Speakup or shutup?

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jimbo123

Senior Member
Why do some people in management think that contractors are the answer to the working hot ? . After all the information out there and the information the workers give them they still rather get someone outside the company to do the work. They really think they are doing the right thing by contracting it out so they feel they are absolved from liablity.

I watch young guys doing dangerous work and wonder if they know what is going on. I am tempeted to talk about the dangers with them but have fear of losing my job. Their boss must know, but it must come down to money. He doesn't even supply decent ppe for these guys,

Should i talk to them or leave well enough alone ? Maybe they already know.
 

John120/240

Senior Member
Location
Olathe, Kansas
Should i talk to them or leave well enough alone ? Maybe they already know.

YES Please do have a chat. Some employees are all gung ho & feel invincible....ain't gonna

happen to me. Maybe they will perform the task & all is OK. Then again there could be a major

foul up with loss of limb, sight, or death.

Could you live with yourself if you kept quiet & there was a mishap ?
 

Ponchik

Senior Member
Location
CA
Occupation
Electronologist
As suggested, call OSHA and have them come by for a surprise inspection. I hate it when the employer/management asks to do something that they don't understand the danger of working on an energized system.

Maybe you should educate the young employees and the management.
 

topgone

Senior Member
They can call OSHA anonymously and ask for a site inspection.

YES Please do have a chat. Some employees are all gung ho & feel invincible....ain't gonna

happen to me. Maybe they will perform the task & all is OK. Then again there could be a major

foul up with loss of limb, sight, or death.

Could you live with yourself if you kept quiet & there was a mishap ?

As suggested, call OSHA and have them come by for a surprise inspection. I hate it when the employer/management asks to do something that they don't understand the danger of working on an energized system.

Maybe you should educate the young employees and the management.
With all due respect, there will always be odd jobs that management will never allow its employees to be expose to. That's a fact. Specialization in every type of jobs are very much available out there. But to just outsource a critical job for the sake of evading responsibilities should accidents happen is a big no-no.

If you are working on behalf management, it will be best if you require these prospective contractors to answer pertinent questions and see if their workers are qualified persons (please see OSHA definition of a qualified personnel). If they aren't, don't give them that dang job!

Still, your company will be held severally liable for accidents that will happen in your premises. Hope to have helped you.
 

jimbo123

Senior Member
The biggest problem is to get the company to see if something happens its on them also and not just the contractors who are doing the work. That seems to be the big part they dont get.
 

mayanees

Senior Member
Location
Westminster, MD
Occupation
Electrical Engineer and Master Electrician
70E 110.1

70E 110.1

NFPA 70E is clear about host employer responsiblities

110.1 Relationships with Contractors (Outside Service Personnel, and So Forth).
(A) Host Employer Responsibilities.
(1) The host employer shall inform contract employers of the following:
a. Known hazards that are covered by this standard, that are related to the contract employer?s work, and that might not be recognized by the contract employer or its employees
b. Information about the employer?s installation that the contract employer needs to make the assessments required by Chapter 1
(2) The host employer shall report observed contract employer?related violations of this standard to the contract employer.

Section B that follows points out the "Contract Employer Responsibilities"
Section C required documentation of the meetings between Host and Contractor for purpose of communication.

John M
 

mm11

Member
Location
Maryland
If I'm asked by a customer to work hot, they have to fill out an "Energized Electrical Work Permit", and justify why the work cannot be done in a de-energized state or deferred until next scheduled outage. Watching a few YouTube videos of arc faults/arc blasts really drives home the importance of following NFPA 70E, and I would be personally concerned about the guys if the work is performed in an unsafe manner. I'm definitely for speaking up.
 

hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
Occupation
Owner/electrical contractor
I was at a large distribution center yesterday troubleshooting some contactors for the lot lights. The head maintenance guy was there with me while I was working. He said their company policy was to have someone with any contractors working there at all times. He was kinda grinning as I put on my ppe to troubleshoot this live contactor panel. I asked him if they were requiring them to wear this yet, and he said no.
 

JoeStillman

Senior Member
Location
West Chester, PA
Speak up, don't shut up.

The only people who have to risk their lives for "management" wear uniforms with stripes on the sleeves. You can bet they don't go to work without PPE.
 
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ggunn

PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
Location
Austin, TX, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
Why do some people in management think that contractors are the answer to the working hot ? . After all the information out there and the information the workers give them they still rather get someone outside the company to do the work. They really think they are doing the right thing by contracting it out so they feel they are absolved from liablity.

I watch young guys doing dangerous work and wonder if they know what is going on. I am tempeted to talk about the dangers with them but have fear of losing my job. Their boss must know, but it must come down to money. He doesn't even supply decent ppe for these guys,

Should i talk to them or leave well enough alone ? Maybe they already know.
It's a sticky wicket, that's for sure. If you speak up you could put your job in jeopardy. If you don't, and someone gets killed or if OSHA shows up and levees huge fines, the company might not survive and your job may be in jeopardy that way as well.
 

G._S._Ohm

Senior Member
Location
DC area
I blew the whistle on a corrupt federal agency and was forced out, even with an attorney. Every seven years or so this agency is embarrassed by newspaper articles on their game, and then it is business as usual. Nobody goes to prison for negligent manslaughter or depraved negligence.

The people whose lives you save will not be grateful because they won't know that you saved their lives.

The "system" will not back you up on this because "it is bad for business".

Management greeted my revelations with a torrent of lies. I researched lying and found out that all living things use deception and so I am not that much holier than these b@st@rds.

And one of the books I read on Whistleblowing by C. Fred Alford said that we are narcissistic. And he's right but this personality defect serves a good purpose.

If management is not bound by law and you are, you will almost certainly lose.
 
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petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
I am not quite as cynical as GSOhm but I think he is mostly right. If those in charge just do not care, they will find out you ratted on them and take revenge and there will be nothing you can do about it.

If they care, you can go to them and explain that what is going on is a bad idea and maybe something about how they might resolve it.

The "good" guy usually ends up the loser in a whistleblower situation unless he has strong backing from some powerful entity (maybe a union in this case).

Most people do not want to rock the boat and are perfectly happy with things the way they are even if they are not ideal and expose them to risk that is not necessary. They much prefer stability to change and are more afraid of what might happen than they are of being seriously injured by a potentially hazardous situation. They think they have some control over the potentially hazardous situation even though they really don't, but they expect that the unknown is certain to be unpleasant (with very good reason).
 

G._S._Ohm

Senior Member
Location
DC area
. . .cynical. . .
Please! I'm just skeptical! :lol:

I don't often visit hospitals but one time I happened to find out that when you are under anesthesia you lose control of your body temperature.
At that moment I realized that my life was totally in the hands of total strangers. They must have been having a good day because I'm still here.

I've come to realize that this is true every day, all over. Just crossing a parking lot puts you at the mercy of who knows who and they are in control of dozens of horsepower pushing tons of sheet metal.

If you're vigilant you might live to be old.

And if you do manage to save some lives, I hope those you saved were/are good guys. We have enough of the other kind.
 
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Besoeker

Senior Member
Location
UK
YES Please do have a chat. Some employees are all gung ho & feel invincible....ain't gonna

happen to me. Maybe they will perform the task & all is OK. Then again there could be a major foul up with loss of limb, sight, or death.
Could you live with yourself if you kept quiet & there was a mishap ?

I have posted on this before. A customer of ours got seriously burned when he got into one of our panels without switching off all supplies.
The warning notice was one that I had my wording.
Should I have composed it differently? Should it have been larger?
It was an engraved label with very specific instructions on access. It complied with requirements on size and colour.
Nevertheless, I still felt very uncomfortable with what happened.
Could I, should I, have done things differently and possibly prevented the accident?

Realistically, probably not. It was around 20 years ago and it still doesn't sit well with me. It would have been infinitely worse for me had I felt that any act of omission or commission on my part that I could have reasonably foreseen was not.
 

PEDRO ESCOVILLA

Senior Member
Location
south texas
having run 277 volts through my head and chest because i was "told the circuits were dead" ( i feel very lucky to be able to write this) , then seeing a guy get blown across a room when the end of a fish crossed two hot buss in a 1200 amp panel, i could care less about the money, or management. my life, and the life of my coworkers is worth alot more than than the 15 minutes reqiuired to do it right. ie cold, or in the proper gear. and if one is not properly trained in hot work, do not attempt it. lots of " heroes " die young in the wrong place, somertimes from being foolish. i've been lucky in later years, to work for outfits in new england where you will get fired for not wearing proper ppe, and not following proper l.o.t.o. procedures. thats the way i like it. safe. i appreciate an owner or project manager who wants his people to be safe and not get hurt. someone who doen't go that route, really doesn't understand insurance comp rates, or liability exposure. if the systems are in place and not followed, at least their butt is somewhat covered, if nothing is in place and there is no safety policy or perocdures, you're wide open for liabilty. you can call osha too ya know.
 

hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
Occupation
Owner/electrical contractor
having run 277 volts through my head and chest because i was "told the circuits were dead" ( i feel very lucky to be able to write this) , then seeing a guy get blown across a room when the end of a fish crossed two hot buss in a 1200 amp panel, i could care less about the money, or management. my life, and the life of my coworkers is worth alot more than than the 15 minutes reqiuired to do it right. ie cold, or in the proper gear. and if one is not properly trained in hot work, do not attempt it. lots of " heroes " die young in the wrong place, somertimes from being foolish. i've been lucky in later years, to work for outfits in new england where you will get fired for not wearing proper ppe, and not following proper l.o.t.o. procedures. thats the way i like it. safe. i appreciate an owner or project manager who wants his people to be safe and not get hurt. someone who doen't go that route, really doesn't understand insurance comp rates, or liability exposure. if the systems are in place and not followed, at least their butt is somewhat covered, if nothing is in place and there is no safety policy or perocdures, you're wide open for liabilty. you can call osha too ya know.

We have a strict "No live work" policy, and have terminated several employees that have violated it. Not all terminations were related to an incident either. If you happen to be working on something live, such as changing out a ballast hot, and one of our safety team walks in, it's automatic dismissal.
 

__dan

Senior Member
I want to push forward with another round but ... am being advised to wait. Saw it coming in advance, like 30 seconds in, gave advance notice well documented, and still the bastiges hold power wielding it cluelessly. Just waiting for this round to resolve and the hopper dumps the next round into the next lap. Suprisingly no effect so far for the number of pages, long list of types, and instances repeated hundreds of times. Should have told them the coffee pot was cold. They would have sent three guys out to smack it with hammers.

H L Mencken's quote comes to mind but the timing ... this era has protection under the law and so that path is expected to be followed.

The OSHA complaint gives protection under the law for negative job consequences, demotion, overtime loss, discrimination. Don't know about trying to collect on that.

Am very encouraged the thread is overwhelmingly in favor of disclosure and escalation. Do so in writing and yes, there will be retribution for it. Document that also. Pros would respond like pros in minutes. Buttkissers just point to their arses and say "this is where your lips belong".

Great thread. I owe beer to the guy who reported this one.

http://articles.courant.com/2011-06...a-issues-worker-safety-violations-grubb-ellis
 
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