Safety People- You Might Not Always Like Us, But You Need Us

When I got home last night, I heard the sound of construction. I looked and saw that a crew was reroofing the senior citizen high rise building down the street. What do I do? I hurry and change clothes, grab my camera, and head down to investigate. Why would I do this? Well, roofers are notorious for not using fall protection. Here is what I found:

As I was taking pictures, the guy I assume was the crew leader and I had a brief chat that went like this:

Crew Leader: "Taking some pictures of some people hard at work?"

Me: "I'm taking some pictures of people ready to fall to their death" (As I was telling the story at work today my friend asked if I actually said "fall to their death". I said "Have you met me?")

Crew Leader: "There's no way they can fall"

Is this guy kidding? For your reference, the OSHA standard for construction (the rules that apply here) says fall protection must be used any time a worker is 6 or more feet about the ground or next level. Let's see, yep, definitely more than 6 feet. In fact, I later saw them on the very top level (3rd roofline). They were still working this way last night at 8:30 PM in the dark with no additional lighting. This area is not lit at night. REALLY safe. I talked to someone who works for the government entity that owns the building being roofed. He's incredulous too.

This morning I sent these pictures out to everyone at my company asking them to figure out what's unsafe. My people, who aren't roofers, got it immediately. I also called and complained to OSHA. I thought about not doing so, but if that were my brother up there, I would want someone to report it. I also sent them these pictures and asked them to keep me posted of what happens.

Are safety people always popular? That would be a resounding "NO". I've heard it said that as a safety person you never have to worry about anyone gunning for your job. Very true. I also remember something my mom told my brother when he was complaining about the safety person at a place he used to work- if you are liked as a safety person you probably aren't doing your job. There's a lot of wisdom in that statement. But just because you don't always like us doesn't mean you don't need us.