Page 46 - OHS, March 2022

90TH ANNIVERSARY
Taking Safety to New Heights
There is a long history behind the development of fall protection to keep workers safe at heights.
BY SYDNY SHEPARD
construction. ThThe standard applied to construction workers who would be performing duties at six feet or higher as well as risks from falling objects, falling because of, or through, holes, and working with dangerous equipment without regard for height. In this standard, employers were instructed to use protection systems such as guardrails, safety nets or personal fall arrest systems.
OSHA would continue to publish and issue compliance guides, standards and rules to protect workers from dangerous heights throughout the years. For instance, in 2011 OSHA would issue a Compliance Guidance for Residential Construction which would extend fall protection coverage to employees working on residential construction sites. Then, OSHA would update its Walking-Working Surfaces Standards in 2016. The rule would benefit employers by providing greater flexibility in choosing a fall protection system—no longer limiting employers to guardrails as a primary fall protection method.
Fall protection standards continue to evolve as industries and technologies do. Worker safety organizations, like the American National Standards Institute, continue to research and develop more advanced and effective ways to create safer situations for workers at heights.
PPE to the Rescue
As mentioned above, the transformation of industries and technologies became leading motivators for changes in OSHA standards. The evolution of personal protective equipment when it came to fall protection greatly impacted the
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Iam sure you’ve seen it before—the photo of the construction workers sitting on an iron beam, having their lunch high above New York City.
The photo, aptly named, “Lunch atop the city,” was taken in 1932 and shows 11 construction workers taking a break from building 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
The photo is a time capsule, a snapshot of the past and a reminder of how work used to be done without safety in mind. In our special 90th Anniversary coverage this issue, we will take a look at the development of fall protection standards and how PPE has evolved with modern work and technology.
Developing Standards
Following the OSH Act and the formation of OSHA, the agency began to enforce workplace safety in industries in which they deemed high risk. The construction industry thus became one of the more highly regulated industries by OSHA inspectors. Due to the high cost of fines,
if found to be in noncompliance with the agency, employers had—for the first time ever—an incentive to enforce safety protocols onsite.
While there were many safety and health risks to mitigate, falls from heights were near the top of the list. Employers began to enforce the use of safety belts and tie off ropes as well as erecting guardrails and gates to keep workers from entering into high platforms or falling off them as instructed by standards that made up the Construction Safety Act. This act was later adopted by the OSH Act and codified as Title 29 Code of Federal Regulations Part 1926 on December 30, 1971.1 Several fall protection regulations were part of the Construction Safety Act and they include:
■ 29 CFR 1926.104 — Safety belts, lifelines, and lanyards
■ 29 CFR 1926.105 — Safety nets
■ 29 CFR 1926 Subpart M — Fall Protection
In 1994, OSHA instituted the Subpart M Fall Protection Standard for
42 Occupational Health & Safety | MARCH 2022 www.ohsonline.com
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