WASHINGTON-The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, concerned with increased tower construction fatalities and injuries, is putting the tower industry under the microscope.
OSHA head Charles Jeffress is expected shortly to write tower owners and mobile phone carriers to emphasize the importance of federal workplace safety regulation compliance.
“This is a request for assistance in helping ensure that towers are constructed safely,” said Rob Medlock, director of OSHA’s Cleveland office and tower task force director.
The OSHA letter, among other things, is expected to direct tower owners and others to contract with firms having solid safety records. In addition, the letter likely will require tower owners to write federal safety requirements into contracts with tower construction firms.
“My understanding is that the assistant secretary of labor will be writing to tower owners and others in the industry to encourage them to recognize their responsibility to the safety of tower technicians and to operate with that critical factor in mind,” said Patrick Howey, administrator of the National Association of Tower Erectors.
Howey said NATE and OSHA-which is housed in the Labor Department-are close to formalizing a partnership to promote tower safety. An OSHA spokesman last week confirmed that such a partnership with NATE was actively under consideration.
“A partnership with OSHA would establish a focused inspection list, thereby letting participating NATE members know specifically what items and practices an OSHA inspector will scrutinize,” said Howey, whose association has actively promoted tower safety in recent years.
In recent months, OSHA and its research arm-the National Institute for Occupational Safety-have flagged tower safety as a growing problem.
Earlier this month, OSHA proposed a $120,000 fine against Clear Communications Inc. for willful and repeat violations of federal workplace regulations.
In May, NIOSH, following findings in eight new investigations, said injuries and deaths resulting from tower work were occurring at a substantially greater rate than in other U.S. industries.
“The cost of a phone call should not be worker’s life,” said NIOSH Director Linda Rosenstock at the time. “With industry, labor and other partners, we in NIOSH are reaching out to employers and workers in this burgeoning industry. We are striving to make them aware of the significant risk of fatal falls and to provide them with information for preventing these tragedies.”
Between 1992 and 1997, NIOSH said nearly 100 workers died from falls and other injuries related to tower construction.
NIOSH estimates the risk for fatal injuries by telecom workers ranges from 49 to 468 injury-related deaths per 100,000 employees, compared with about five deaths per 100,000 employees in all other U.S. industries. The reason for the wide spread in the estimate, according to NIOSH, is due to the difficulty in identifying the number of employees involved in building and maintaining telecom towers.
“I think the industry needs to recruit and train contractors that are licensed, bonded and insured, with their people having proper training on this because demand is going to outstrip the supply of qualified workers,” said Gregory Sweet, president of Acquire Telecom Services Inc.
The mobile phone industry did not have a comment on the upcoming OSHA letter or on tower safety generally. In May, after NIOSH tower findings were released, a spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association told RCR Wireless News that tower safety is an issue for individual companies and not a policy matter addressed by the trade group.
“Our employees do not climb towers and the contractors we hire are responsible for their safety and the safety of their workers and their own subcontractors,” said Sheldon Moss, director of government affairs of Crown Castle USA.
Stephen Clark, chief executive officer of SpectraSite Communications Corp., recently told an industry conference that third-generation mobile phone systems will require 600,000 new cell sites by 2008. That estimate does not necessarily translate into construction of new towers, however.
Sweet said the trend of pricing tower construction on a fixed-cost basis limits the amount of money available for safety and invites risks.”There’s tremendous pressure to control costs,” said Sweet, noting that in addition to tower construction itself, tower firms and mobile phone carries must pay for insurance, maintenance and aesthetically pleasing monopoles increasingly demanded by communities.
