Masonry Magazine July 2005 Page. 12
Guest Columnist
OSHA Consultation Service
Zach Everett
Safety Director, Brazos Masonry, Inc.
I thought I saw something move in the shadows. Whatever it was, it was big. My heart began to race. It was watching me... my every move. I knew what it was, and I had seen its devastation before. In vain, I looked around for a way to escape but knew there was none.
My life began to flash before my eyes- family reunions at Grandma's, hunting and fishing with Dad, the day I met my wife. Then it happened: the most hideous, abhorrent beast that could ever exist was nearly upon me. It was huge, bearing teeth, claws and an ink pen. Spewing regulation after regulation, with no conscience. Ravaging general contractors, mauling subcontractors and insensitively writing citation after citation. It was our worst nightmare. Will it return? Is anyone safe!?!
Likely, this allegory is nearly word-for-word what your sentiment would be with respect to an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspector visiting your job site. No one likes the possibility of receiving costly fines for safety infractions. That being the case, how does purposefully inviting OSHA to your job site grab you? Some would sooner invite Freddy Krueger to their child's birthday party than invite OSHA to their job site. Well, that's precisely what I've done. Crazy? Maybe, but let me explain.
OSHA has had "the beast" reputation since the '70s, and some of it may be deserved. But like any successful behavior-based safety program, there has to be the positive side accentuated, not solely "the beast" mentality employed. OSHA figured this fact out as well and wants to try working with companies rather than against them. If OSHA can accomplish this, obviously it would make their job easier.
So, how is OSHA going to convince companies to come out from hiding from this "beast" and work with them? They are a masonry company's worst nightmare, so no one is going to work with them unless there is something in it for them, right? Here's their offer: first and foremost, if OSHA finds anything wrong, they will not issue any citations or penalties. Secondly, OSHA will offer professional services, such as an industrial hygienist which would normally cost thousands-all for free.
Firsthand Account
Some would sooner Invite Freddy Krueger to their child's birthday party than invite OSHA to their job site.
I immediately received a warm welcome from a man who seemed as, or maybe more, nervous than I was (or maybe it was the excitement for his job). He was very quick to point out that he "did not work on the enforcement side of OSHA." He was simply an industrial hygienist sent to take air samples for silica exposure, which is what I had requested.
(A point to be made here is that under the program you can limit the inspection or testing to specific operations. He could have looked at our hearing conservation program and set up testing for noise exposure, but that wasn't what I invited him out to do. Also, a company can set up a consultation that provides a thorough inspection of everything on a job site. When this is done they almost guarantee that you will pass an OSHA inspection; they will not issue citations or penalties for violations; and they will not report violations to "enforcement." What I was interested in was the sampling for silica exposure, so that's all they did.)
After our opening dialog we went to each employee who would be wearing the pumps, explained what we were doing and told them they would be notified of the results. The small pumps were calibrated and then mounted on their waists with a cyclone filter, or "sniffer," attached near their areas of inhalation. We hooked up the saw operator, a laborer who was carrying the cut block from
I had been on the road for a couple of hours already as I pulled up on the job at 7:30 a.m. I parked behind a little metallic gray PT Cruiser (I knew it had to belong to "the beast"). I have to admit, I was a little uneasy. I had read information on the Consultation Program and had spoken to the consultant on the phone at length, but this was my first encounter on a job site.