safety

Sprains and strains continue to be one of the highest types of injuries within our company. By following a few simple rules, many of these injuries can be avoided or their severity greatly reduced. Medical evidence has shown that performing warm-up exercises before work and after breaks reduces strain and sprain type injuries.

These rules are:

As the weather becomes “frightful” during winter months, construction workers who must brave the outdoor conditions face the occupational hazard of exposure to the cold. You need to be especially mindful of the weather, its effects on the body, and proper prevention techniques.

Environmental conditions

The following four environmental conditions are the causes of cold-related stress:

Accidents occur for many reasons. In most jobsites people tend to look for "things" or “people” to blame when an accident happens, because it's easier than looking for "root causes,"

Mobile (also known as rolling) scaffold setups require you to use the same common sense safety rules that apply to the use of stationary upright scaffolding. You should always keep the planks clean; never overload the unit and watch where you are walking.

Notice to Supervisors: Read and be prepared to answer questions. Every employee should know to report near misses to their immediate supervisor.

In any company, whether differences among members are great or small, functioning as a team is critical to success.

In today’s meeting, we want to focus on behaviors that violate these principles in the worst way. We are speaking of verbal and physical confrontations, more commonly known as "having words” and fighting.

Working in confined spaces can be pretty common in construction. If you’ve ever had to run conduit in a crawl space or install insulation in a cramped attic, you have worked in a confined space. If that crawl space or attic had some kind of hazard in it- such as volatile fumes from spry insulation or high temperatures caused by the heat of a summer afternoon, you may have worked in a permit required confined space.

Bob NoPay has a problem that affects a lot of employees; he is speaking to his Production Manager on Friday about a short check. When all the facts are reviewed, Bob finds out that his attendance is the problem, not a clerical error from his foreman or payroll.

Marek Dallas Division President John Hinson wrote the following President’s Message for AWCI's Construction Dimension magazine. Hinson is the 2015-2016 President of AWCI.