Here’s a challenge for you. What do all these words or pairs of words have in common? Carpenter’s bracket, bricklayer’s square, horse, chicken and needle beam?
Is your brain tickled yet? Give up? They are all types of scaffolds.
According to The United States Department of Labor, approximately 2.3 million construction professionals work on scaffolds each year and more than 4,500 workers are injured and 60 killed in scaffolding accidents. What’s more, most of those accidents and deaths are preventable, yet scaffolding hazards ranked second highest on the 2017 list of the most frequently cited standards in the construction industry.
Accidents involving scaffolding can be attributed to multiple issues: the planking or support gives way, the employee slips, the employee is struck by a falling object or the employee is electrocuted.
Don’t let your employees be one of the many who may die this year in a scaffolding accident. Leverage the myriad of materials that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) publishes. You can start here.
