FINISHING TOUCHES ON ‘LINEMAN-TO-LINEMAN’ SAFETY CAMPAIGN

 

 

Meeting with PGE and SMUD management with discussions on crew availability to present this safety campaign were held in December.  This all came after a December 6th roll-out of the program in San Francisco with IBEW President Ed Hill in attendance.

Dates and locations for the roll-out of this Peer 2 Peer safety campaign should be finalized in January with hopes that presentations will begin in the field towards the end of January and February.

To make sure this message is delivered to the membership the Local has hired Dean Gurke, a retired Local 1245 lineman and former union Business Representative on a temporary detail to oversee the implementation and roll out of this program.  This will be his primary focus which should eliminate the allocated time issue but will still be a large task to accomplish.

This program was started in the line departments because this is where we are experiencing the large and unacceptable number of fatal and serious accidents.  If this campaign is successful, expect similar programs from the other work groups we represent.   Stay tuned for upcoming dates and locations.

PGE Rain Gear Issues

Over the last couple of years the union as well as PG&E have received numerous complaints regarding the new MP3 Rain Gear and the fact that the equipment leaks.

PG&E over the last four years has spent millions working with Nasco to develop raingear that is not only water proof but breathable, which resulted in the MP3 raingear that the employees are currently using.  They have taken the lead in the industry with respect to R&D in this product while the rest of the industry has sat back and waited for a product to be developed that can do what everyone wants and also meet the FR requirements.

PG&E is taking one last shot at this with a new Omega 3 raingear.  They will be conducting wear trials for the remainder of 2011 with 1,100 sets being sent in the field for evaluation.  If this new stuff doesn’t work they stated they will go back to the old stuff that has the FR qualities, doesn’t leak but is not breathable.  PG&E has stated that they moved to the new stuff because of the complaints with the old stuff that although it kept workers dry from the elements it made them sweat because it was not breathable.  The old stuff is still available for the employees to use now if they can’t stay dry from the new breathable stuff.

If this new Omega 3 stuff does not perform well PG&E has stated they will back out of the breathable FR raingear altogether and wait until it is addressed by the rest of the industry and go back to the old stuff.

The big issue here is the requirement to have all outerwear FR.  The company is reluctant to take the approach of not requiring the outerwear to be FR because of the probability of employees not donning the FR covering when required such as the incident in San Jose.  This is not an easy fix for anyone.  This is an industry-wide issue with FR and the company said it has gone over and beyond in an effort to develop something that will work.  Let’s hope this new Omega 3 stuff works out.  It comes at a cost of approximately $750 a set.

Painters and Grounds Update

There is no current update on the company’s request for a variance from CalOSHA yet.  CalOSHA stated in the September this process could take several months and at the November 1st meeting with PGE they reported a 30-45 day timeframe.

Cranes and Derricks

CalOSHA has published its proposed changes to its crane standard in December.  They have also met with Fed OSHA regulators and have had its proposed changes reviewed on Dec. 15, 2010, which they received approval from.  Public hearing on the proposed changes is scheduled for Jan. 20, 2011 in San Diego.

There are plenty of positives in the proposed standard for our industry.  Although the lifting capacities for crane certifications will be reduced to 2,000 lbs, the proposed changes will also keep a full exemption for certifications on the digger derrick.  The MAD’s will remain the same and refers to the HVESO for them.

There will be more to come regarding this as the new standard makes its way through the standards process and we will report more on this in the upcoming months.

Safety Concerns at the Dispatch Centers

Last month I fielded a couple of concerns regarding potential issues at some of the new consolidated control centers.  Concerns included issues with the predetermined test point orange flags that we currently have hung up on our wall maps; it appears that the flags create confusion for the following reasons:

• The sheer number of flags present on the board create visual clutter which creates an inability to discern where current working flags/pins are placed because of the     number and location of the orange flags
• Their similarity in color to the red flags creates yet another possibility for errors on the    board
• Another issue would be the map board material, when you place a pin on the material it sometimes causes other pins to fall off of the wall. Not only is it extremely hard to pin our equipment but we could possibly have an operating error due to missing wall map pins!
• Our wall maps are a safety concern of mine along with the control room lighting.
  Because the company didn’t have enough room to hang our maps doesn’t mean that they should be allowed to shrink them to where it’s difficult to read them on our part.
• Our consoles are nowhere ergonomically correct and I’m starting to experience arm and shoulder issues due to the continual shuffling of keyboard and other materials due to the lack of operating space on the console boards!

I will be meeting with one of the supervisors at one of the control centers on Jan.18 to discuss these concerns all of which they were aware of and have developed a plan to address and correct the concerns.

Sensitive Ground Settings

This is still an open item and the company is looking into the history behind the concern over having this equipment turned on in some areas.  This was a topic in the 1990’s and documents were provided as to where we thought we were with this equipment based on those documents.  Still an open item.

Troubleman Work Jurisdiction and Safety

A concern was raised over the installation and testing practices on some equipment in the field such as regulators.  It appears there is some inconsistency in different areas as to who performs the testing and placing this equipment in service.  There were 2 different issues one of which is a work jurisdiction issue and one is a safety issue.  The company has committed to addressing these safety concerns.

Accident Reporting

Forms and guidelines are on the website. Units should use them as part of their unit meeting and submit them to this committee whether or not there are accidents or concerns. This should be a standard reporting practice at every unit meeting every month. This is our best resource to share the information with the rest of the membership. We are continuing to see an increase in the number of these forms being turned in and want to thank everyone who is doing this.All accidents reported this month on the green form as well as accidents reported at the safety committee meeting are listed below.

Pole Failure

On Dec. 18, 2010, a Lineman received minor injuries to his head, face and arms when the pole he was working on broke four feet above ground level, causing the pole to fall onto the back of a material handler.

On the evening of Dec. 17, a three person crew was given an assignment to patrol and make repairs to a section of line south of the town of Garberville. The crew identified that the top section of a tree approximately 24” in diameter had broken and fallen across the road into the 4/0 aluminum conductor, breaking two of the three phases. The tree continued to fall, hitting the telephone cable and messenger with enough force to cause the tree to rebound onto the road.

The crew assessed the damage and isolated this section of line. At approximately 4:00 a.m. on Dec. 18, the crew reported on, grounded the line and cut in a second opening point. They determined the material that was required to make repairs and returned to the yard.

At 6:00 a.m., a three person crew arrived at the yard and was briefed by the crew foreman on the job situation. The crew was assigned to assist in making repairs, repair the conductor and replace a damaged cross arm on one of the poles.

The crew began replacing an overhead switch on the line recloser pole.  A lineman was on the pole, a second was in the material handler and the crew foreman was in another material handler. Both buckets were positioned with the rear of the truck toward the pole. The crew installed a temporary down guy to support the conductors to the north with a ¾” Sampson braided line tied to a tree.

The crew had finished removing the old switch and arm and was in the process of lowering the disconnect arm to make room for the new underarm switch.

At approximately 11:50 a.m., the pole one span to the north—the pole the crew had grounded and cut in the second opening point—began to lean and fell to the ground. This added strain to the 4/0 conductor that was snubbed off to the line recloser pole. Once the conductor reached a certain tension, the line recloser pole broke approximately four feet above ground level. As the line recloser pole fell, the tension on the temporary down guy caused approximately 12 feet of the top of the pole to snap back toward the temporary down guy. The pole landed on the rear section of a material handler.

The employee on the pole was belted off above the line recloser and fell with the pole. Once the pole came to rest the lineman was suspended from the pole, just above the ground. The employees followed the site Emergency Plan: contact 911, administer first aid and establish guides for responding agencies.

The employee was transported via ambulance to Southern Humboldt Community Health Care District in Garberville for an initial injury assessment, and then transported to Redwood Memorial in Fortuna for further evaluation and testing. The employee was released at 9:00 p.m. the same evening, having sustained only minor injuries.

Near Miss

The Safety Committee is encouraging everyone to report all near misses to the committee through our IBEW1245 Safety Matters web page.  Anyone with a near miss should sanitize the report to omit names and companies as the intent of reporting a near is to provide others with information about potential hazards that members find in the field in order to provide awareness to others of those hazards. Please see the Near Miss page for the latest Near Miss reports.

 

Submitted by,
Ralph Armstrong