It may be time to discuss our obligation to ourselves.

Everyone saw the pics of the “Caveman Construction” job site. What should you do when you wheel up in your pump and find that you are on one of their jobs?

True Story: Operator shows up on job. Site is a four story ‘mini hotel’ that is set to pour concrete topping on precast. Boom only, no system, third floor. He does the set-up and grabs his remote and heads for the area of the pour. The first obstacle is the very shaky illegal/out of compliance ladder leading to the elevated deck. After making it to the deck he sees that there are no safety cables surrounding the open sides of the pour area and decides that for his own personal safety he will stay away from the edges of the building. After finishing about ½ of the pour, the floor they are pouring gives way and he is relocated, by gravity, to the second level. While he is still in the hospital being checked out the OSHA guy is busy at the site writing him up for climbing the unsafe ladder and being on a deck without proper safety cables.

So my question to all of you is… what should – would – did – or will you do when you pull up on that job?

What are your obligations? And to whom? 

Is this a trick question?.

I would do as I have done in the past a couple of times.I can't say here what I told them,Todd would get upset and ban me too.

Outcome,didn't get done by me.

Many

It is not a 'trick' question, but it is a tricky question.

We are concrete pumpers who's duty it is to pump concrete. That is the only reason we went to the job in the first place. I realize that it is not like the "Fiddy Cent" motto; "Get Rich or Die Try'n". The fact remains that we are being paid to pump the mud.

I think that is only fair to give your company a 'first right of refusal'. If you tell the boss what is going on he will probably not want you there. And since we are all professionals; a polite, reasoned explanation spoken in polite, concise, reasoned tones to the job sup't as to your personal reluctance to die for the cause might be in order.

Life is not perfect. Few job sites are perfect. Where do you draw the line?

no job is perfect but I draw the line when its me or my coworkers safety,if it cant be done safely I DONT DO IT!

This might be a good topic for a company safety meeting.

You could give some guidance to the operators about what the company's feelings are.

  Where is the "salesperson" who is supposed to be looking at jobs?Why send a pump truck out there that gets about 5.5 mpg,and turn him around,when a "salesperson" ,who drives a vehicle that gets 25 mpg,could possibly remedy the situation before the finishers show up.If I felt completley uncomfortable climbing the ladder and standing on the shaky deck with no safety rails,I might on a good day stand on the ground and let one of their proffessional crew signal me from up top.I am sure the hoseman will love that.On a day when I DGAS,I would leave.

Remember the owner/operators and small companies with out sales people.

i would stay on the ground im scared of hieghts. 

Very good question,

as an owner operator with four pumps and some employed operators,i would not expect anyone to do something that is not safe. If one of our guys calls me and says that the site is not safe or he thinks his work cannot be done in a safe manor then i will respect his judgement 100%.yes we are hired to pump mud but as profesionals we are hired to do it correctly and safely. Its better to come away from a site without getting paid than it is to come away in an ambulance or with a possible injury claim.

First off if I didn't have an oiler down at the pump and the reason I say this is because if I'm 3 or 4 story's up on the building I'm going to want somebody down by the pump in case of an emergency like blowing a Hydro line or the dunnage starts sinking any kind of emergency that could happen with the pump I always want somebody down below to shut the truck off if I have to go up on the deck to let me know what's going on.

If I couldn't get an oiler than I would stay down below on the pump and have a signal man up on top signaling me what to do I would only do this though if we were only doing little yardage and pumping really, really slow.

If I were to climb the deck and got to the shaky ladder and thought it was to unsafe to climb I would go find the job superintendent not a foreman but the super and would tell him i'm not going to start pumping until he gets another ladder over there that is safe and stable but if the super said it was fine and to climb it I would call in to the office and then let them know what was going on so they know so when the contractor calls in all pissed they know but I would go find the general contractor and tell them whats going on and to fix it or I'm gonna fold up and go home escpecially if I got to the top deck and there was no safety cables for my self.

But it usually doesn't go that far after you tell the superintendent they usually take care of everything