, not running the company.” I hear that drug testing is becoming more and more common.

One thing, I am told that drug tests are not always accurate. Sometimes they give a false positive. Make sure if you test positive and your company’s policy allows, you see the test results. If you did not do anything illegal and you test positive, then speak up or volunteer to be tested on a regular basis. There was a scam, I was told, going around where companies would ID employees as testing positive to fire them to cut headcount. This is a rumor but it would not surprise me. I try to be fair, I know if something bad happened then the drug testing might be blood to be more accurate. It would not be a swab, urine or blood. I just wanted to bring this up to be fair.

Feedback! Feedback! Feedback!

I talk about the new OSHA release on climbing and winches with Kelly Hill of RCR.

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NATE has announced their new Tower Family Foundation! It will launch September 10, 2014.

http://nationalassociationoftowererectors.cmail1.com/t/ViewEmail/t/27A57EA732B99C95/C62CEA3BAE9C840AC9C291422E3DE149

I wrote 2 books. One for the new tower climber, the green hand, to understand that will be expected. The other is a handy aid to help out when you are at the site. I am writing a new book to go over all of the paperwork that you could encounter on the job so you understand what you are working on and what you should be doing. You may expand to other jobs in the industry.

Kindle:

My PDF books so you can buy with PayPal:

Whistle blower information:

http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=330216

http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=OSHA-2011-0540-0001

Wade4Wireless BlogCast

NATE STAR and the Competent Person

August 29, 2014 Wade Leave a comment

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Hey, I was looking over the NATE webpage, (for those of you who are green NATE = National Association of Tower Erectors), and they have a new STAR program. (NATE did not ask me to write any of this, I just think it looks interesting!) Now, this has some interesting things in it and I would like to go over them. The page for the program is here. They will have a live webinar on September 23^rd at 11AM EDT. We should all learn from this if possible. Just a warning, it may be boring, I have attended some NATE webinars in the past and they are geared for the tower crew company owner. If you are a climber, keep that in mind! Don’t complain because they set this up to help the owner understand compliance. The guy speaking, Edwin G. Foulke, Jr, is what I would call a legal labor expert having been a leader at OSHA and now he is a partner in the firm Fisher and Phillips LLP. The guy’s write-up is on the web page and is impressive. Let’s see if he can help the tower industry.

First off, there is some free documentation that you should grab. These are all PDF documents that you can download. They may help you set the foundation for some of your checklists that you should already have.

They may not be all that you need but they will help you create your internal documentation. Use them for what they are, a tool and a starting point.

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So what else did I read in this? Well, let me tell you, if you go to the Eligibility and Requirements then you will see something very interesting. They put requirements on the training. Go to the “Requisite Levels of Training” section. They have 10 OSHA or equivalent for all personnel working at the tower site. I see that meaning not only the climbers, but the ground guys, the technicians, and the engineers. Even the construction workers building the shelter. Anyone who might be working at the tower site. Anyone there should have the 10 hour OSHA training. This is actually very common in all of the construction industry.

Then they state that the 30 hour OSHA training, or equivalent, is required for the competent person on site or the supervisor. Did you read that? They put the requirements, or at least one of them, on the competent person on the site. How many of you had the 30 hour OSHA training? I know many of you did but here it is actually put in writing that it should be required for the competent person on site. This is very important. Somebody has to lay down the requirements and NATE took the first step. This makes a difference as to who is considered a competent person. How many competent people have a 30 hour OSHA? You tell me.

OSHA defines a competent person here and here. They say that a competent person is capable of identifying 1) existing and predictable hazards, 2) working conditions that are unsanitary, hazardous, or dangerous to employees, and 3) who has authorization to take prompt corrective measures to eliminate them. “By way of training and/or experience, a competent person is knowledgeable of applicable standards, is capable of identifying workplace hazards relating to the specific operation, and has the authority to correct them. Some standards add additional specific requirements which must be met by the competent person”. In 1926.32(f) it states, “”Competent person” means one who is capable of identifying existing and predictable hazards in the surroundings or working conditions which are unsanitary, hazardous, or dangerous to employees, and who has authorization to take prompt corrective measures to eliminate them.” Get it? A competent person may not only identify the hazards but they have the ability to take corrective action. Who is your competent person on site? Would you take corrective action? Would you do it even if it costs your crew an extra day? Would you honestly?

Then NATE states that all people working above 6 feet should be trained in fall protection. Well that seems really obvious to me, but trained how? On the job or in a class or by the company or is it up to the companies discretion? It seems obvious that companies should do this but then again look at the company that was recently fined for sending workers up the tower unprepared.

So what are the requirements of your company? Are the standards in writing for the company. I often get mixed feedback. Some have a written policy while others don’t. We are living in a world where we need to document everything and we need to make sure we have it posted somewhere for all of the employees to see. Make sure that your company has everything available for everyone to see.

Defining the requirements is something that should be done day one, especially for a competent person. It should be changing as the industry changes, so it may change monthly. All requirements need to be in writing and they should be reviewed often. This industry is still maturing and as the bidding process may drive some prices down, safety should never be compromised. Safety is not cheap but neither is carelessness.

Tell me what you think!

BIG LOGS!

So how is your company at keeping safety and training logs? Do they do a good job? How do you know? Did you see them? Can you go back a year? Do they document the training? Do they keep a copy of all of your certifications? They should need them to present to the customer and the tower owner, so if they are not keeping them on record, in paper or soft copy, then what is going on? Maybe you want to look into that.

BIG BUTS!

When you ask you company for some of this information, do they say “yeah but”? Can they produce the documentation you ask for? Will they open up about how much they insure the job? Do they? We all have buts, and if they are big buts then you need to evaluate what is up their but. Due diligence is key to awareness and protection. Be aware of how your company is handling their logs and avoid the buts!

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