Incident Prevention Magazine

It’s a chilly morning, and the crew is eager to make progress on the substation upgrade before tomorrow’s snow. A shiny pickup truck pulls up to the job site, the driver’s door opens and out walks a good-looking guy in neatly pressed khakis, a white button-down shirt and highly polished lace-up shoes. He stops a couple yards away from the crew, looks at everyone, breaks into a cheesy smile and makes a joke about his golf game.

Nobody laughs or even snickers. After an awkward pause, “Joe Office” tells the crew that fall protection is the day’s safety discussion topic. He points to one of the crew members and mentions that he saw him working without a harness yesterday, and that isn’t acceptable. He drones through the rest of the lesson and asks if anyone has any questions. There’s no response from the crew, so Joe Office grins again and tells everyone to stay safe as they shuffle off to the day’s tasks.

Words Mean Little
What Joe Office doesn’t realize is that nobody paid attention to anything he said. Oh, they heard him just fine, but Joe lost most of the crew members before he opened his mouth, and the rest tuned out within the first 30 seconds of hearing him speak. They pretended to listen while they thought about other things.

It’s true that Joe Office knows a lot about safety. Unfortunately, he has no clue what his body language projects and can’t read the body language of the workers with whom he’s communicating. As a result, in this scenario he wasted everyone’s time and had zero effect on the crew’s well-being.

The fact is that humans do far more listening with our eyes than we do with our ears. According to Mehrabian and Wiener, and Mehrabian and Ferris, when a verbal message is delivered, a typical human being only receives about 7 percent of the message via the words that are spoken. Thirty-eight percent of how a person receives a message is due to the way those words are delivered. And a full 55 percent of the message is conveyed through the speaker’s body language.

In other words, when a safety professional speaks to a group of workers, the nonverbal components of his or her message have a far greater impact on listeners than what’s actually being said. The professional’s physical appearance, body language, tone and pace of voice determine how carefully the workers will listen and how much they’ll retain.

When the earliest linemen first began to ground lines for worker protection, they attached a small chain – known as a ground chain – to the conductors, with the end dropped to the ground. When I began to work on a line crew, I’m sad to say that my grounding practices weren’t much better than those used in the early days. I wish someone had better explained to me then the situations that could arise, the ways grounding could protect me and the best methods to accomplish it. So, in an effort to help out other lineworkers in the electric utility industry, I want to share in the following pages some of the important aspects of grounding that I’ve learned throughout my career.

Worker Protection
Ever since enforcement of 29 CFR 1910.269 began in 1994, OSHA has required grounding practices that will protect employees in the event that the line or equipment on which they are working becomes re-energized. The equipotential zone, or EPZ, is made to do just that.

If you read paragraph 1910.269(n)(3), the preamble discussion and Appendix C to 1910.269, titled “Protection From Hazardous Differences in Electric Potential,” OSHA’s intent seems clear. To summarize, install temporary grounds and bonds at the worksite in such a manner that keeps the worksite at the same potential and prevents harm to workers even if the line is accidentally re-energized or exposed to induced voltages. You can follow Appendix C as a one-size-fits-all approach or perform your own engineering analysis to create procedures. But keep in mind that if you create your own procedures, you must be able to demonstrate they will protect your workers.

“I don’t know what I did to cause this injury, Doc. I’ve had lower back pain on and off for the past five years, but it’s never been like this before. All I did was reach under the boom for a roll of cable on the truck when I felt something give in my back and then felt shooting pain down both legs. What the heck happened?”

This is not an unusual story. When I used to practice as a chiropractic orthopedist, I heard similar accounts on a daily basis. Lower back pain affects utility workers in epidemic proportions. In 2004, my company surveyed 224 employees of a public electric utility, and the results revealed that more than one of every five lineworkers reported living with moderate to severe lower back pain on a weekly or daily basis. There are valid reasons why most lineworkers believe that lower back pain is just a consequence of the work they do, but the good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way.

The Mechanics of Back Pain
Most lower back pain is mechanical in nature, meaning it does not come from cancers, other diseases or infections. But it doesn’t necessarily come from performing physical work either. All physical work causes some daily microscopic wear and tear of your body, and the more a job requires you to do physically, the more wear and tear will occur. Before you start looking for another job, however, remember that your body is fully capable of repairing the vast majority of the wear and tear that occurs from demanding physical work. The painful conditions that most lineworkers experience in their careers occur because the balance between the amount of damage done each day and the repair that occurs each day gets thrown out of whack. How you position and move your body as you perform work dramatically affects how much wear and tear you sustain each day. Habitually working with stressful techniques can cause more microscopic damage on a daily basis than your body is capable of repairing. If it is not repaired, this microscopic damage accumulates over time and eventually causes painful conditions. “Cumulative trauma” is the name given to this slow accumulation of microscopic damage. As cumulative trauma increases over the years, the end results commonly are painful conditions, serious injuries and degenerative arthritis.

When designing your PPE program, how do you know which option will work best for your application? How can you get the most for your money? How can you get no-cheating compliance from your workers? With so many arc-rated (AR) and flame-resistant (FR) PPE products on the market, it can be difficult for a utility or utility contractor to make a sound decision. To start, complete an analysis to determine hazard levels, as well as the workers who will be exposed. Application, comfort and cost should be considered when deciding on the best product to purchase. In this article, we will help you see how to maximize your AR and FR gear. The process begins with making a choice that makes sense for your company and your application, and then you will need to know how to care for the PPE so you can get the most from your money and extend the equipment’s lifespan.

Application and Comfort
While there have long been arguments and marketing claims about the superiority of either treated or inherent fibers used for FR and AR clothing, the truth is that both can work well from a protection standpoint, and both have a place in the market. Determining which one to use depends on the application and properties the end user needs.

For instance, aramids are durable and can work well with exposure to certain acids and bases – as an example, para-aramid is sensitive to chlorine bleach, mineral acids and UV, but these do not affect its flame resistance – yet pure aramids do not work well with regard to molten metal hazards because molten metal sticks to the fabric. However, there are several aramid blends that work well with molten metal. Modacrylics are great for chemical resistance, but the fiber has a high amount of shrinkage in a thermal exposure and doesn’t pass some of the small-scale tests for flash fire unless blended. Cottons and a similar, regenerated cellulose FR fiber known as FR rayon are breathable, soft and relatively inexpensive, yet they do not perform well in acid exposures. They also have fair colorfastness, meaning that their colors can fade with exposure to light and laundering.

OSHA’s final rule on 29 CFR 1910 Subpart D, “Walking-Working Surfaces,” is finally here. It’s 26 pages of nine-point font equaling 21,675 words, and I read them all. It’s big, and if you include the preamble in your analysis, it is also complicated. It was just as hard to write about as it was to read. I guess that shouldn’t be unexpected for a final rule that has been in the works since 1983. The original 1910 Subpart D was published in 1971. The first update was proposed in 1983, but it was never ratified. Proposals were again considered in either the Construction standard or the General Industry standard in 1990, 1994 and 2003. This edition of the final rule for 1910 Subpart D covers it all. OSHA should be congratulated for bringing almost all of the fall-related standards into one location, making it easier for the employer to find rules related to working surfaces under one subpart instead of having to search for those rules that may affect the employer’s workplace. This may be news to some novice safety professionals in the utility industry, but not all regulations affecting us are restricted to 1910.269 or 1926 Subpart V. Subpart D applies, so it is important to be familiar with it.

What’s New?
Preventing falls is almost the entire purpose of rules for walking-working surfaces. The surfaces are not always those spaces of aisles between walls. Most walking or working spaces in the workplace are not defined aisles; they are more likely to be incidental spaces about the work area. It is quite easy for those incidental spaces to be encumbered by tools, materials and process waste that create stumbling or tripping hazards. In addition, many of those working spaces are raised surfaces, from the tops of foundations to the tops of skyscrapers. That being the case, OSHA has brought into Subpart D the body of fall protection standards. You will now find a greatly expanded section on ladders; step bolts (towers) and manhole steps; scaffolds and rope descent systems (building maintenance); the duty to have fall protection; new and expanded requirements on fall protection equipment design; and some expanded language on the training of employees to recognize and prevent falls in the workplace.

OSHA 29 CFR 1910.67 is the performance-based standard that covers requirements when using vehicle-mounted elevating and rotating work platforms, including the bucket trucks we use in the electric utility industry. There are many types of buckets, and the task to be performed will determine what type of bucket is required. This standard even covers noninsulated work platforms, sometimes referred to as JLGs, used in civil construction. For clarification, a mobile platform covered under 1910.68, “Manlifts,” is not covered under the 1910.67 standard. Mobile platforms are considered mobile scaffolding and require standard guardrail protection. Additional fall restraint normally is employed depending on the type of work and availability of fall protection attachment points.

Although today our industry is better trained than ever, it wasn’t so long ago that one of the most violated standards was the requirement to fly the booms every day before employee use. According to paragraph 1910.67(c)(2)(i), “Lift controls shall be tested each day prior to use to determine that such controls are in safe working condition.”

The fall protection requirements for utility bucket trucks are currently covered under 1910.269(g), “Personal protective equipment.” The users of bucket trucks now have options for fall protection, including a personal fall arrest system, fall prevention or a retractable lanyard. Fall protection equipment is much more user-friendly and lightweight than ever before.

In the remainder of this article, I want to focus on bucket truck inspections and maintenance required by OSHA, manufacturers and others. This information is critical but sometimes is not followed by employers or employees, which has led to a number of catastrophes.

Q: We are a small, distribution-only municipal utility that has been looking into human performance. We are having some trouble understanding it all and how it could benefit us. Most of the training resources are pretty expensive. Can you help us sort it out?

A: We can. Human performance management (HPM) has been around in various forms and focuses since before the 1950s. Throughout the ’50s and ’60s, it seems the focus was on companies performing functional analysis and correcting issues that created losses, thereby promoting more efficient and error-resistant operations. In the ’60s and ’70s, much of the literature on HPM seemed to surround the nuclear power industry, and indeed the introduction of HPM into the transmission/distribution side of the utility industry appears to have come through the generation side. In the ’70s, researchers began to experiment and write about more closely analyzing the knowledge and skills of the performer. It took a while to sink in, but the safety industry began to research HPM as a culture analysis and risk prevention tool. It makes sense. Human performance – in particular knowledge, skills modes, decision-making modes and performance – affects all of every enterprise whether you have an HPM program or not. Organizations are made of people. HPM has identified and categorized commonalities in types of personalities that predict how people make decisions and perform tasks. Studying human performance also can help identify safety culture issues and risk behaviors. It’s not a big or expensive step to train your workforce on problem-solving and decision-making characteristics of the human mind. Soon they will understand their own processes and the limitations of the way they naturally think, allowing them to make adjustments toward better performance. So if we can take advantage of HPM to prevent incidents, why not do it? Most organizations start small. Pick a few key people to begin training on the basics of HPM, and then look at your organization to see where the initial undertakings can do the most good. There are several experts associated with Incident Prevention who will be glad to help should you need it. Additionally, on the iP website (www.incident-prevention.com) you can find numerous HPM articles in the iP archives as well as information and training sessions from past iP Utility Safety Conferences. HPM works. We hope you will pursue it.

“Get us a bucket truck, a rock and a hard hat. The rest of the class and I will meet you outside in 10 minutes.” Those were my instructions to a participant who, during a recent Frontline program session, challenged me as I was teaching the hierarchy of controls and explaining why PPE should be considered the last line of defense.

The participant was adamant that he had always been trained that PPE is your primary protection and that if you are wearing it, you are protected and can work as you want. The rest of the group validated that was how they understood their training. This put us at an impasse because I firmly believe safety boils down to your ability to identify and control hazards, and I am extremely passionate about using the hierarchy of controls as a decision-making tool to control hazards to the fullest extent possible. I also believe overreliance on PPE is a serious and growing problem, and that far too often, hazards are identified but tolerated or not properly controlled.

After about 10 minutes of failed examples and discussion with this Frontline group, I decided to go another route and requested the bucket truck, rock and hard hat. The participant who had challenged me gave me a quizzical look and replied, “What?” I told him that per his understanding of PPE, if there was a hazard that involved me dropping a rock from a bucket raised 30 feet in the air, he was OK standing underneath the bucket as long as he was wearing his hard hat. I then gave him three choices: eliminate the hazard (I don’t drop the rock); eliminate the risk (he doesn’t stand underneath the bucket); or I drop the rock and he relies on his hard hat for protection.

Suddenly it became obvious to the class why elimination is the first choice in hazard control and PPE is the last line of defense. We then had an amazing and exciting discussion about the hierarchy of controls and how the group was going to change their training. More importantly, the class talked about how they were going to approach hazard mitigation in the future.