All excellent points, Don. However, as I don't have to tell you, there were
always the few dogmatic managers and reps who simply were not capable of
common-sense compromises. It was the age-old problem of this world -
uncomprehending, bored, fed-up and impatient people who wanted quick,
one-size-fits-all solutions to problems. And then you had the situation in
the rail yard, where a yard car inspector couldn't walk up and down a track
without his hard hat on, yet the trainman beside him didn't have to wear a
hard hat. In most instances, a yard carman wasn't in any more hazard of a
falling or flying object than was a trainman. In cases of head bumps
underneath equipment, in most cases, you had to take the hard hat off or you
couldn't get your noggin into where you needed to stick it in order to see
what you were doing. Safety glasses were another dandy fight. Side shields
on glasses made a lot of sense in the backshop, a heck of a lot less so in
the yard where peripheral vision was extremely important. It went on, ad
nauseum. I won't tell you about the two guys who didn't like the third man
on the mobile auxiliary crane, so they convinced the company and the union
that there was no problem making lifts with just two men. One guy ran the
crane and the other guy was on the ground. He had no problem with working
underneath a suspended load. If anything happened, the craneman would have
had to leave the crane controls to try to help. A stop was put to working
under the suspended loads, but the two-man crane operation continued. I am
a total believer in Christian angels, because there has to be some kind of
benevolent force out there in the universe which keeps such guys from
getting hurt or killed - most of the time.
Joe Smuin
1. - "Joey, the secret to telling a good railway story is to always try to
stick just as close to the facts as possible." --- (the late) Cliff
Inkster; CPR Engineman, raconteur and philosopher.
2. - The secret to contacting Joe by email is to be sure to insert "Joe" or
"Smuin" into the main text portion of any message you send to him, and thus
your message should percolate through his spam filters.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Thomas" <thomasd@xxxxxxx>
To: <cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: [cpsig] Re: K1a - 4-8-4 #3101Construction Video
Safety is not the same as mindless maintenance of rules that are not relevant to the situation or are counterproductive. In the case you cite, the workers should have been made aware that they have a right to refuse to work in an unsafe situation, and if they were passing out from heat stroke or related condition caused by their clothing, their working conditions were unsafe by definition. Under the railway dictum that in case of doubt the safe course must be followed, it could be argued that they were obliged to remove their coveralls because the heat was an actual danger while the risk of fire from gas was remote or nonexistent. Workers should not routinely be in a position of arbitrarily disregarding the rules. In this case the company should re-examine the circumstances where the coveralls are required. A responsible safety policy would take the opportunity of examining the incident to determine whether it was a freak incident or whether the PPE was counterproductive and what cha
Don Thomas
----- Original Message ----- From: craig
To: cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 7:17 AM
Subject: [cpsig] Re: K1a - 4-8-4 #3101Construction Video
I agree, but safety needs a common sense element too, which sometimes can be missing when the rules are arbitrarily applied.
I worked at a gas plant in Alberta and it was required that before you left the office or your truck you had to be wearing fire proof coveralls, hard hat, safety glasses, gloves, and steel toe boots. All good if you're at a well and taking readings, but we had summer students who were raking gravel at a reclamation site after the well has been abandoned; so were in the middle of a farmers field with no gas facilities for miles. However they were still required to wear everything, so on a 32 degree day they were passing out from heat stroke. Lots of incident reports to fill out, and the HSE people in head office were not impressed that the cause of the injury was the PPE!
Craig
--- In cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Don Thomas" <thomasd@...> wrote:
>
> I work in a safety department. Safety is not getting to the point of ridiculousness, unless you consider reducing or eliminating workplace injuries and deaths to be ridiculous. An injured worker or someone's next of kin wouldn't agree with you.
>
> Don Thomas
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