The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently published new regulations on the use of hoists to place workers on communications towers.
The new regulation comes several months after OSHA’s February letter to the tower industry, warning them to make sure to comply with safety rules on-site and promising to scrutinize sub-contractors on their safety adherence as well.
Some of the points noted in the new regulations include:
- The new regulations replace old ones from 2002. The previous rules only covered the hoisting of tower workers during new tower erection, while the new ones extend to all use of hoisting workers to or from workstations on communications towers.
- OSHA noted that the preferred method of accessing on-tower work sites is still fixed ladders with attached climbing devices, since this offers tower climbers fall protection.
- The new regulations cover details of equipment, including the use of an anti-two block device on all hoists, procedures for hoisting one or more workers, guidelines for weather conditions, necessary clearance from live power lines, and more. To read the full pdf of OSHA’s regulations, go here.
None of the recent accidents have involved tower workers being hoisted, although there have been past accidents with that scenario. Two of the 2013 communications tower safety incidents that OSHA has investigated involved hoists, but the work involved installing hoists or hoisting equipment rather than personnel. The CDC documented a case in 1999 where three people working on painting a radio tower died in a hoist accident while being raised to the side of the tower.
OSHA described the update as “the latest in a series of actions OSHA has taken to improve cell tower safety,” and noted that it is collaborating with the National Association of Tower Erectors to ensure that the industry understands its responsibility and the rules for protecting cell tower workers. NATE began a 24/7/365 tie-off campaign earlier this year, as many of the recent injuries and deaths have been from falls.
RCR spoke with Wade Sarver, who runs the blog wade4wireless.com for wireless field workers, about the context for the new OSHA rules and takeaways that tower workers and site managers should be sure to familiarize themselves with the regulations in order to maintain compliance.
Watch the interview with Sarver below, and check out RCR’s YouTube channel for more video coverage.
Image from the CDC
