"Boyd had been warned repeatedly about the danger of not having a policy to deal with the confined spaces of manholes, but had taken no corrective action, the inspector discovered." By who, had Boyd been warned. By Don Barker, the Health and Safety Manager. If so, why was Don busy warning them with memos and whatever. Why was he not busy warning and educating the Engineers so they would know better than to improperly enter an PRCS. Warning the Engineers about the dangers of a Permit Required Confined Space would have been free and should not have needed approval. Don wasn't doing his job but to cover his rear end he is blaming Boyd Exec's who he had not educated in the dangers of PRCS. He was the one the company had hired to enforce safety rules, it was his job to educate everyone from the Exec's to the Engineers. He didn't quit his job in protest, he quit his job because he knew he hadn't done his job. Being a Safety Manager means you know the OSHA regulations, you have done a job hazard analysis and you inform employees of the hazards of their job. Did Mr. Barker get approval from the Exec's to have a Bloodborne Pathogen program? No he didn't. So why did he need approval to implement a PRCS warning. He didn't need to set up a program he could have just talked to the Engineering Chief and all Engineers one on and one and said, we don't enter these spaces because they are dangerous.

The Sun is just a Democrat, Union Supporting, Liberal Newspaper that will use any opportunity to bash President Bush and OSHA. The articles regarding OSHA and NV employee safety are always stupid with no facts just rubish they hear from people who don't know what they are talking about. Nevada OSHA is a state program, therefore if they wanted to implement stronger rules than what Federal OSHA has in place they could do so. So maybe the Sun and all those whiny construction workers who don't follow rules should talk to our State Government and pass some new stronger STATE OSHA rules. Also, if you go to the osha.gov website you can search all of the Directives issued in the past several years. If you don't know what a Directive is you shouldn't have written the article. There have been several new Directives issued and several revised standards. I would also like the Sun and those Construction workers to learn about the OSHA standards. The standards are written just like any other law, in black and white. But in order to be effective the standards must be understood by the employer, the employee, and the Unions. In order to understand the standards, all of them, in 1926 and 1910 (that is Construction and General Industry for those of you who are not safety people) you have to take classes on each standard, read, and research. You can't just take the word of some Union rep or whiny employee. OSHA standards are laws that employers and EMPLOYEES have to follow or the employer can be fined. There is no incentive for employee's to follow the standards unless the employer disciplines them, then the employee whines and calls the UNION or OSHA to complain. I think employee's should be personally fined for not following OSHA standards. If the employer can prove, with signed training documentation, that the employee knew better then OSHA should fine the employee. Please Las Vegas Sun, learn about what you are talking about before you write articles.

Envirodoc007
what? "Since when you need a safety person to tell a company they have PRCS? what ever happened to risk/hazard assessment?" You are an idiot, companies like, Boyd, Riviera, Bellagio, NYNY, Mirage, TI, MGM, WYNN, Venetian, and many, many others hire Safety Directors, Managers, Coordinators etc, to ensure employees are safe and they are in compliance with OSHA. It is the job of the Safety person to recognize hazards and address them accordingly, this is usually a full time position, sometimes there are more than one position for Safety on a property. The Orleans had a Safety guy. It was his job to know he had a PRCS, if he can't recognize a PRCS he shouldn't have had the job. He was the Safety person. Therefore, he was responsible for ensuring that all employees are warned and trained in all hazards. PRCS is something he never warned anyone about. He didn't train the employees to know what a PRCS is and how dangerous it is to enter without following permit procedures. Consultants are not needed when the property has a Safety person. However, sometimes the Safety person will call a consultant for assistance with something specific or even a comprehensive inspection. If they don't know any better they will call you TOM, or they will call SCATS, and if they call SCATS they are required to correct anything SCATS points out or suggests.

nonameforme,
Thank you for pointing this out. Excellent points that I forgot about while I was ranting.

Alexandra this article is stupid, you need to learn what you are writing about before you just start writing. First of all, the program Boyd gaming is working with SCATS (the Consultation Section of NV OSHA) on is a program that is completely legitimate. Nevada Safety Consultation and Training Services are awesome. Their consultants and trainers help me and other Safety people all over the state ensure that we are doing what we can to comply with OSHA which is what keeps our employees safe. Boyd has Safety people who work for them, those Safety people are working with SCATS to ensure the company is complying with OSHA. The end result is a safer work environment for Boyd employees. Second, the previous Safety Director for Boyd, Don Barker, the one who quit in protest,could have prevented these deaths by doing his job. Warning the Engineers about Permit Required Confined Spaces and the dangers of entering these spaces improperly. Instead, he blames Boyd for not allowing him to do his is job. He didn't have to spend alot of money to warn his employee and train them on dangers of PRCS. A Safety Director who knows his job will do whatever it takes to make sure employees are safe, if it means putting up a sign saying DO NOT ENTER, then that is what we do, if we have to personally walk up and talk to each employee who might possibly walk by the space and think of entering, that is what we do. We tell people that they cannot enter until they are trained. So the previous Safety Director is to blame. Boyd is obviously now realizing they put to much faith in their employee knowing and doing his job so they want SCATS to assist their current Safety people in ensuring that all OSHA regulations are followed and employees will be kept safe. Why is this seen a problem? Why all the whining? Tom McManus is just mad because Boyd is asking the real experts for assistance. The experts are SCATS and they happen to be free. Wayne Matherly is just one of the many of us who use SCATS on a regular basis. We like knowing that the assistance we are getting is from experts who actually know OSHA regulations better than any consultant we pay for. Consultants who are hired, like Tom, just try to bully Safety people and tell them they need to pay for training and services that are not really needed. Boyd is doing this the right way. Too bad only real Safety people know it. I was bullied by a consultant and paid $4000 for the consultant to read an OSHA standard, my employees walked away without having any idea what they had just been trained on. I had the training done a 2nd time by SCATS for free and my employees walked away knowing exactly what they needed to know. Sorry folks you are all on the wrong path arguing Boyd's current strategy for employee safety.

"They put forth a range of informal proposals, including more worker safety training, placing third party safety inspectors on large construction sites at all times, requiring project owners to issue plans that outline safety in advance of beginning construction, creating new licensing requirements for workers, and granting the city or county the power to shut down projects over safety violations." I don't see anything in here that says that they can immediately on the spot fire employees for not following Safety Policies. City Center workers have all been through the training, it is mandatory, on all OCIP's. The problem at City Center is that employees have complete disregard for safety. Just like any other construction project, they refuse to follow the rules. But the union's will not let the General or the Owner fire workers on the spot. Every accident has a cause and most of those causes are because of something the employee did to disregard thier own safety.

The problem seems to me to be that the politicians do not understand how businesses work. Does Shelly or Harry even know what Fall Arrest means? Yes, companies say they have a safety program but when it comes to buying PPE, buying training materials or even taking time off the job for training, they don't do it because of the money. The fines are so low that they are seen as affordable. Companies think it is easier and cheaper to pay the fines than to ensure compliance with the OSHA standards which in the end will reduce injuries. Ask any Safety Director in General Industry or Construction and they will tell you the same. They don't make much money and their company would rather pay fines than to invest in a good safety program. So yes, I think the OSHA fines should be raised to huge amounts so companies will see that it is more cost effective to comply with OSHA than to just pay the fines and ignore safety.