firedawg

Belive it or not we havwe many of the same problems even builing log cabins here in the north. We try with the conference to bring people together to try to look for ways to solve all of our problems. Once in a while a good Idea comes from the North too. Having the conference or just a meeting will never solve the problems but it may help us talk with others from outside of the picture looking in who may just have some good ideas. Just because we work in the north does not mean we have never seen the type of projects you are working on. We need to get our hands into the OSHA pot and stir until we get proper support. This problem has been building for a long time and we will not solve it over night or trying to blame the Governor or Gorge Bush. How much time to you think either of them spends looking at safety?

Yep Bush did it again!! Not one mention that had the worker been using proper fall protection he would not fall. Is there any report of the fall protection divices failing? I have been following this in the Sun and I have not seen anything to show that fall protection failed when being used. Maybe it did, but where is the information. Many of these workers fail to follow the fall protection training they are given and then they fall and it is the companies fault. When an employee fails to follow the training they are given it is the employee's fault. Yes, the company needs to enforce the rules but when an employee chooses not to follow the rules what action can be taken against the employee? When will we as fellow workers learn that when we see someone not following proper safety practices we need to say something. If we don't then we will be there to see yet another worker killed or injured.
Care about your follow worker and give them a chance to go home at the end of the day to thier family.

Sounds like a real commitment to safety when you can't travel on a one hour flight to Reno. I takes most of you longer than that to drie in to work each day. We would like to have this conference travel to the south every other year but since we don't see a lot of people from the south taking part we are not sure who would help put the conferenc together in Vegas. I takes a full year to get it put together working with speakers, hotels, vendors, and most of all Sponsers.
Any Ideas who would be willing to get involved?

Lets hope no deaths happen on this job But, does the county have the back bone to say STOP and reveiw what is going on if a death does occur? Time is money on these projects but we have to spend money sometimes to avoid deaths at work. Clark County as the owner of this projects needs to look at something other than low bidder. And be ready to act at the first sign of things going bad.

I am not sure how you get a group of safety professionals together. We have been trying for the last 3 years to get some of the safety professionals working in the Las Vegas area to attend a three day conference he hold in Reno to try to work on how to improve safety in the workplace. We have ask for ideas of how we can help safety professionals help improve working conditions in all areas of safety. But, we just don't seem to get any response from the Las Vegas area. Give me some ideas and I will work with our group and try to help improve what we do. We are currently looking at a one day event in mid November to try to bring safety professionals together to talk about what we do and what type of changes may be proposed to make Nevada OSHA better resource for us all. Fines don't fix things Actions Fix Things.

With all the time and money companies spend doing training there is no way to hold workers responsible for following the rules if we are not allowed to fire them. Why doesn't OSHA have the ability to write up the worker if it is found he/she has been trained and has the proper equipment but does not follow the rules? As long as the worker knows they will not be punished for the viloation they don't seem to care, until some one is hurt or killed then they want to blame the company for everything. I am not saying it is always the employee but many times employees just don't want to follow the rules and safety enforcement is passed over to keep the "good worker".

The OSHA 10 is a good general training, but the problem is for many young workers the older workers are willing to challenge a new guy to do it the old way,(skip all that safety crap). So many workers are willing to say " well I have done it that way for years and I have never been hurt". At the Silver State Governor's Safety Conference every year time is taken to remember those who have lost thier lives at work. Where are the workers for these compnaies during the conference? We don't see them at the conference learning about the latest safety information and taking it back to the companies to help keep the workplace safe. No union guys there either.