NATE to increase focus on tower safety

The National Association of Tower Erectors said it would redouble efforts to improve job safety in a sector that caught the attention of government labor officials in 2000 because of injuries and fatalities.
“The time is now for everyone in the industry, from CEOs of broadcast and cellular companies to members of NATE that are climbing towers in the field, to make a commitment to safety,” said Don Doty, NATE chairman and president of Doty-Moore Tower Services L.L.C., at the trade group’s annual convention in Orlando, “Everyone has to commit to making safety the only accepted method of conducting business in the tower industry.”
NATE, which works closely with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration on tower safety, said it reaffirmed its commitment to job safety by inviting its members to sign their names on an eight foot wall.
“We see this conference as an ideal occasion for NATE to reiterate the importance of safety to our members and the entire tower industry,” said Kari Carlson, NATE board member and COO of Tower Systems Inc. “It is essential that we continue to broach the issue of safety to help ensure that every tower company and organization makes safety its No. 1 priority.”
In July 2001, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health warned that workers involved in construction and maintenance of telecommunications tower are at a high risk of fatal falls. NIOSH highlighted the safety issue as a ticking time bomb as early as April 2000. At that time, the agency said available data suggested tower workers sustain deadly injuries – most from falls – at a substantially greater rate than employees in any other U.S. industry. “The cost of a phone call should not be a workers life,” said then NIOSH director Linda Rosenstock.
OSHA head Edwin Foulke Jr. is scheduled to address the NATE conference on Wednesday.
“We are doing our very best to ensure that everyone in the industry – from top to bottom – adheres to the uniform standards of safety that NATE has pursued and formulated,” said Kevin Hayden, NATE board member and president of Hayden Tower Service Inc. “At NATE, safety has always been important, but this year we are putting a stake in the ground and asking everyone from members to tower owners to make this industry as safe as it can be.”