Crane Safety: The Towering Issue
Winter may be the festive season, but it's also the season of numerous crane accidents
Crane accidents can be roughly divided into three groups: industrial accidents; general hazards and weather-related hazards. Of these, weather-related hazards are those over which human agents have least control.
The very nature of cranes makes them vulnerable to tipping over, as is what happened during the construction of a new hospital facility in New York's Long Island. Similarly general hazards can be managed to a certain extent, but it is unrealistic to expect them ever to be completely eliminated. Crane operators are, for example, vulnerable to ground fires, as demonstrated recently when an operator in Ontario, Canada, had to be rescued by helicopter after a major fire broke out at ground level, leaving him trapped.
That leaves industrial accidents, the ones which are caused by issues which should be under human control. With the closure of the year 2013, here is a recap of some of the key issues in crane safety which have been highlighted throughout the past year.
The Importance of Developing Crane Technology
New York's outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently tabled a proposal to cap the working life of cranes at 25 years (either the oldest the date of manufacture or the date of the oldest component). One of the stated reasons for introducing this measure was to obligate companies to keep updating their equipment; thereby ensuring that the most modern safety technology was implemented.
An example of this was given as load-cycle counters, which the same proposal would make mandatory. Given the amount of residential and non-residential construction in New York (and other major cities), it seems a reasonable assumption that this measure is intended to protect the public as much as construction workers. A timely reminder of this was an incident in which a crane overturned in Mineola, New York. This would have been much worse had the crane tipped toward the street rather than toward the construction area.
The Importance of Ensuring Worker Competence
While nobody disputes the importance of ensuring that crane operators are able to do their job safely, the manner of judging competence is currently a matter of some debate. As has already been reported in Crane & Rigging Hot Line, the proposals from OSHA have received widespread negative feedback from the industry, and it remains to be seen when (or even if) they will be implemented.
At the same time, New York's City Council (which is separate from the Mayor's office), recently passed a regulation that allowed construction companies to replace Master Riggers (with 5 years' of training) with employees who have completed training lasting less than a week. While the City Council argue that their requirements are more stringent than Federal guidelines, there has been criticism from the industry that this action will see a return to the conditions which led to a series of accidents in New York in December 2007, March 2008 and May 2008. Of these, the March 2008 incident was by far the most serious resulting in seven deaths and criminal charges against senior company employees.
The Importance of Effective Worker Management
While all employers expect their employees to be mentally and physically capable of performing their jobs, in the construction industry ensuring this is the case can literally make the difference between life and death. This was highlighted by a crane collapse at Brazil's future soccer World Cup stadium, which has led to questions about the length of time the operator worked without a rest day. Although many countries worldwide (and individual States) have laws which govern how long any worker can be permitted to work before a full rest day becomes mandatory, these laws depend on a combination of willing compliance and effective enforcement.
Only time will tell how willing companies will be to employ skilled employees such as Master Riggers when it is legally possible for them to employ less-skilled employees at lower rates. Equally, only time will tell if there will be effective enforcement of existing legislation to prevent companies either encouraging or at least not deterring their management-level employees from cutting corners with worker safety in order to maximize profits in one of the world's most competitive industries.
