Thanks to Collin Moon from Elevated Safety for pointing us the recently released PBS and Frontline half hour documentary taking a look at the dangers of the cell tower climbing world and who is ultimately responsible for the safety if the workers.

There are several layers of sub contractors between a major carrier like AT&T and the guy who is actually climbing the tower to do work. Because of time pressures and the contractor at each level taking their cut of the pie, the result is that climbers feel pressured to climb without taking proper safety precautions, like tying off, while at height.

While the report is insightful and eye opening, it seems like it is looking to place blame on one group or another. It would seem to me that regardless of time pressure, OSHA mandates, etc… that the worker themselves has the ultimate responsibility to save their own life. The race to the bottom of doing the work on these communications towers is both literal and figurative and looks like it will only continue if people are willing to do things like free climb a tower in order to make $12 an hour. Keep in mind that my thoughts on this are formed having never worked in the communication tower industry, however, I’ve been aware of the effects of gravity for some time now.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/cell-tower-deaths/?autoplay

Somewhat related is the recent release from New Zealand’s Department of Labor and the unfortunately acronymed Industrial Rope Access Association of New Zealand (IRAANZ) of new best practices guidelines in answer to three workers falling from height over the past year. That’s a lot of falling in a small country from an industry that has a great safety record thanks to groups like SPRAT and IRATA. Here is a link to the Best Practices guidelines:

http://www.osh.dol.govt.nz/order/catalogue/pdf/industrial-rope-access-guidelines.pdf