Taking Advantage Of Workplace Safety
Written by woodworker on March 26th, 2009
On a construction job site, the safety rules are established to help keep the workers from getting injured or worse. However, sometimes workers on a construction site can try and twist those rules to work to their advantage. Many times workers will read the rules as literally as possible to try and find ways around the rules so that they can get through the day without doing much work. In a few cases, their efforts not only backfired on them and got them fired but they did it in some very unusual ways.
Asbestos abatement is the act of removing hazardous asbestos from a structure prior to demolition. An asbestos survey will identify the presence of the harmful material which then needs to be removed, because when the structure is torn down any asbestos left on it will put asbestos fibers into the air and this can cause many different kinds of diseases to the lungs. It does not sound like funny business, but many of the labourers that are asked to work in the asbestos abatement field spend more time trying to find ways to not work than they do in finding ways to get the job done.
There was a school being torn down to make way for a new highway. The school was very old and contained a great deal of asbestos, so one of the area’s largest asbestos abatement firms was brought in to remove the asbestos prior to the school being demolished. When asbestos is being removed from piping, the workers will usually be on scaffolding wrapping the pipe in plastic and removing it piece by piece. It is a law in some states that workers doing work like asbestos abatement of pipe from scaffolding need to be anchored to the scaffolding to prevent them from falling.
As this job started there were two workers sent in to start removing asbestos wrapped piping from the second story ceiling of the gymnasium. They went in and set up their scaffolding and set about anchoring themselves to it. Approximately an hour later, during break time, the inside supervisor went in to check on them and saw them sitting on the scaffolding apparently taking a break. He left as this was nothing unusual. However, when he returned 4 hours later they were in the same position and no piping had been wrapped since that morning. The workers had anchored themselves to the scaffolding to make it look like they were on break when they had really fallen asleep. The anchor straps they used had propped them up so it looked like they were just sitting there on a break.
They were fired that day but prior to leaving they were asked why they had committed such an obvious act of insubordination. They replied that they thought as long as they were anchored to the scaffolding, as was the law that they were doing what they were told and they would be able to stay on the job. Sometimes the law is best left to the lawyers.
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