OSHA

There are new rules starting in June. Everyone must be tied off with rope & harness on any residential roofing job. Does anyone else see this as a problem with a full crew (5+) roofers on a full tear off.

It would seem that the only people OSHA bothers are those with a name on the truck. We make easy targets. We are registered, insured, as well as licensed for the job. We are uneasy BIG target for the bureaucrat's.

roofer Said: http://www.osha.gov/doc/residential_fall_protection.html

June 16th it takes effect. Bob from OSHA informed me after we recently were fined on a 4/12 ranch.

Funny you should mention a 4/12 pitch. You can utilize a "safety monitor" on 4/12 and less so you don't need the lanyards and harnesses. However, the safety monitor cannot be doing anything but monitoring everyone. Frankly, I believe that OSHA has really overdone it with this one!

I'm looking at this and cannot find anywhere in the regs where it would apply to reroofing. It refers to new construction every where not repairing or reroofing. B) B) :) :) B) B) Deep Down In Florida Where The Sun Shines Damn Near Every Day

A couple of days ago a radio news commentator announced that an untrained hispanic worker fell from a four-story building and died. It was an apartment building (residential, therefore) and he had no safety equipment and the company had no safety program. The commentator went on to say "this is why osha is going to be cracking down to the full extent of the law."

Soldierboy reported that a worker went through a skylight and fell forty feet to his death.

Accidents like these belong to a completely different category than what this legal change is concerned with.

A lot of buzz and nothing real. This type of site condition is already handled.

The sheer amount of technical and financial obligation imposed by this development on legitimate contractors doing extremely low-risk projects is grossly disproportionate to the dollars and injuries saved, if there even would be any. Anyone in the lay category or the fly-by night category is likely to put injury incidents into this "risk category" regardless of any of this regulation. Therefore rates won't be going up for that reason. They may go up for other reasons, but not for that. Sensible contractors are not going to contribute more losses either way. Insensible contractors are merely going to be replaced by new insensible contractors. The numbers do not work. This law will not tangibly affect the loss column and the ones creating the losses will not adhere to it anyway. There is a perfectly logical axiom to describe my objections: the punishment has to fit the crime. Levying the proposed fines on competent contractors is just a way to pretend to social responsibility while picking the low-hanging fruit of revenue enhancement for pseudo-cops. It does no good to use a bigger hammer if you aren't hitting the nail.

Whenever anything goes to court there is no telling where it will end up. For the foreseeable future we need not fear those bloated citations. For anyone still working that is a tangible and significant victory. But with such an opponent any victory no matter how small is a worthy victory.

egg Said: After many years of suffering ridicule from people scattered throughout the other states in this country because we are perceived in Cal to be always at the vanguard of restrictive legislation, I can proclaim that I am ecstatic to be doing business here right now. Cal-Osha has made this the only state in the entire country where a self-respecting, safety-conscious roofing contractor is still allowed to use slide guards. But dont despair. Even though my outrage at this law is no longer being fueled by daily and hourly fury, I am still ready and willing to advocate for all the rest of you in the country who are quite obviously being grotesquely abused by a handful of obsessive, perfectionist, and illogical zealots. Dont think you can get a fire-sale price on my gear though. We use that stuff. [size=4](Where it is logical, reasonable, and necessary.)[/size]

Odd, the fed regulation specifically says the opposite.

Your small victory will be short-lived when the lawyers find their first case and haul it into federal court on appeal.

After many years of suffering ridicule from people scattered throughout the other states in this country because we are perceived in Cal to be always at the vanguard of restrictive legislation, I can proclaim that I am ecstatic to be doing business here right now. Cal-Osha has made this the only state in the entire country where a self-respecting, safety-conscious roofing contractor is still allowed to use slide guards. But don't despair. Even though my outrage at this law is no longer being fueled by daily and hourly fury, I am still ready and willing to advocate for all the rest of you in the country who are quite obviously being grotesquely abused by a handful of obsessive, perfectionist, and illogical zealots. Don't think you can get a fire-sale price on my gear though. We use that stuff. [size=4](Where it is logical, reasonable, and necessary.)[/size]

Jeff, now you are making some sense to me.

Just to clear up some misunderstanding, it would be presumptuous of me to think you have no conviction. You clearly have conviction. What I meant should have read more like this: People with conviction will not practice this silly thing with conviction. If someone points a gun at your feet and says, "Dance" you might dance, but no matter how much energy you put into it, it's not going to be very convincing.

I watched a roof loader walk back and forth with a bundle at a time. 4 1/2 in twelve pitch, single story, level lot. He took them off the conveyor. He was standing six feet in from the rake to pick them, a couple of feet below the ridge. He walked parallel to the ridge thirty feet to the anchor point where the SRL chunk was hooked and another thirty to the farthest point he could reach. Every time he passed the anchor point in either direction the SRL flipped over with a loud clunk and took out a little piece of felt. Hiss, clunk, hiss, hiss, clunk, hiss, hiss, clunk. We took pity on him and blew away the rest of the loading in about ten minutes. It was the most pathetic thing I've seen in years.

He kept his mouth shut, no doubt from utter humiliation. I won't live like that. I have a question. When an osha boy comes up the ladder, is he already wearing a full body harness when he steps on the first rung?

On residential roofs this law will NEVER be complied with on a regular basis. All across this country you will see these small, simple buildings being re-roofed the way they have always been re-roofed. It's not even a prediction, it is an absolute certainty. That is what makes this law so incredibly, incredibly stupid. Good people will get popped, beaten, driven away and the insanity will go on until the law is either repealed or modified. Until then everyone is going to be tense and ugly. What a silly way to live.

Egg,

I would again disagree with your statement that those with any real conviction will never ever practice the new law. Those that want to stay in business and avoid the fines from our Government "OSHA" will have no choice but to put on and shut up. I for one don't always agree with our Government, but I also follow the rules and standards that are set forth. Right now it's the law. Nothing more nothing less than that. 6' or above and you have to have some sort of fall protection. They have spent our Tax dollars doing study after study on this. This was not just someone sitting behind a desk picking on us (The Roofers). They had to have enough Data collected to have determined that there is to many accidents and deaths from falls that can be prevented. I don't and won't blame anyone trying to save limbs or lives. Think of this, you are 25' to the rige line, the gutter is just above 5' so no safety lines are needed according to OSHA. But you fall at a rate of 25MPH, do you think if that worker fell from the ridge line he would get hurt or killed? This is all just hypethetical.

Yes, people die from falling less than 6', People die driving to work, riding a bike, heart attacks, big mac attacks, cancer, being Stupid and doing Stupid things. I don't set the rules, I personally don't always agree with every safety rule OSHA has come up with. I definately don't agree with the need to throw a perfectly good electric cord away because it has scratches in the line (Not deep enough to hit the insulated wires). Common Sense has been lost in our Country for a very long time now. Peope argue about the littlest things and create their own Drama. If everyone spent more time working on themselves and improving that part than worrying about other people or always pointing the finger at what needs to be done with other people we would all be in a better place. :-)

I believe OSHA could save many, many more lives by allowing roof work without any safety standards IF the workers DIDN'T ride in a car or motorcycle on the way to work.

Shall I petition my congressman to submit a bill?

[size=4]"...Now, our government sets standards that must be met by all Companies..." [/size]

Not standards, soldierboy. Invasive, anal, moronic, obstructions. [size=5]Six feet![/size]

"Our government" in this case consists of a handful of bureaucrats in a single department. Can them. Fire their sorry butts. You want to distinguish between level lots and jagged rocks & exposed rebar, fine. You want to distinguish between three stories and one, two stories and one, two and a half stories and one, let's talk about it.

[size=5]But six feet?[/size]

"If you Egg are leading the charge against OSHA and the enforcement of this safety rule I wish you luck."

Are you crazy? This is the emperor having no clothes. I'm doing my civic duty. This rule will never be complied with on any kind of consistent basis.

The "Government" repealed slavery. It repealed Prohibition. It will have to repeal this because it is [size=5][size=5][size=3]never[/size][/size][/size]

going to ever be practiced by anybody with any real conviction. [size=5]Never ever.[/size]

Just for the record, I have all this stuff to operate safely. I'm not stupid & I'm not a martyr. But I will never parrot the bogus virtue of a stupid rule just to show solidarity with the concept of government. Over my dead body.

The law that they are going to enforce was written without my vote. I don't agree with every law this country has, however. Now that it's law we have to abide by it. Can we wine and cry about it? Yes, it's a free country. However, now the law isn't on your side of not wearing it. They will fine you, they can destroy good companies with these fines.

I don't agree with everything our Free Country does. Sometimes I even wine and cry about our laws. I think it's a personal choice when I get on my bike not to wear a helmet or when I get in my car not to wear my safety belt. However, the law states I must wear my safety belt or get fined. I buckle up Those are my choices.

This law is being enforced not because of the Good companies that make good choices but for the "morons" that don't make those best decisions. Because we are a free society those "Not so Good" companies can have a business. Now, our government sets standards that must be met by all Companies.

We all know that business as usual will go on for the not so good companies and those that WE work for or have will enforce these rules on the employees set forth by our Government.

If you "Egg" are leading the charge against OSHA and the enforcement of this safety rule I wish you luck. I wouldn't know where to start this fight at. I do believe that some large associations have already tried and lost.

Let me get this straight. Sometimes it is retarded to have safety gear on a roof. My men have to strap up because someone fell 5' and died. (and because osha says so) My men and I know it is retarded but my men also have to shut up about it. This is because we accept life as it is decreed by others, because as such it is beyond "discussion" and because we don't want to ever have to write "that letter." Or worse,deliver it in person. After all, it's not like this is a free country, this is boot camp. We are babies, we are stupid, and we have to strap up and shut up. Where's my diaper, make it a red, white, and blue one so I can hold my head up. And give me some rubber pants so I don't wee on anyone.

Can monitors still be used?

Under 1926.501(b)(10), safety monitoring systems can be used in conjunction with a warning line system to protect employees during the performance of roofing work on roofs of 4 in 12 pitch or less. When such a roof is 50 feet (15.25 m) or less in width, a safety monitoring system can be used alone, i.e., without a warning line system. Under 1926.501(b)(13), if the employer can demonstrate that the use of conventional fall protection would be infeasible or create a greater hazard, monitors may be used as part of an employers written fall protection plan under 1926.502(k).

I bolded where they have infeasible or create a greater hazard. This is there loophole that cuts out the safety monitor. They have buckets of safety gear amongst other things that we must buy to protect our workers. I sat with OSHA for hours in a meeting with 20 other roofing companies and this was beat up pretty good. He kept saying infeasible then would show a slide of another system that takes away the infesability portion of it. Do I feel that sometimes it is Retarded to have safety gear on a roof a 1/12-6/12. Yes, but I did know a guy that fell 5' and died. That is enough for me to say strap up and shut up! I'm never going to have to write that letter to the spouse, EVER!

Has anyone got any experience with the monitoring system? Does that just mean that we would have to have a guy standing there watching if someone is going to fall off the roof? That sounds easy enough to do.