Construction Industry Safety and Health

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Recently in Texas, two men were seriously injured on the job. In some ways, their circumstances looked very different. They were in different cities, working for different employers. One was repairing a roof, high above the ground. The other was in a trench, about eight feet down.

OSHA compliance officers who happened to be in the area noticed residential construction workers falls from heights up to 14 feet. The inspection resulting from that observation found even more safety violations by Transformers Construction Services Inc. and Buildtronix LLC – both owned by Leanna Richardson.

Laser pranksters create real danger in the skies, the construction industry gets a little more time for a big new rule and impalement hazards endanger workers in Texas. These were among the top stories posted on ISHN.com this week.

Despite his request for a safety harness, a temporary worker without fall protection on a roof later fell 12 feet through the roof. His fall resulted in his hospitalization with fractured arms and severe contusions.

A construction accident that killed two workers last month in Myanmar was not unusual. In fact, serious workplace incidents are common in the Southeast Asia state, although it’s difficult to quantify them because outdated occupational safety regulations don’t require the comprehensive keeping of such statistics.

One minute, a man was working in the 8-foot trench below ground. The next, he was being buried in it. His co-workers came to his rescue, digging the worker out with their bare hands. Moments after they pulled the injured man to safety, the unprotected trench collapsed again. His injuries were serious and led to his hospitalization.

OSHA inspectors found that employees of at a Shenandoah, Texas construction site were exposed to a variety of dangers, earning citations for both the company conducting the work and the one that supplied it with temporary workers.

OSHA says it will postpone enforcing its Confined Spaces in Construction standard in response to requests for additional time to train and acquire the equipment necessary for compliance.

Guillermo Perez and Elma Maldonado, president and vice president of GP Roofing & Construction, LLC, in Palm Coast, Florida, were arrested last month for failing to comply with a March 30 civil contempt order stemming from nine OSHA inspections of GP worksites.