Falls Continue to Plague Construction

April 05 2010

Despite the Ontario Ministry of Labour’s best attempts to crack down on falls; and employers continuing efforts to train workers; falls continue to be the major cause of accidental death in the construction industry. Standards have improved while equipment and technology now meet the highest standards known. So the question becomes, "HOW and WHY do falls continue?" There are several contributing factors.

• 1. The first factor is connected to the fact that people are inherent risk takers. Workers always believe that they will be spared from critical injury or death. They never believe it will happen to them. They should talk to the 20-year-old man who fell off the roof of a house under construction in January 2010. He was lucky – he lived; but chose to leave roofing forever.
  
• 2. The second factor is training. Training standards are non-existent so many employers train workers online in 20 minutes. Government knows the problem exists but does nothing to resolve it. We need mandatory fall protection training for a minimum 4 hours. We need to measure understanding through testing. We need to mandate update training every year.


• 3. The third factor is poor enforcement. If government and employers really wanted to stop falls, they can. It requires a zero tolerance standard. It would require MOL inspectors to prosecute workers and employers for every violation. Employers would need to start terminating workers who violate known fall protection standards.

Falls in construction happen because they are allowed to happen. And as a result, we have lost many lives to falls over the years. Lives have been changed forever. Families have been devastated. Eliminating falls is possible. Maybe it's time to get serious. We owe it to the memory of those we have lost.

Roger W. Tickner CRSP, CMP, RPT – President Tickner & Associates Inc. PS – Tickner & Associates has managed many major construction projects without incident. For details, contact Roger Tickner.