Patrick W. Saltmarsh Corporate Safety Director J. Derenzo Companies
SAFET Y (Noun): Freedom from Harm or Danger
A
“If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results.” ~ Stephen Covey
s employers, we are obligated to provide and maintain a safe working environment for our employees. Whether it is excavating in the roadway for underground utilities or reviewing timesheets in the payroll department, employees must be operating in a work zone (or office) where their physical safety is cared for. At its core, workplace safety is a requirement that employers must identify and control known hazards in the workplace, and maintain those safety controls that will afford employees a mitigated level of risk. Perhaps the best we can do is agree that there is no whimsical state of “freedom from harm or danger,” as there is always a chance, a risk, that something will go wrong, no matter how small the incident may be. Therefore, the management of daily jobsite health and safety is a group effort and must be accomplished together. Employers cannot be held solely responsible for jobsite safety. Employees must also be mindful and safety conscious about their work environment and the conditions and manner in which they perform their work. For example, employers are required to provide the necessary training (i.e. roadway safety training, hoisting/rigging safety, Keolis RWP training, etc.) for their employees, however the employees should be held equally responsible to put into practice the lessons learned during his/her training, to help mitigate jobsite risks to their safety and well-being. Unfortunately, jobsite accidents are simply a reality and are a direct result of unsafe employee behavior and jobsite conditions, both of which must be conNOVEMBER, 2020
Hand digging was performed to locate and expose the buried utility, however there is too much reliance on the excavator to dig within the tolerance zone of the buried utility. Vacuum excavation would be the improved “control strategy” during this roadwork operation.
trolled by onsite foremen (supervisors). Foremen are responsible for the daily work plan, into which workers inter-react and perform the required tasks. Management of workers and their behaviors can prove to be difficult. Nonetheless, employees must be provided with information, and come to understand, that accidents are not an inevitable condition of the job, but are caused by unsafe employee behaviors. Accident prevention in construction is not just a matter of posting a list of jobsite rules, or performing daily safety inspections, although both of these do have their place. What is truly beneficial, is a control strategy, which works towards removcontinued on page 55
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