Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/620628
T ake a look at the photo and see if you can name the OSHA trench safety violations. There's a man in the trench – look closely, be- cause you can barely see him. Then, there are the eight men surrounding the newly excavated hole, putting pressure on the excavation face. There's no sloping, shielding or shoring – nothing to hold the soil back if it ever started to move. There's also no OSHA violation. Because these workers are employed by a city, not a private contractor, they don't come under OSHA, an exemption dating back to the original 1970 Occu- pational Safety and Health Act. Instead, the safety of governmental workers is covered by a hodge-podge of state laws. According to safety consulting firm J. J. Keller, 21 states, plus Puerto Rico, have adopted state plans that mirror OSHA regs for both public and pri- vate entities. These programs, which have received the blessing of OSHA, are state-run, but jointly funded by the federal and state government. Another five states, plus the Virgin Islands, have state plans that cover just the public sector. It gets more complicated. While they do not run state plans, six states (Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, West Virginia and Wisconsin) have what safety consultant BLR calls "comprehensive protections" for public sector workers that are at least as strict as OSHA regs. The level of adherence to OSHA regs for public workers then starts to dwindle, with six states – Arkan- sas, Idaho, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania – adopting most, but not all, of the OSHA rules. Georgia and Texas have adopted only the federal agency's hazmat communication rules. The remaining 10 states – Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Loui- siana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota – do not regulate workplace safety for the public sector, says BLR. Public employers in most of these states require workers' compensation cover- age, which often has its own safety requirements. Back to the picture. Since it was taken in Alabama, one of the states with no OSHA-related public worker safety laws, only the laws of common sense were vio- lated. My hope is that this crew's supervisor took one look at this picture in the local newspaper and immedi- ately initiated trench safety training. While I hear plenty of gripes from contractors on how OSHA interprets its regs, I don't hear much carp- ing about the regs themselves, especially those per- taining to trench safety. Do a quick internet search on trench accidents, and you'll see the reason why: there's been a litany of deadly events in the past two years alone. This month's SafetyWatch (page 65) highlights yet another trench job that did not end well. Regulations, of course, are only one part of the safety picture; they do not address the awareness needed when situations are dangerous, or the assertiveness re- quired to call out a bad plan of action. Meanwhile, the physics of a cave-in remain constant – a cubic foot of soil weighs an average of 100 pounds – no matter who employs the person in the trench. EquipmentWorld.com | January 2016 9 on record | by Marcia Gruver Doyle MGruver@randallreilly.com When it's a OSHA violation... and when it's not The Tuscaloosa News