Contractor safety rules

[bones]

Or maybe it just comes down to work ethic Something to discuss at your "sit down" breakfast...

[smoky]

What exactly does work ethic have to do with following safety rules? Company makes the rules, not the lineman. You must be a "hero" lineman(get the job done at any cost or risk). I can picture you explaining to your family why you got fired, might go something like this:

Me lineman, me break rules, me got more work done than any other crew, me got fired for breaking rules to keep my pride, uh-oh pride don't make house payment or buy food.

Everyone's got their dead weight, utilities and contractors, union or non. It would be like me saying all contractors do poor quality work(which I'm not) because we've gone back after they leave to put wire back up that had the wrong autos, re-sagged conductor, re-labeled their underground, whatever.
Just happened to have a careless contract crew that summer, it happens.

Ironically our contractor has their weekly safety meeting for an hour every friday morning at a local restaurant. If we parked a company truck at a restaurant it would be our last meal as an employee, might have been common twenty years ago.

[Highplains Drifter]

What exactly does work ethic have to do with following safety rules? Company makes the rules, not the lineman. You must be a "hero" lineman(get the job done at any cost or risk). I can picture you explaining to your family why you got fired, might go something like this:

Me lineman, me break rules, me got more work done than any other crew, me got fired for breaking rules to keep my pride, uh-oh pride don't make house payment or buy food.

Everyone's got their dead weight, utilities and contractors, union or non. It would be like me saying all contractors do poor quality work(which I'm not) because we've gone back after they leave to put wire back up that had the wrong autos, re-sagged conductor, re-labeled their underground, whatever.
Just happened to have a careless contract crew that summer, it happens.

Ironically our contractor has their weekly safety meeting for an hour every friday morning at a local restaurant. If we parked a company truck at a restaurant it would be our last meal as an employee, might have been common twenty years ago.

Smokey, maybe you are not aware of what is happening through out the country, the contractors can not get the Journeymen they need that knows how to do their job. There is a shortage of knowledgeable hands. They have plenty of nut huggers that are job scared and do everything they are asked. Any one who fires a Journeyman for a wheel chalk doesn't really want him or he is not fulfilling the criteria that the employer needs to get the job done.




Oh ya, does your contract state that you take lunch at a certain hour? I see nothing wrong with after you have the material loaded and on the way to the job that you take a half hour lunch at 7:45 and have eggs for your lunch. A half hour is a half hour lunch no matter when you take it.

[bones]

Listen, I've played my fiddle on both sides, utility and contractor...more than once. Here we are on the third page and I still don't have an "example" of a safety rule utility linemen must follow that takes such an extraordinary amount of extra time to implement

No matter what side I'm on, or anyone is on, we still ground the same, rubber the same, cone the same, put our signs out the same, still make the necessary phone calls the same.

You see the funny part is, I must explain why our accident incidences are "negligibly" higher than our utilities. They're asking me! A former employee of that said utility! Since they simply didn't asked about how we could become safer but over reached and compared us to their men, I asked for recently completed work orders of their distribution crews. Denied because of irreverence I see how it is, someone drives 10,000 miles and has one accident and another drives 100,000 miles and has two. "Obviously" the one that had two accidents is unsafer...ahhh, no.

I think accidents per pole is a MUCH more better indicator of overall safety than accidents per man-hour. Common sense here...

I know how it works, bring what you got, argue it if you can...but you can't.

[MI-Lineman]

Listen, I've played my fiddle on both sides, utility and contractor...more than once. Here we are on the third page and I still don't have an "example" of a safety rule utility linemen must follow that takes such an extraordinary amount of extra time to implement

No matter what side I'm on, or anyone is on, I still ground the same, rubber the same, cone the same, put my signs out the same, still make the necessary phone calls the same.

You see the funny part is, I must explain why our accident incidences are "negligibly" higher than our utilities. They're asking me! A former employee of that said utility! Since they simply didn't asked about how we could become safer but over reached and compared us to their men, I asked for recently completed work orders of their distribution crews. Denied because of irreverence I see how it is, someone drives 10,000 miles and has one accident and another drives 100,000 miles and has two. "Obviously" the one that had two accidents is unsafer...ahhh, no.

I think accidents per pole is a MUCH more better indicator of overall safety than accidents per man-hour. Common sense here...

I know how it works, bring what you got, argue it if you can...but you can't.

Well here we got the beloved "f$cksqueeze!" We sit through 2-3 safety meetings per week! We go through BS "training" like ....and this is no sh!t "how to use a tree stand safely!" Yeah! They brought Mike Avery(spellin?) in to tell us this crap all the while the contractors are doin our job! We have to have a tella conference phone call with I don't know who on the other side of the line about how we could avoid every little safety incident we have INCLUDING POISON IVY! THAT'S NO SH!T! These are just a few examples but they all take time away from the job!

Anyway I wasn't tryin to attack you or anyone personally about safety! All I said is the contractors (and I too played the fiddle!) are not policed by the same people policing us! We are more under scrutiny here at the co. then I ever was on the contractor side! Deny it all you want but I was there too and I know for a fact there's times when safety's overlooked and you can get away with it more as a contractor.

[Highplains Drifter]

Well here we got the beloved "f$cksqueeze!" We sit through 2-3 safety meetings per week! We go through BS "training" like ....and this is no sh!t "how to use a tree stand safely!" Yeah! They brought Mike Avery(spellin?) in to tell us this crap all the while the contractors are doin our job! We have to have a tella conference phone call with I don't know who on the other side of the line about how we could avoid every little safety incident we have INCLUDING POISON IVY! THAT'S NO SH!T! These are just a few examples but they all take time away from the job!

Anyway I wasn't tryin to attack you or anyone personally about safety! All I said is the contractors (and I too played the fiddle!) are not policed by the same people policing us! We are more under scrutiny here at the co. then I ever was on the contractor side! Deny it all you want but I was there too and I know for a fact there's times when safety's overlooked and you can get away with it more as a contractor.

Of course lots of our work is the jobs you Utility hands don't want: back yards, ghettos, swamps and no truck access. We find it good duty and it keeps our skills fine tuned. We do have one weekly safety meeting (distribution) and of course the daily tail boards. I usually the first day teach my apprentice how to sign my name for the dailies.

[topgroove]

Of course lots of our work is the jobs you Utility hands don't want: back yards, ghettos, swamps and no truck access. We find it good duty and it keeps our skills fine tuned. We do have one weekly safety meeting (distribution) and of course the daily tail boards. I usually the first day teach my apprentice how to sign my name for the dailies.

I've worked with union contractors before and can honestly say they're top notch. I worked with crews from Harlen and 1249 last year and it was a pleasure. Alot of the crap we all have to go through on a daily bases seams to be a big show for the safety men. Unfortunatly we keep reading about the senceless accidents and we scratch our heads and wonder what the hell were they thinking? We're all in this together and have to watch eachothers backs.

[MI-Lineman]

Of course lots of our work is the jobs you Utility hands don't want: back yards, ghettos, swamps and no truck access. We find it good duty and it keeps our skills fine tuned. We do have one weekly safety meeting (distribution) and of course the daily tail boards. I usually the first day teach my apprentice how to sign my name for the dailies.

Watch it HD! What do ya mean "don't want?" I'll take it all!

[Highplains Drifter]

I've worked with union contractors before and can honestly say they're top notch. I worked with crews from Harlen and 1249 last year and it was a pleasure. Alot of the crap we all have to go through on a daily bases seams to be a big show for the safety men. Unfortunatly we keep reading about the senceless accidents and we scratch our heads and wonder what the hell were they thinking? We're all in this together and have to watch eachothers backs.

True...we where working dock work and the Utility had a non union vender sucking all of our holes and we'd fill with rock. Couldn't say anything about the rat contractor cause we where getting paid by the utility and not a bid job. So to top it off they had us transferring the communication and to top the pole off below that.......so they could use another rat with a back hole to pull the remaining pole.....well we would top the pole off above the communications so the rat could put on his rubber gloves and cover the primary like us. (Which he couldn't) So the battle was on but low and behold the Utility need some political backing and the only way our Hall would help them was if they got the two rats off of their property and let the hole sucking and pole removal be union work with outside hands and in house lineman.