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Mason Nielsen

Mr. Rudebusch

English Composition IV

7 January 2019

Construction Safety

Construction workers use dangerous equipment all day. In fact, 4,836 workers were

killed on the job in the United States in 2017. According to OSHA,“The top causes of

construction-related fatalities are falls, struck-by an object, electrocution and caught between

objects” (Smith). The fatal injury rate is 3.4 per 100,000 workers as of 2014 which has stayed

the same to the year of 2018. People in the construction industry go into work not knowing that

they are about to risk their lives while working. Construction companies could create a safer

work environment for their employees through OSHA training and mentorship programs.

OSHA training allows workers to learn about workplace dangers in a classroom. OSHA

states that the purpose of its training is to “[​make] safety a priority before work begins. By

setting clear expectations for safety from the beginning, managers can set the tone to ensure

each worker understands their personal responsibility for safety. This will help everyone work

together toward the common goal of preventing injuries” (​Rzepecki). If all workers know what

they’re expected to do and how to properly operate their equipment before they’re even on the

job site, they know what the consequences of being careless or improperly operating equipment

are.

OSHA also provides on-site training to help workers be safer on the job. In my own

experience with OSHA training, OSHA trainers would set up a simulation for workers to show

what careless workers can do if they aren’t cautious. They would have a dummy in the position

of what could happen when a person would fall off of a building showing what can happen to
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you. The workers would have to be aware that the person fell and would do all of the precautions

to keep the person calm and safe to ensure that nothing else would happen to the worker. After

the simulation is over the OSHA trainer would have the workers point out what went wrong and

what he could have done to prevent from falling off the building.This would give the workers a

hands on type of training to show what can happen on a work site.

If companies provided mentorship programs for new employees, that would also

improve safety on construction sites. When I being mentored for a construction company they

had me do all of the things a regular construction worker would do but I would have a mentor

with me to make sure that if I had any questions he would have an answer or would show me

how to do that certain task correctly. For example I was given a task to help with the installation

of a glass section of a wall. My task was to weld on metal pieces to the wall and make sure they

were secured to the wall. I had no experience in welding so I had trouble with the task. So, I had

my mentor help me with the rest of the assigned section. He told me I did it wrong and we redid

all of the incorrect metal pieces. I learned that if I did it wrong, the wall would have been

unstable and would've fallen on the people that were near that wall. This showed me how to

keep me and other workers safe on a jobsite.

If there ever was in an accident on a construction site the loss of profit takes a drastic

toll. When a person doesn’t take their job seriously and wouldn’t take safety precautions before

operating a machine or using safety equipment they could cause an accident or be the accident.

In a study that was taken from a financial company in Turkey “In this study, three construction

project are investigated in Turkey in 2009 and it is obtained that the cost of workday loss caused

by major occupational accidents is 19431.75 $ and minor occupational accidents cause a loss of

6924.25 $. The cost of workday loss caused by minor occupational accidents are almost 35 % of
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major workday losses’. (Faith)” This would show that OSHA training should be taken seriously

due to the large profits lost off of just small and large accidents.

Citations from OSHA officials are fines that tell the companies that they are doing

something wrong and they need to fix that problem. OSHA fines vary on how major the situation

is from a person not using safety equipment or a power tool that has a prong ripped out to fit a 2

prong outlet. From the Department of Labor website “Serious Other-Than-Serious Posting

Requirements are a fine of $12,934 per violation.” Other fines that are taken seriously is that

they company wouldn’t take care of the problem there would be a fine of “$12,934 per day

beyond the abatement date (DL)” to ensure that the company needs to take care of that problem.

If the problem is repeated on another inspection the fines would increase if the task is “ Willful

or Repeated the fines would be $129,336 per violation (DL)” This shows that OSHA officials take

their jobs seriously for the workers and the construction companies.

Robotics also take a role in safety in the construction industry. If robots are being used in

the construction field they have safety protocols that are programmed into their systems. When

the protocol malfunctions and would do something that is deemed dangerous the person who is

working on or with the machine can override the system and can shut down the robot. “Because

collaborative robots are intended to share workspaces with humans, safety measures are built

into their design. However, despite these inherent protections, collaborative robots still pose

significant risks.”

In conclusion I believe that these things will help improve construction safety. OSHA

training is a very important and should be taken seriously since you will go straight to a work

site after you are done with your training. I strongly believe that Mentorships can contribute to

younger generations. Therefore you should start your OSHA training with a clear mind and

understand every danger that is present to you. Then ask to be apart of a mentorship to make
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sure that you know what tasks you can be given and if you don’t know how to perform one task

you can ask your mentor to get assistance. OSHA Inspections and citations need to be take

seriously to stop a company from getting fines and to make profit than get profit taken away for

fines that workers would get for doing something that is not in the rules of safety. Robotics can

also be a huge role in safety so if in a situation know where the override switch is on your

equipment if using a robot on your worksite.

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Work Cited

Caroline M.L. Potter “The Job Shadow Knows: Try on a Career Before You Commit” Monster,

https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/the-job-shadow-knows-try-on-a-career

-before-you-commit-hot-jobs

“Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect, 2017” AFL-CIO 26 April 2017,

https://aflcio.org/reports/death-job-toll-neglect-2017

Fatih, Yılmaz & Celebi, Ugur. (2015). The Importance of Safety in Construction Sector: Costs of

Occupational Accidents in Construction Sites. Business and Economics Research Journal. 6.

25-37.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284435091_The_Importance_of_Safety_in

Construction_Sector_Costs_of_Occupational_Accidents_in_Construction_Sites

Rzepecki, Kelsey. “Ways to Improve Construction Site Safety” EHS Today, 12 July, 2018

https://www.ehstoday.com/construction/ways-improve-construction-site-safety

Sandy Smith​ ​"Construction Accidents: The Risks, the Facts and the Repercussions” EHS Today,

3 Dec, 2014,

https://www.ehstoday.com/construction/construction-accidents-risks-facts-and-reperp

ussions-infographic