Putting Standards into Practice: Preventing SIFs Through Standards Implementation

Well, Truthfully, we have not made as much progress as we should have.

Thinking about the number of construction workers in particular who die from being at work and on the job each year is consistent.

And the rates of those fatal injuries have not, in particular with falls, have been pretty flat over the last 10 or so years.

I think keeping the focus on these hazards is essential.

I often really try to understand the data and ask a lot of questions about the data and see what we can learn from the data.

And it always points to the same thing.

And it doesn't matter the year.

It doesn't matter the focus.

It's about small employers, particularly in the construction industry.

We can't stress that enough.

Really understanding how the construction industry works is the smallest employers don't have a lot of resources to devote to prevention efforts.

They're busy keeping the doors open and the work flowing.

And there's a vast overwhelming majority of small employers in our industry.

So even if we see that some construction employers grow over time and learn and learn how to control these hazards, They're also growing and learning how to be a better business at the same time.

So they're growing the size of their business.

But there's always new construction firms coming in and always new construction firms being created.

So thinking about the unending battle to reach the small employers, It's exhausting and it's also, it keeps us on target.

It keeps us on task because there are always new employers coming into the industry.

So you make headway and you reach employers, but they're also growing at the same time.

So they're almost...

Grown past the hazard, I hope.

But there's always employers in the pipeline behind them, the smallest of the smallest, starting out their business with a lack of resources in place.

The work is unending, and we can't give up.

We don't know how bad it would be if we did give up.

We would give up on these issues.