Recently, a Navy commander overseeing 44 active construction sites for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest removed a site safety officer and a project superintendent from a $100-million jobsite in Southern California after workers struck several underground utility lines. Althoughno one was injured, the strikes constituted serious safety infractions. As the commander saw it, the supervisors were not doing the job, which was unacceptable.This incident is not an anomaly. As T.B. Penick & Sons' safety director, I feel the same way as my boss, Tim Penick: The Navy will not stand for lapses, even when no one is hurt. For
LUPO We kill three people every day in the construction industry. It’s an alarming statistic, especially given the exhaustive training, rigorous risk-management policies and tough laws that penalize contractors for safety infractions, injuries and jobsite perils. But there is another way to reduce this deadly statistic: create personal safety records for individual workers as an incentive for them to assume responsibility for safety. Recently, an employee made a decision to disregard a company’s 6-ft 100% fall-protection policy and disconnected his lanyard to climb across some formwork that was being stripped. He fell 14 ft and severely injured his knee. This