Guilty as Sin

I know a man who has a nicely framed plaque on his wall that has an expression that took years to deeply understand, is by no means original , and is representational of the situation that most small to midsize general contractors find themselves in today in Florida. The plaque reads: “When you’re up to your ass in alligators…it’s hard to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp”.

Workers’ Compensation Insurance is hard to get in Florida, especially in the restoration segment of the industry. The Builders’ Insurance Group (the insurance arm of the National Home Builders Association) dropped an overwhelming majority of customers. Even those with no claim history lost their insurance because it wanted out of the market. That meant that thousands of contractors and subcontractors lost their G/L and WC insurance.

The G/L coverage isn’t that difficult to replace but the WC is almost impossible to replace in the market with the only real choices being to simply fire everyone who works for you and re-engage them as independents, make a move toward employee leasing, or pay the astronomical amounts that the state operated program offers (which makes the company uncompetitive if they price all those premiums in their competitive bids). I know……ARISTON Construction, Inc. was forced to make this decision in 2011.

And this is where we get to the alligator part. We knowingly, willingly did it to ourselves…..for years. General Contractors, both big and small, have avoided, ignored,  and otherwise discounted job safety for so long…..the alligator finally became visible in the water.

Even today, on a project where the hard costs will easily surpass 20 million dollars, the daily repetition of OSHA violations of even the most basic PPE requirements is both hard to count and hard to believe. The lack of use of hard hats, safety glasses, boots, and other simple PPE necessities like masks are the most obvious, but there are others. Some are more life threatening than others.

Even when we talk about the basics in PPE, we aren’t talking about hard to understand concepts. We are talking about items that should be second nature to anyone in the business. I don’t know anyone personally that leaves his house in the morning without their pants on so why would you jump on the scaffolding without a hard hat? Why would you operate a circular saw or a chop saw without safety glasses? If you’re cutting cementious siding, why would ever start without a mask?

Then there are more conditions we find continually that seem to fall into the category of: “what in the hell were you thinking”? Using a power cord at the end of an extension cord to run multiple power tools, walking a roof line without a harness or lanyard, changing scaffolding assemblies when you aren’t certified to do so are all additions to a long list.

During demolition I’ve seen repetitive conditions left by the same electrician as panel face plates are left off live electrical panels for hours at a time. I’ve seen demolition debris piled three feet high covering the entire stairwell or breezeway egress locations without any forethought to the trip hazard it creates with other people using the ingress/egress location. I see scaffolding too far away from a building and without proper railing twenty feet off the ground. I see improper use of walk boards, stepping from the building to the scaffolding and the use of scaffolding before it’s been tagged.

Recently I say a man dig a hole large enough for five or six people to stand in in order to undermine a footing and without wall shoring and without fencing.

Following any set of rules and regulations is hard enough but is realistic when the culture is embedded from the top down. If you are a PM, a superintendent or supervisor, your actions and attitudes towards safety must set the tone. The workers won’t do any more than you.

The observations above were made of companies that have an annual revenue curve that averages better than $50 million and the lack of adherence to OSHA guidelines or their own safety manuals is one reason why the smaller companies today can’t maintain affordable WC insurance. I guess the other is that the smaller contractor never even attempted to work safely.

So, as the insurance alligator gets closer remember………..we drained the swamp.