If you are this disappointed because you feel the "union" is some how letting you down by some guys not tying off and someone not putting on their safety glasses, go open shop and see how life treats you. Guess what, YOU will still be responsible open or closed shop for those safety violations made by those who are on your site. Regardless of union or nonunion you are still going to have people not comply it is your job as the contractor and owner of the company to catch these issues and enforce the standard prior to it becoming an OSHA issue. If you feel you have to be on every single job site at the same time for the standard to be enforced then your superintendents, general foremen, and foremen must suck. What do you want the union to do for re-education give the men the same fall safety training the receive anyways? You are the contractor you are the one with the violations against you, one would think YOU would ensure that when the men show up to YOUR site you are briefing them on YOUR standard regardless if it meets or goes above and beyond OSHA standard. Funny all those stickers on my hard hat from different mills and power houses safety programs didn't come from the hall, they came from the owner or contractor holding a safety class on that specific job site.
"Just food for thought, I can only be on ONE job at a time, and if something goes sideways (god forbid) on another job, I will get a $70,000.00 fine and possible criminal action against me, and that my vet friend is what keeps me up at nite and my heart racing!!!!! As far as magical pot of gold military draws from it's called taxes and the military(government) hasn't finished a "job" since WWII . IE. Vietnam,Afganistan,Iraq, & I think Korea (but before my time). Only good thing about our government, they don't discriminate they screw everyone. "
So, the military hasn't finished a "job" since World War II eh? Well "food for thought" it is your responsibility as the contractor and owner of the company to ensure all safety requirements are being met. The military has no "unlimited" fund from taxes they have a set budget if this concept is a hard one to grasp then I guess it is a moot point even discussing it with you. If a $70,0000 dollar fine and criminal action from your lack of safety standard keeps you up at night after thirty years of doing business as a steel contractor then you should probably fold up or man up and accept responsibility. Your are complaining about the woes of running a business and acting like your workers should be responsible for what is your responsibility.
"Metarinka, I run what I consider a tight ship"
"mechan , NOT ragging on vets, ragging on people that have NEVER run a business or worked the private circuit telling someone with over thiry years experience in business how to run a business, because anyway you cut it working a government job is NOWAY comparable to running a business."
What I take from this is you saying if someone hasn't run a business or "worked in the private circuit" they are in no way qualified to comment on your business practices. *That is ridiculous, FYI.*
If this is what you call a tight ship I think I'd settle for those service members who "haven't run a business for thirty years" or "worked in the private circuit". I've met E-3's who take more responsibility for their actions and the actions of those under them. If this OSHA inspector was prior service, (which one can only assume he was otherwise why are you *****ing about service members), and you expressed even a 1/4 of your views to him then I think you got off lucky. I would more than wager that the burden-of-command for most officers be it a young platoon commander or a company commander is sufficient enough experience to qualify them as having "run" a business. The NCO's of those respective units being responsible for their men's actions both on and OFF duty would probably give them enough "experience" to comment on someone who is unable to enforce a standard for a crew of guys just during the work day. Do you often need to make sure your worker's fiances aren't jacked up, go play first shirt and get them from jail for an OUI, enforce the grooming standard or training requirements (be it safety, job performance, OPSEC, Chemical / Biological training, first aid, weapons qualification, suicide awareness, etc etc etc). Just because your responsibilities maybe different in no way means they lack the experience to comment on your actions when they have been appointed post-service the position of being an OSHA inspector. Men and women in the military every day are pushing crews, ensuring they are on budget and on time for projects, setting up Tricare benefits, managing finances, dealing with safety standards (which in a lot of cases exceeds that of OSHA), ensuring members meet training and certification requirements and NUMEROUS other activities. Odd sounds a lot like the same task someone who runs a company would face .... pushing a crew, insurance, finances, budgets, training and safety requirements. Although I wonder when the last time you had to work a 12+ hour shift them show up with your boots polished, uniform starched, face shaved, hair cut, and be inspected prior to even starting the work day.
You are pissed off about getting smacked for not playing by the rules and this is fine and good, but in no way justifies you belittling a group of people who are 'generally' competent and responsible.
"One simple question... Who was the site foreman on your job working for you???? In other words, why in the heck wasn't he doing his job as this is one of his main responsibilities along with coordinating with the site safety man to make sure that everyone is following the safety rules... I would get rid of the person responsible for this if I were you, and if it was you who was responsible for making sure that everybody was tying off, then you don't have anyone else to blame but yourself!!!"
I have to agree with this statement, he's supposed to be there as your second hand man on that job and apparently he ain't worth a spit. It'd be the unemployment lines for him. It's your job to give all PPE, the employee still has to utilize it. I can understand what your saying though, how do you get a person to where safety glasses all day, tie off 100%. I guess the "zero tolerance" rule is the only way. If your not wearing your PPE or if your not tied off the foreman on the job can fire your azz on the spot. All it will take is one guy fired from the job and everyone else will have the deer in the headlight look about them. It's stupid that an employee would not tie off, it's his/her life on the line....unfortunately you as the owner are responsible so your foreman on your jobs should probably be a hardnosed, safety conscious prior military guy that won't take no schmidt and will get the job done and is not afraid to tell the guy he eats lunch with everyday, "your fired, your not clipping on and I don't need a death on my hands". You need a guy that is cold, heartless and when his grandpa dies just kinda says, "sure will miss the ol' guy" and moves on. The kind of guy that you here schmidt from, you know, "boss man, this piece of equipment is a piece of schmidt why don't your tight azz buy a new one? We spend 2 hours a day f'n with this thing". A guy who is commited to his job, his work but ain't afraid if he "hurts some feelings", a guy who don't wear his feelings on his sleeve sort of speak.
We were down in Atlanta working a job. I was welding up some handrail off the back of the truck, the guy I was working with(owned his own company) was up on the 2nd floor crawling around on some iron, no harness etc. OSHA was across the street watching and came over and busted him. He came down and said, "watch it, OSHA's on site, I just got busted for no harness". I laughed and told him, I'm wearing my safety glasses and besides that I have no employees and as I learned from my OSHA 30 class, OSHA doe's not cover me as the owner of the company, heard that 100 times in the class. I think he was going to fight it, as the owner of the company and none of his employees were cited in violation. The job basically shut down while OSHA was onsite, you could have heard a mouse fart.
As far as the military crack goes, well I remember working 14 days in a row, we were at the shop at 4am or so, break for morning chow, then lunch, then dinner and stayed until 10 or 11pm at night for 14 days! We had a bunch of trucks and hummers we needed to get ready for deployment all in the tropical summer heat of the Pacific. We had a deadline, we met it. We have deadlines, we have budgets and we as the grunts are not in control of finishing the war/conflicts. All the way up to the top Generals all they can do is recommend to the a-holes in Washington and then the trickle affect takes hold until it reaches the lowly non-coms and lower. Our job is to fix the equipment, supply the equipment, kill Charlie or Abdul and when it comes to it, die. We as soldiers made the choice to sign on the dotted line knowing full well that we might not see the end of our 4 year commitment. All this at 18 years old, just think, taking a job where you may not make it to 22 years old? Does not pay that well, extensive travel to hot/cold locations, chow sucks when it's hot and worse when your away from the "office" and you have to add water to your, "what the f did they call this? Pork patty?" hmmm, freeze dried food eaten cold, is that an irony? The highlight of my field chow experience was the MRE with the freeze dried peaches, adapt and overcome, peach cobbler. Freeze dried peaches in the canteen cup, mix in your crackers, crushed, one package of creamer, add water and mix, Wa-La, peach cobbler on the hoof. The chow low point, not enough time to eat so the above mentioned freeze dried pork patty was bitten and then a swig of water from your canteen and then the pork patty was re-hydrated while you chew. Now, throw in the fact that people don't like you, they try and blow you up, shoot you, yell at you angrily in a foreign language or bi_ch about you when you get back stateside or have some schmidtheads protesting your funeral, talk about a street corner that deserves an IED, the one those nuts are standing on. I'd say the men and woman that have woken up in the morning and wondered if they would see the sunset that evening have had more stress in their left arm than a business owner will ever have.
Good luck with the situation above, I'd be royaly ticked at the Ironworkers, they are supposed to know better right? It is your foremans job to make sure but as highly skilled and trained workers they should know better, but they've probably been doing it so long that they get that mindset, so routine that "it won't happen to me" attitude. I know OSHA is here to protect but from your viewpoint if the guy has all the latest PPE and falls and dies cause he was not told to tie on then he's an idiot and one less of them walking the streets is fine by me. As the owner doing everything you can it still comes down to the employee actually using the equipment. Maybe before everyone gets going on the job in the morning, a meeting, go over using your PPE, want you to go home to your family B.S tonight and so on, stress the zero tolerance and you'll be going home early to your family without a paycheck if you don't wear your PPE and clip on.
Sounds to me like the Ironworkers at the local need to hear your concerns. Perhaps you could speak at the next local meeting, maybe even with a few other signatories?
You are paying a premium for men that are supposed to offer a higher value to you. Unfortunately the leaders at some locals do not always impress this simple concept upon their members, or demand it from them. Those members who won't comply or perform to expectation devalue and hurt every member in the local. The hands need to police both themselves and each other to perform to professional, organizational, and contract expectations. This is a value set that will only exist when the leadership of the local ingrains it into its members, and keeps it in the forefront of the organization's conscience.
It is unfortunate if this is not be taking place in the local you use. I believe complacency is the biggest obstacle to continued success and prosperity in any organization, and for every individual. If I were in that local and had signatories come to a monthly meeting giving me specific examples (in a calm rational manner) of how they weren't getting their end of the bargin (contract), and how this is hurting both parties, it would certainly get my attention.
No you shouldn't need to do anything like this. As a 7 year vet myself I absolutely detest complacency, and a lack of self-discipline and personal responsibility. Instilling an organizational mindset that demands professional conduct and ethical behavior is primarly the job of the organizational leaders, not you. But it doesn't mean that taking some initiative to help remedy the situation wouldn't make things better for you.
Blaster, This is another issue I'm pissed about, I called both locals the next day and talked to both BA's, I've followed up by sending certified letters to both wanting to know the steps they are taking about this situation, IE.( retake safety courses, refreshers or RE-EDUCATION) to this day I've heard nothing. When I showed copies of these letters to the OSHA officer he made the comment "the BA's are just concerned with getting hands to work" Very reassuring if this is the unions mindset!!!!! PS. GO PENS home of LORD STANLEY
most business agents don't do a dam thing except hang out in the bar or
golf course. how about a business agent from ua local 582 in santa ana ca getting a 502
in the unions car on union time. think he got fired hell no they hired afirst period apprentice
to chaufer his worthless ass around and paid for it with the members money!!!!!!
That's a froster. Might want to make an appointment with the local's president.
If the don't prove adequately attentive, there is always the non-union sector. Plenty of guys who would like the work. Although that road can bring on its own set of problems, particularly if you don't normally have enough steady work to keep a good men on the payroll year-round.
Smooth Operator,
Sounds like your problem is with the Ironworker's local you deal with. From where I sit, the only way you're going to get their attention is to hit them in the wallet. That means telliing them you're not going to hire their workers until they comply with your requests for safety training. Adopting a zero tolerance policy is also a must. Maybe you don't feel like you carry enough weight with the union to make this 'threat' worthwhile. In that case, maybe you need to hire people(non-union) you can trust, and only take on work you can do with the staff you can rely on. Might be that this drives you out of business. This is the reason I'm a one man operation, and working for someone else to make ends meet.
I'd definitely tell the union workers you'd like to hire why you're not going to do so. They have to want to change, and force their brothers who won't comply with OSHA regs to get on board or find another line of work.
Maybe you need to contact your peers and put in a group appearance at the next union hall meeting. If you can form your own coalition of owners who won't hire from the hall until they police their members, you might get the leverage you need to solve this problem. If this is happening to you, I doubt you're the only one. OSHA violations are like speeding tickets. Lots of people are breaking the rules, but just an unlucky few get penalized for it.
Collective bargaining is a a two edged sword. IT works for the owners too, if you can gather enough support....
Cummins, AS I said before I have no problem and respect all vets, it's the government bureacracy I detest and people I view as not qualified for the job they have giving advice or dictating rules I should follow. IE. A ##ckhead mayor gonna have "unqualified personnel" weld gaslines. What the @ell does he know about weldin' !!!!! Sorry if you were offended by any of my past remarks, because that wasn't my intent.PS. GO PENS ,PITTSBURGH home of LORD STANLEY
I was not offended Operator, I don't bruise easily! LOL!! Besides, you've helped me out and giving LOTS of advise since I've been on here and been very helpful and I appreciate that. I understand your concerns, you did everything right and got f'd by the government. "A ##ckhead mayor gonna have "unqualified personnel" weld gaslines. What the @ell does he know about weldin' !!!!! " Ain't that the truth! Hopefully this all works out for you, Good luck!
Shawn
Are you finished with the rant yet, or do you have more to add???
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