3 minute read
SAFETY
Although 2020 has been a year of uncertainty, our safety department started strong. We were able to attend the 2-day FTBA Construction Conference in Orlando in February. The Conference has several helpful and interesting tracks that the attendee could choose from. The tracks included asphalt, concrete, emerging technologies, general session, major projects, and maintenance of traffic, safety, and structures. We had a strong showing with 33 employees representing Ajax at the conference.
The Ajax safety department presented on nighttime work and PPE (personal protective equipment) at the OSHA 10 hour class held the day before the conference started. Ajax also had 4 attendees in the class who passed and received their certificate/card. Congratulations to Matt Ohley, Mario Lentsch, Danielle Bentivegna, and Jared Hardey.
The Ajax safety department proudly continues to play a vital role in the FTBA safety committee and Mandy is the chair of the subcommittee for membership and marketing. The membership committee consists of Mandy Kustra and Eric Green from Ajax Paving, Alison Sanders from Ranger Construction, George Carr from Sims Crane, and Keith Stewart from Cemex. This team manned the FTBA safety committee booth where we encouraged new people to join. We raffled off several gift cards, Yeti coolers, and other gift baskets donated by fellow FTBA member companies and garnered a good amount of attention and interest.
The committee proudly hosted the ATSSA national work zone memorial wall honoring lives lost in work zones. The FTBA safety committee has been active for 2 years and has been a great way for the Ajax safety department to create relationships and stay in touch with other contractors in the state of Florida.
Ajax’s safety department looks forward to a safe 2021 and continued partnership with FTBA.
Stay safe out there!
Mandy Kustra, Safety Director
DOCUMENTING NEAR MISSES AND EXCELLENCE IN SAFETY
WHAT IS A NEAR MISS?
OSHA defines a near miss as an incident in which no property was damaged and no personal injury was sustained, but where, given a slight shift in time or position, damage or injury easily could have occurred. Near misses also may be referred to as close calls, near accidents, accident precursors, injury-free events and, in the case of moving objects, near collisions.
WHAT A NEAR MISS ISN’T.
If the event led to property damage or bodily injury, it’s an incident. Where there wasn’t an event or action at all, most people use the terms hazard, safety concern, or unsafe condition. Reporting unsafe conditions is equally important, of course, and some companies roll hazards onto their near miss reporting form while others handle them separately. Often these incidents – while they may leave you shaken, laughing or with a “good story” to tell when you get home from work – often are not reported. No harm done, right? But by not reporting near misses, employees also are not doing anything to prevent more, potentially serious incidents from occurring in the future. Near misses occur every day in every industry, and most serious, catastrophic and loss-producing incidents are preceded by these warnings. As you can see from the safety pyramid below.
EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION IS VITAL
While managers and executives strive for zero injuries, zero accidents and zero claims, we also may be doing their company a disservice. Rather than specifically pushing for zero accidents, we should be pushing for greater transparency and a culture of reporting.
Employees should get a vibe from management that says to them, “We’re not perfect and we need to report everything in order to identify trends, learn from our shortcomings and implement new programs and procedures.”
“If we are going to get to a level of excellence in safety, we have to measure what we don’t want to occur.”
