Mowing OSHA is watching

[grsthegreat]

Interesting, I was told by an OSHA employee at a safety seminar that OSHA does not hand out fines. There sole perpose is to point out potential safety concerns and then how you deal with them are up to you. He indicated that quite frequenly these reports are also reviewed by your insurance companies and these blood suckers use this as an excuse to raise your premiums.

Roy

nope nope nope..they LOVE to hand out fines. Ive been fined by OSHA a few times over the years. they fine people in Wash and Idaho all the time. Basically, everything you do is illegal according to them. I was fined one time for not wearing a hard hat INSIDE a classroom while installing electrical cover plates.......mine you, the classroom was full of students ...and they wernt wearing hard hats.

government regs = SUCKS

 

[grsthegreat]

I bet OSHA would have something to say about my ladder also

 

[boxygen]

I work for a large general contractor which does work that varies from large commercial to residential remodeling. We typically have at least a dozen jobsites going at one time. OSHA has been around quite a bit lately. It has resulted in a few fines. A few of the jobsites the inspector has parked outside the jobsite for a few hours waiting for something he doesnt like. A subcontractor opened the bottom sash of a window to communicate with someone on the ground. We were sited because the window sill was lower than the 42" guardrail height required for a fall hazzard. This was in finished space. On another jobsite we were sited because a bundle(banded together) of steel decking was sitting on the metal floor joist waiting for installation. They were not "Secured" to the joists so they couldnt blow away. The bundle probably weighed several thousand pounds. Im all for safety, but this stuff doesnt pass the straight face test. The inspector said quite explicitly that OSHA will be expanding their focus on residential work now to create more revenue. There is lots of low hanging fruit in residential work and a lot of people just plain dont make an attempt at safety in the residential world but if these are the things they are out to enforce they they will pretty much shut down the industry. They just abolished the Residential Fall protection rules for wood framed buildings. This allowed workers to not be tied off in certain stages of framing because it creates a greater hazzard in many cases. Not any more. Tell me, what do you tie off to when you are building the roof? The floor 15' below you or the unbraced trusses that you are installing?
Its a very sad state of affairs.

 

[Don87]

I bet OSHA would have something to say about my ladder also

By the time they got done laughing, you would make a clean getawy and be drinking a cold one:thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[grsthegreat]

yup, OSHA hasnt a clue. I was fined once cause i didnt strap myself off the the man lift i was operating. Instead i strapped myself off to the red iron roof that was 30 feet in the air. I told the inspector that if the lift goes over, i wanted to stay attached to the ROOF....NOT THE COLAPSING man lift. they didnt buy it. My employer paid the fine. I continued to tie myself off to the red iron.

 

[not2old]

The Workers' Compensation Board here in B.C. once told me to attach the lifeline to the roof by driving a 4" nail through the shingles to hold the bracket. This needed to be done every 8 to 10 feet along the roof while cleaning the gutters. Try and explain that to a strata council. Their gutter cleaning costs rose from about $4500 to just over $10,000.

Another time I was delighted to tell the inspector that he wasn't allowed to step foot on my new home construction site because the area wasn't safe for workers and I had no plans to make it safe until some workers were going to work there.

 

[tungularafishcamp]

nope nope nope..they LOVE to hand out fines. Ive been fined by OSHA a few times over the years. they fine people in Wash and Idaho all the time. Basically, everything you do is illegal according to them. I was fined one time for not wearing a hard hat INSIDE a classroom while installing electrical cover plates.......mine you, the classroom was full of students ...and they wernt wearing hard hats.

government regs = SUCKS

He was only looking out for your safety, just think what could have happened if one of those kids hit you in the head with a spitball:laughing:

 

[jake98]

Tell me, what do you tie off to when you are building the roof? The floor 15' below you or the unbraced trusses that you are installing?
Its a very sad state of affairs.

You heard about the roofer that tied off to the lady's VW bumper on the other side of the building, right??

 

[JB4310]

You heard about the roofer that tied off to the lady's VW bumper on the other side of the building, right??

You don't even have to finish that storey

There are 2 types of OSHA state and Federal, not sure if the state level uses the same name. I doubt a federal agency wrote a ticket for a lawn mower.
They usually just show up after someone has been killed.

I've mentioned my experience before, but I got a $2,500. fine for putting latex paint in an unlabeled coffee can. This was a federal OSHA agent that just happened to be parking next to a church I was working on.

They told me at the time that they are required to write up any violation they find, and have no option to grant leniency or time to comply, unlike the state level safety agencies. This was 20 years ago so not sure how things might of changed.
As far as appealing, they told me I could but they use their own people as the arbitrator and there was little chance I would win. My fine would of been 10 times greater if I had more than 10 or 20 employees, or what ever the number was, I only had 2 guys at the time.

I was just working across the street from a fed building this Tuesday, it was IRS, but we saw a man and woman show up with white hard hats and go inside. We were working on the roof across the street walking on the parapit walls 60 feet off the sidewalk and working behind the parapit on some roof drains. When this pair came out of the fed building they stopped for a conversation on the sidewalk, at one point they both turned and looked directly at us!! As soon as they were not looking we went and hid on the other side of the building til they left. I did not want to antagonise them in any way.

Just a side note about our Fed Govt agencies. While we working across from the IRS building we could see a car broken down on the highway exit ramp right outside the building. The car was there for 2 hours before we came down. Started talking to the driver to see if we could help, he said he was waiting for AAA. Anyway this young guy was dressed in battle fatigues and said he just came back from a tour of duty. He said he felt good when he saw all the flags outside the fed building and he went there for help since he had no cell phone. He said he showed them his military ID and asked to use a phone, they refused him!!! Told him to go somewhere else.

I could not believe it This guy had been risking his life over there and they wouldn't let him in the building!!!

We found him the right size socket to get his wheel off and helped him change the tire, he was very grateful, I was glad to help. Of course triple A never showed up.

JB.

 

[Short Game]

Time to watch the movie, Brazil, again. In the movie, OSHA is called, "Central Services."

These guys: