I have found that the more you start a sentence with “can you help me” the
better it is.
From: David Sovereen
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2018 12:00 PM
To: af@afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Rohn 25
I agree that those are the items to focus on with OSHA.
Item 1:
"The employer did not require a competent person to inspect....."
Except that is incorrect. The person who fell WAS a competent person. He held
a “Competent Climber” certification card from CITCA. A significant portion of
that training includes assessing if a tower is safe to climb in accordance with
OSHAs rules. A competent person is not a structural engineer. A competent
person is someone who has been trained on assessing if a tower is safe to climb
in accordance with OSHAs rules.
Item 2:
"...the employer did not ensure complete personal fall arrest systems were
properly used".
A policy was in place. The person knew how to use it properly and was required
by company policy to follow it. Our Employee Handbook states under “Guidelines
for Conduct” that “The following kinds of conduct are absolutely prohibited: …
Violation of any and all safety rules.” At some point, there needs to be
personal accountability.
I agree that being humble and asking for help and guidance is the best
approach, so I’ll show them what we’ve done up til now and see what they
suggest for improvement.
David Sovereen
Mercury Network Corporation
2719 Ashman Street, Midland, MI 48640
989.837.3790 x151 office | 888.866.4638 toll free | 989.837.3780 fax
Telephone | Internet | Security Alarm Monitoring
david.sover...@mercury.net
www.mercury.net
On Jun 6, 2018, at 8:43 PM, Forrest Christian (List Account)
<li...@packetflux.com> wrote:
In reading this citation there are two phrases which I think get to the meat
of what the person writing the citation intended:
Item 1:
"The employer did not require a competent person to inspect....."
Item 2:
"...the employer did not ensure complete personal fall arrest systems were
properly used".
I've bolded what I consider the two most relevant words. The question I'd
be asking is what policies were actually in place at the time of the accident,
and what was the ramifications to the employee if they didn't follow them.
Evidently providing safety gear isn't enough, the employer is responsible to
make sure that employees actually use them. If you had policies in place that
required the use of the gear, and took affirmative action when an employee was
caught violating the policies, and have now re-verified that the gear met the
requirements, I'd go back to OSHA and ask them, what you could have done
differently considering you've done everything correctly.
Go into it with the mindset that if you screwed up you're going to have to
pay these fines (or at least what you can negotiate them down to), and that you
really want to learn what you did to screw up. If the answer is that you did
everything right, it will be hard for them to continue with the fines. If
they find you did something wrong then talk to them about how to fix it. I've
heard story after story like this (fortunately never had to deal with it
myself), and it seems that a learning/compliant attitude goes a long way toward
them being willing to drop or decrease the fines. I'm not saying to not
correct incorrect information (such as the rohn 25 load rating), but instead to
take what they say and try to understand whether or not you needed to make a
correction.
Be mindful that the people who work for OSHA have the job to make the
workplace safer, and I'm sure that after a workplace death they feel like there
should be something that could have been done differently. Hopefully they'll
come to the realization that you were doing everything you should have been
doing, and that you've also learned a couple things which you can do above and
beyond that, and as a result, the fine is dropped or reduced significantly.
On Wed, Jun 6, 2018 at 10:10 AM, David Sovereen <david.sover...@mercury.net>
wrote:
Hi All,
A little background: We had an employee die late last year. He climbed a
Rohn 25 tower at a residential customer location and did not use his fall
protection gear. He went through safe climb training at CITCA, his fall
protection gear was in his truck, and a co-worker with him told him to put his
harness on, but he exercised poor judgement and climbed without it anyway. He
slipped, fell approximately 30 feet, and was pronounced dead about an hour
later at the hospital.
We received two OSHA Citations today. I’ve attached them.
I spoke with the OSHA representative handling our matter on Friday. He
tells me that Rohn 25s have not been tested by the manufacturer to support
5,000 lbs and therefore are not a suitable anchor point for securing oneself.
He says all work on Rohn 25s must be done from a lift. I think they are just
trying to come up with reasons to fine us.
When I went through safe tower climbing, *I* became the competent person to
identify where suitable anchor points, using the 5,000 lb estimation, were.
When my employees go through the training, they become competent in determining
where suitable anchor points are, do they not?
If an employee is given instruction on the use of fall protection gear,
told to always use it, and exercises bad judgement and refuses to use it, am I
responsible? One of my employees was there and told him to put his harness on
and he refused. Consequently, that employee has gone through a lot of turmoil
putting himself through “what if” scenarios.
Just looking for thoughts on this. Fight it, and if so what approach? Pay
it and make it go away? Something else?
Thanks,
David Sovereen
Mercury Network Corporation
2719 Ashman Street, Midland, MI 48640
989.837.3790 x151 office | 888.866.4638 toll free | 989.837.3780 fax
Telephone | Internet | Security Alarm Monitoring
david.sover...@mercury.net
www.mercury.net
--
Forrest Christian CEO, PacketFlux Technologies, Inc.
Tel: 406-449-3345 | Address: 3577 Countryside Road, Helena, MT 59602
forre...@imach.com | http://www.packetflux.com
