A new voluntary initiative by the northern Nevada chapter of Associated General Contractors seeks to increase jobsite safety through an extensive audit of a company's safety procedures and policies.
Eric Scolari, AGC safety committee chairman, says the idea of a Safe Site Program has been kicked around for several years but was never formalized. Under the new program, AGC member contractors and non-members as well can submit to a free 15 to 20-page review of their safety training procedures and receive company-wide instruction in deficient areas.
"If you don't have a good safety culture that people are buying into, embracing the training and commitment to safety starting when they leave their house every day, you can have accidents happen," says
Scolari, operations and safety manager for RHP Mechanical Systems. "You can do all the training, but if you
are not getting through it can be a losing battle."
The four most common factors identified by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that contribute to construction deaths and serious injuries are electrocution, falls, and "struck-by" and "caught-between" accidents.
The Safe Site program expands on standard OSHA 10- and 30-hour training procedures in those four areas by examining the effectiveness of company procedures in the field.
"Safety has to be a philosophy of a company," says Mike Cate, chief executive officer of Pavers Plus Inc. "All the laws and all the OSHA people in the world can't make you safe if the company doesn't believe in it.
"It has to be from top to bottom," Cate adds. "If your employees don't have training, it negates the training philosophy. You can have a foreman that is completely trained, but he can't be everywhere at once."
Cate says one of the program's goals is increased trade-wide safety awareness, which in turn will increase overall jobsite safety. The audit will encompass every general contractors' subcontractors as well. AGC
Safety Coordinator Dee Steuve will oversee the auditing process.
"We just want everybody going home to their families every single night," Scolari says.
