This story from St. Louis, which my Cato colleague Walter Olson cites in a post about OSHA, is a typical example of bureaucratic stupidity and absurd “safety” laws. My favorite part is that the bureaucrat actually thought it would be reasonable to rent a lift for $750 per day just to attach a harness for somebody working only 11 feet off the ground. I’m sure the consumer would have been happy to swallow that additional cost. Reminds me of the classic Dave Barry column I cited in this post. Good to see that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is just as incompetent today as it was decades ago.
In April, Heffernan and his nephew were working on a house in the 6400 block of January Avenue. Heffernan had finished rebuilding the chimney and his nephew was finishing up the job when Heffernan left to bid a job in West County. While he was looking at the prospective new job, he got a call from his nephew. There was some kind of a problem with an inspector. Heffernan returned to the site on January Avenue and found that an inspector for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had shut down the site. In other words, she had told Heffernan’s nephew to stop working. Heffernan was taken back. …He said the inspector had written several citations. The first thing she told him was his scaffold wasn’t level. He said he pulled out his level and put it on the scaffold to show that the scaffold was level. He said the inspector then wrote down the brand name of the level, as if there might be something wrong with his equipment. …He said he offered to let the inspector walk on the scaffold, but she declined and said she was afraid of heights. The inspector told him his nephew needed a helmet and a safety harness. “We have safety harnesses. If the job requires it, we wear them,” Heffernan said. “But my nephew was only about 11 feet off the ground. I told the inspector I didn’t know what I was supposed to attach the harness to. She told me I could rent a lift and run the main pole above the chimney and have the safety line from that hooked to my nephew. A lift costs about $750 a day. It made no sense.” …Heffernan received notice in the mail that he had been cited for three violations. …Heff’s Tuckpointing is a successful operation, but it cannot afford $3,600 in fines. …So Heffernan requested a meeting to contest the violations. He said he spoke with an OSHA compliance officer who offered to drop the first violation and reduce the fines of the other two by 40 percent. Heffernan refused the offer. He has now requested a formal hearing.
[…] I shared a chart showing that workplace deaths declined substantially after the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. But I then shared a second chart showing that workplace deaths declined just as much before OSHA […]
[…] Back in 2012, I shared a chart showing that workplace deaths declined substantially after the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. […]
[…] OSHA requirements for expensive safety harnesses for people working 11 feet off the ground. […]
[…] OSHA requirements for expensive safety harnesses for people working 11 feet off the ground. […]
[…] OSHA requirements for expensive safety harnesses for people working 11 feet off the ground. […]
Part of the problem here is that people that work in Safety are becoming “self preservation safety Nazi’s”. I recently saw the company Safety Mgr from a major oil company, require a 30 minute Fire Watch following the use of an electric drill to make a hole in a desk top while a maintenance tech assembled a desk for the lab manager. The desk was located in a office 50 feet and behind two safety doors from the location of any flammable liquid.
Or his competition didn’t.
Must have missed a payoff.
[…] OSHA requirements for expensive safety harnesses for people working 11 feet off the ground. […]
[…] OSHA requirements for expensive safety harnesses for people working 11 feet off the ground. […]
[…] OSHA requirements for expensive safety harnesses for people working 11 feet off the ground. […]
[…] OSHA requirements for expensive safety harnesses for people working 11 feet off the ground. […]
[…] OSHA requirements for expensive safety harnesses for people working 11 feet off the ground. […]
[…] […]
[…] some bone-headed regulatory choices, such as the crazy example recounted by Dave Barry and this nutty bit of regulatory excess uncovered by my colleague Walter Olson. Rate this:Share […]
[…] OSHA requirements for expensive safety harnesses for people working 11 feet off the ground. […]
[…] OSHA requirements for expensive safety harnesses for people working 11 feet off the ground. […]
[…] requires expensive safety harnesses for people working 11 feet off the ground. […]
[…] OSHA requirements for expensive safety harnesses for people working 11 feet off the ground. […]
[…] OSHA requirements for expensive safety harnesses for people working 11 feet off the ground. […]
Yes, gkf, where would we be if the bureaucracy had the inclination and means to inspect incoming contaminated baby formula and lead toys from China, vegetables from our own country carrying deadly bacteria, and managers were still allowed to lock exit doors for security reasons causing 146 people to die horribly as in the 1911 Triangle Shirt Waist factory fire.
Yup, let’s just fire all the OSHA and EPA people and that will relieve all the pressure to raise prices (and help raising profits) but perhaps put more load on medical facilities with a lot more sick and injured people – many of whom lack any sort of insurance so they are in the triage – out beyond available help. All those elderly, disabled, SS, Medicare/Medicaid, Food Stamps, Welfare and unemployed free loaders deserve to die anyway because most earned and like their situations anyway.
left wing bureaucratic bumblers of America rejoice… you’re the insanity behind our 15 trillion of federal stupidity. Where would we be without your strong arm regulations raising the price of everything from our electric bills to the cost of a gallon of milk.
Again, about 80% of the federal government bureaucracy should be summarily fired. They could live on their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits while looking for a job that does no harm to the rest of us… like renting lift trucks. Kill the federal Leviathan!
[…] you like high blood pressure, there are more examples here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and […]
And people say Americans are free?
Ha ha ha ha ha …