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Wildkitten
Member
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Posted: Tue Nov 3rd, 2009 05:41 am |
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There is quite an uproar amongst the small construction companies in my home town. OSHA inspectors are hitting the new home construction sites and imposing large fines on these small business owners for various "safety hazards". They are not bothering organized labor at all (although investigations have shown they too have some of the same "safety hazards").
The problem is they are forcing many of these small business to fold, they simply cannot pay the fines. OSHA as a rule reduces fines for a small business with less then 25 employees by 60%; however, the average number of "safety hazards" they are finding is between 12 and 15k. Anyone else aware of this going on in their city? Any suggestions on what to do? My hard working cousin just got hit with $12k in fines over 5 ladders. He has 3 kids to feed and I'm trying to find out if there is a pattern going on here.
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Thoughtless
Member
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Posted: Tue Nov 3rd, 2009 10:56 pm |
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I don't know what might be going on in your town.
However, I've got to say this. I was a field engineer for many years, for a large construction company, with very, very strict safety standards. We had safety experts making daily inspections, that were much stricter than OSHA. Security, for example, wouldn't even let a truck carrying an aluminum ladder onto the job site. We might have 3,000 workers on a job site, and get written up for a couple of minor violations during an OSHA inspection.
But when I had a new house built a couple of years ago, I was almost amazed that nobody was seriously injured. The table and radial saws had their guards removed, and that most of the pneumatic mailers and staple guns had their pressure interlocks defeated. The only fiberglass ladder on the job site, belonged to me. I doubt there was a contractor on the site, that had ever given much thought to safety.
I'm not a particular fan of OSHA, but maybe they are just going where the violations are most common.
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pseudoname
Member
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Posted: Wed Nov 4th, 2009 10:51 am |
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Wildkitten, some post of yours I read moons ago left me with the impression that you've been in this business for a long time. You say 'home town' so I presume you're too far away from it to know what the trends are there at this time?
Does your cousin not have enough time in the business to see trends or know what's coming down the pike from OSHA?
I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just asking because it just makes sense to be, or have someone who is, aware of what to expect from such regulatory bodies in advance and where they plan to focus their attention next. If your OSHA is anything like our WCB (Workers Compensation Board), info can be found about where their priorities will be in the coming year or so. Our agencies make it clear what they intend to do. (I don't know if yours or your cousin's do.)
For example, small construction companies here were first targeted by the CRA (= IRS in the US) quite a few years ago on account of the high turnover of both employees and company owners. The CRA started requiring that anyone who employed construction contractors report what they'd paid them by name. But this isn't [shouldn't be] a federal issue, and most small companies just make a file folder to keep these particular forms in. In the decade and a half or so since this federal mandate came about, I've received these things half a dozen times, not done anything about it, and no company I've worked for has been asked to go to the next step. I'm guessing that they knew they wouldn't be able to pull it off legally, ergo the attempted "massaging" of the unwilling and uninterested public to fill out these pointless forms.
WCB differs from province to province, but the idea is essentially the same. Different areas of the country have different safety rules. Just like "Canadian" healthcare is under provincial jurisdiction, not federal.
But the original intent from the federal level affects how bureaucrats in regional governments behave.
Are the OSHA employees on the direct payroll of the government there?
Are they unionized?
Are they untouchable?
Has there been an actual spike in inspections of new homes in that area?
Have the rates increased across the board from above?
Or has the construction industry caused those rates to rise on account of having to hire otherwise-undesirable employees to fill volatile positions in a project-based/time-limited industry which NEVER gets ANY assistance and spends an inordinate amount of money in penalties for doing stuff they couldn't possibly all memorize to the degree that the inspectors have done?
I think you know where I'm going with this...
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