SAFETY

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SAFETY
CHAPTER - 17
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SAFETY IN TRENCHES

• The Need Even though heavy construction
  equipment such as a crane or backhoe excavators
  is used to perform the task of pipe laying in the
  trench, workers required to be inside the trench
  to guide the excavation, pipe laying and final
  alignment
• The work place safety has become a major concern
  in the construction industry over the past few
  decades and trench cave-ins have caused serious
  and fatal injuries to workers in the U.S.
• However, even when support system (shoring,
  shielding and sloping) are used, the danger of
  cave-ins still exist due to nature of soil and
  unexpected circumstances
• The construction Automation and Robotics
  Laboratory (CARL) at NC State University has
  developed an alternate which involves advance
  technology the prototype robotic excavation and
  pipe installation system called pipeman

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The Technology

• The basic pipeman concept consists of a 3D
  spatial positioning system (SPS), which is
  interfaced with an excavator to provide the
  location of the excavator and a beam laser
• The main components of the concept are the
  man-machine interface, actuation system, laser
  beam and feedback system
• The man-machine interface is used to keep the
  operator in a safe area and allow him to guide
  the pipeman intelligently, while pipeman works in
  a hazardous environment

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Layout of the Robotic Trenching and Pipe System
Pipe Manipulator Mounted on the Excavator
Overview of Pipe Manipulator
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NEED FOR SAFE PRACTICE

• A disabling injury or fatal accident on the job
  site has negative impact on operations at many
  levels
• Accidents cost money and affect worker morale
• Because of the type of work involved in
  construction, many dangers exist for both the
  workers and the public
• For this reason, the subject of safety offers one
  area of non-controversial mutual interest between
  management and workers
• The annual number of fatalities in the
  construction industry in 2003 exceeded the number
  of combat deaths during the first 18 months of
  armed conflict in Iraq (2003-2004)
• Construction is a dangerous business
• It is contractors responsibility to see that
  everything possible is done to provide a safe
  working environment for the workforce and the
  public in general
• The factors that motivate safe practices at the
  job site are generally identified as follows
• 1) Humanitarian concerns 2) Economic costs and
  benefits 3) Legal and regulatory consideration
• Society has taken the position that because of
  the high health and accident potential intrinsic
  to the construction industry, the contractor must
  accept the liabilities associated with this
  hazardous environment and make an appropriate
  commitment to safe practice and accident
  prevention

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HUMANITARIAN CONCERNS

• It is normally accepted that day-to-day living
  has intrinsic risks that may result in members of
  the society being subjected to mental and
  physical hardship
• One of the functions of society is to minimize
  pain and suffering
• Particularly at the level of the work site,
  society has defined the principle that the
  employer is responsible for providing a safe
  environment for the workforce.
• Over the past 120 years, the principle of
  employer liability for death and injury resulting
  from accidents or health hazards occurring at the
  workplace has been firmly established in common
  law
• The courts have further charged the employer with
  the following five (5) responsibilities
• 1) to provide a reasonably safe work place 2) to
  provide reasonably safe appliances, tools and
  equipment 3) to use reasonable care in selecting
  employees 4) to enforce reasonable safety rules
  5) to provide reasonable instructions regarding
  the dangers of employment
• Mandatory requirements for the employer to make
  formal provision for injuries and deaths on the
  job resulted in the enactment of workmens
  compensation laws in all fifty states during the
  first half of the 20th century

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ECONOMIC COSTS AND BENFITS

• Safety costs can be broken into three categories
  as follows
• Direct costs of previous accidents
• Insurance premiums and ratings
• Mandatory accident prevention methods
• Records, safety personnel
• Direct cost of each accident occurrence
• Delay to project
• Uninsured damages
• Indirect cost
• Investigation
• Loss of skilled workers
• Loss of equipment
• Loss of production

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ECONOMIC COSTS AND BENFITS CONTD.

• Direct costs from previous accident came
  primarily in the form of insurance premiums,
  which have a significant effect on a contractors
  operating expense
• Workmens compensation and liability insurance
  premiums can be calculated using either manual or
  merit rating systems
• Manual ratings are based on the past losses of
  the industry as a whole. The premium rate for
  compensation is normally set by the individual
  State Compensation Rating Bureaus
• The rates are set and approved by each state
  insurance commissioner which are known as the
  manual (standard) rates
• The manual rates are published by ENR
• A listing of some of the rates as reported in the
  R.S. Means is given in fig. 17-1
• The merit rating system bases premiums on a
  particular companys safety record. High risk
  (high accident rates) companies are penalized
  with higher premiums than those paid by companies
  with low accident rates.

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ECONOMIC COSTS AND BENFITS CONTD.

• Once the premiums reach a value of 1,000, the
  contractor is eligible for a merit system rating.
  That is, the cost of premiums will be
  individually calculated with the safety record of
  the company being the critical consideration
• Under the merit system there are two basic
  methods utilized to incorporate the safety record
  into the final cost of the premium. These are
  referred to as the experience rating and
  retrospective rating methods
• Most insurance carriers use the experience rating
  method, which is based on the companys record
  for the past 3 years and not including the most
  recent preceding year
• In this system, an experience modification rate
  (EMR) is multiplied by the manual rate to
  establish the premium for a given firm
• Data on losses, the actual project being insured,
  and other variables are considered in deriving
  the EMR
• If the company has an EMR rate of 75, it will
  pay 75 of the manual premium
• Good experience ratings (EMRs) can lead to
  significant savings. See pg. 294 for the example
  to determine the savings over the standard premium

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Figure 17-1 Compensation Insurance Base Rates
for Construction Workers
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UNINSURED ACCIDENT COSTS

• In addition to the cost of insurance premiums,
  additional direct costs for things such as the
  salary of the safety engineer and its staff as
  well as costs associated with the implementation
  of a good safety program can be identified
• The precise amount of the costs associated with
  other safety cost categories is more difficult to
  assess, and these costs can be thought of as
  additional uninsured costs resulting from
  accidents
• Typical uninsured costs associated with an
  accident are shown in table 17-1
• Although varying slightly from source to source,
  hidden losses of this variety have been estimated
  to be as much as nine times the amount spent on
  comprehensive insurance
• In addition to the costs noted in table 17-1,
  another cost is that of paying an injured
  employee to show up for work even if he cant
  perform at his best. This is common practice for
  minor injuries
• This is done to avoid recording a lost time
  accident, which might impact the insurance
  premium
• While it is very common to return injured workers
  to work, it is important that they not be
  returned too soon to avoid their being injured
  again or injured seriously
• The situation on pg. 296 illustrates the
  additional losses resulting from hidden costs

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Table 17-1 Uninsured Costs
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FEDERAL LEGISLATION AND REGULATION

• The federal government implemented a formal
  program of mandatory safety practices in 1969
  with the passage of the Construction Safety Act
  as an amendment to the Contract Work Hours
  Standard Act
• This legislation requires contractors working on
  federally funded projects to meet certain
  requirements to protect the worker against health
  and accident hazards
• This program of required procedures has been
  referred to as a physical approach to achieving
  safety
• A typical physical measure of this type is the
  requirement to install guard rails around all
  open floors of a multistory building during
  construction
• Another example of this is the requirement to
  wear a safety belt when working with high steel,
  and the installation of safety nets to protect a
  man who slips and falls
• The physical approach is in contract to the
  behavioral approach that is designed to make all
  levels of workforce from top management to the
  laborer think in a safe way and thus avoid unsafe
  situations

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FEDERAL LEGISLATION AND REGULATION CONTD

• In 1970 Congress passed the Occupational Safety
  and Health Act (OSHA) . This act established
  mandatory safety and health procedures to be
  followed by all firms operating in interstate
  Commerce
• Under this act, all employees are required to
  provide employment and a place of employment
  which are free from recognized hazards that are
  causing or likely to cause death or serious
  physical harm to his employees
• OSHA falls under the jurisdiction of the
  Secretary of Labor
• The schematic development of the legislation is
  shown in fig. 17-2
• OSHA legislation allows individual states to
  establish programs that operate in place of the
  federal program. Presently 26 states operate
  approved state plans
• Many contractors prefer a state operated program
  since this affords a closer contact with the
  inspector and the regulatory agency

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Figure 17-2 Development of OSHA Legislation
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OSHA REQUIREMENTS

• Employers must make, keep and preserve and make
  available to representatives of the Secretaries
  of Labor and HHS records of recordable
  occupational injuries and illnesses
• Any fatal or serious accidents must be reported
  within 8 hours
• Certain records of job related fatalities,
  injuries and illnesses must be maintained by the
  firms having eight or more employees
• The two key forms that must be available for
  review when a Compliance Officer makes an
  inspection are
• OSHA 300 this is s log that summarizes each
  reportable case as a single line entry and must
  be posted for employee inspection (see fig.
  17-3). You must post the summary 300A only and
  not the log (form 300) by February 1 of the year
  following the year covered by the form and keep
  it posted until April 30 of that year
• First report of injury example in fig. 17-4
• These records must be preserved for 5 years
• The employer is also required to post at the work
  site records of citations and notices of
  employees rights

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Figure 17-3 OSHA Form 300
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Figure 17-4 Typical First Report of
Injury/Illness Form
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HOW THE LAW APPLIED

• The IO OSHA regional and area offices employ
  inspectors whose duties include visits to active
  projects to determine if the builders are
  conforming to the regulation
• The OSHA legislation allows state plan states
  as long as the program is at least as effective
  as the federal OSHA provisions
• An inspection can be initiated at random by OSHA
  or State safety inspectors or by an employee (or
  his union who submits a written statement to the
  Labor Dept. that he believes there is a violation
  that threatens physical harm or imminent danger
• All inspectors must be unannounced
• It is not unusual that the contractor requires a
  warrant prior to permitting entry to the work
  site
• This changes the surprise nature of the
  inspection and allows the work site supervisor to
  prepare for the inspection
• The inspection is divided into four parts
• 1) An opening conference with the employer, 2)
  selection of a representative of the employees
  and the employer to accompany the inspector on a
  tour of the workplace 3) the walk around
  inspection, the inspector is allowed to talk with
  any employees 4) the closing conference during
  which the inspector discusses the conditions and
  practices he observed
• Correction of any items mentioned by the safety
  officer in the closing conference for which there
  is no basis for appeal should be corrected
  immediately
• Fines may be proposed with the citations. The
  employer is allowed 15 days to appeal a penalty
• Table 17-2 is a list of OSHA standards
  representing job site physical hazards that are
  cited as violations
• Material Safety Data (MSDs) must be maintained
  for each hazardous substance
• Failure to abate within the given time period can
  result in a fine of 7,000 a day for the period
  the violation persists

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Table 17-2 OSHA Standards Most Commonly Cited
for Violations
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SAFETY RECORD KEEPING

• Documentation under the William-Steiger Act is
  required as follows Every employer who is
  covered under this act must keep occupational
  injury and illness records for his employees in
  the establishment in which his employees usually
  report to work
• The OSHA law requires employers to keep both a
  log of recordable occupational injuries and
  illnesses and a supplementary record of each
  injury or illness. These records must be kept up
  to date and should be available to government
  representation
• Poster entitled Safety and Health Protection on
  the Job shall be posted in a similar manner
• Reporting at the job site level breaks into six
  reporting levels as follows
• 1) First aid log 2) first report of injury log 3)
  supervisors accident investigation report 4)
  project accident report 5) OSHA required Injury
  Report (OSHA 300) and 6) Fatality or major
  accident report
• A typical accident report form is shown in fig.
  17-5

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Figure 17-5 Project Accident Report
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SAFETY PROGRAM

• A good job safety program should be founded on
  1) safety indoctrination of all new personnel
  arriving at the site 2) continuous inspection for
  possible safety hazards 3) regular briefings to
  increase the safety awareness of personnel at all
  levels 4) written programs and documentation
  specifying all safety activities
• If workers or supervisors flagrantly neglect
  safety rules and regulations, warning should be
  considered
• It is good practice to personally brief all
  employees arriving on site regarding job
  procedures. A briefing sheet is shown in fig.
  17-6 and is an effective aid for conducting this
  type of briefing
• Safety rules and regulations shown in fig. 17-7
  should be available in handout form and
  conspicuously posted around the job site
• General safety meetings conducted by the safety
  engineer should be held at least once a month
  with supervisors at the foreman and job steward
  level. A typical report for such a meeting is
  shown in fig. 17-8
• Foreman should hold at least one toolbox safety
  meeting each week to transfer the awareness to
  the workforce and discuss safety conditions with
  their crew
• In addition to the general safety meetings, each
  job should have at least a designated safety
  committee that meets regularly
• One of the purposes of the safety committee
  should be to make suggestions as how to improve
  overall job safety

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Figure 17-6 Job Briefing Sheet
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Figure 17-6 Continued