Working in an environment where  every project, every task and  every crew changes daily may  help explain why construction is one of  the most dangerous industries.

But in recent years, some construction  companies have started to address  the industry’s alarmingly poor safety  record by being proactive about preventing  hazardous situations and making  safety as high a priority as budget  and time. And they have seen considerable  results from those efforts.

Story Construction Co. in Ames, for  example, has recorded 1.41 million  man-hours without a lost-time injury  since Jan. 15, 2003, with an average  work force of 170 employees. Weitz  Iowa just achieved 1 million man-hours  without a lost-time injury since February  2005, with an average roster of  around 250 employees.

“That is an incredible achievement  given the nature of this industry,” said  Greg Spenner, president and CEO of  the Iowa chapter of Associated  Builders and Contractors Inc., which  has nearly 400 members.

The results are far from the industry  trends.

Of the 5,702 fatal work injuries in  the United States in 2005, the construction  industry accounted for 1,186, the  most of any industry. Although the figures  were down slightly from 1,234  fatalities in 2004, James Schaack, a safety  manager for The Weitz Co., said the  fatality number tends to be around  1,000 to 1,200 every year.

In addition, 2.5 of every 100 fulltime  construction workers in the United  States in 2005 had a lost-time  injury, an injury that causes an employee  to miss more than a day from work.  Iowa’s rate was 3.2.

“The fact that our industry does not  have a very stellar record when it  comes to keeping people safe,we’re not  very proud of that as a company,” said  Mike Tousley, president of Weitz Iowa.

“Safety is one of our core values,”said  Mark Wieland, safety coordinator for  Story Construction. “If we’re safe on a  job site, we spend less time investigating  injures and retraining and more  time on production and quality. Safety  is an integral part of the operations versus  just a thing we have to do.”

Jens Nissen, executive officer of  Iowa Workforce Development’s occupational  safety and health enforcement  division, said although people continue  to die in the workplace, the figures  today are much lower than in the  1970s, when President Richard Nixon  signed the bill to create the federal  Occupational Safety and Health Administration.  “Overall, people are getting  the message,” he said.

Still, he said, the top four hazards in  construction continue to be falls, electrocution,  caught in something and  struck by something.

Proactive vs. reactive

Companies are moving away from  punishing employees for unsafe  actions to working with them to avoid  hazards, said Spenner.

“It’s both an employer and employee  situation,” he said, with the employer  providing the training and safety equipment  and the employee making an  effort to be more aware of hazards.

To facilitate this effort, many larger  contractors have at least one full-time  employee focused on safety.

In the late 1990s, Story Construction  hired its first safety coordinator,  Wieland said. The Weitz Co. had only  one safety manager a decade ago,  Schaack said, but now it has eight, with  certain safety managers focusing on  one unit within the company.The company  might hire two more.

For smaller companies that cannot  afford a safety manager, associations  like ABC provide one.”More and more  companies on a daily basis recognize  the importance of having safety directors  or a person responsible for safety  in the company and are moving to  that,” Spenner said. “Those firms that  simply can’t do that rely on associations  like ours to be able to provide  them that resource.”

As a safety manager, Schaack said he  is involved in all aspects of a project.  Each team is required to meet with him  prior to starting a project to talk about  potential safety problems and the cost  to properly equip the site. Pre-project  planning even goes into details such as  whether there are enough fire extinguishers  on the job site, he said.

Not only does every project have a  specific safety plan, but most companies  also have started having each  crew hold a short meeting at the  beginning of the day to talk about  what tasks are ahead and what hazards  may exist, Spenner said.

Safety managers also train employees  on new equipment, provide expertise  on potential safety issues, audit job sites  and look at statistics to find areas of  improvement. If an incident occurs,  safety managers will help investigate  the incident to determine what happened.  Some even share the report with  the entire company, so that others can  learn from the mistake.

Building a strong safety record  starts with a willingness at the executive  level to put extra time and  resources into safety planning, people  in the business say.

The Weitz Co. hosted a two-day safety  “boot camp” in December, which  brought all the executives from its 10  units together to heighten the management’s  commitment to safety. Tousley  said, “One of the things that came out  pretty loud and clear is that safety is  every bit as important on our projects  as budget and schedule.”  Weitz Iowa then hosted a similar  boot camp for 140 of its staff.

Industry-wide attention

In addition to a heightened awareness  of safety issues, construction  equipment continues to improve.

“By far the industry itself is changing,”  Schaack said.”It’s recognizing continuous  problems. It’s coming out with  new and better equipment, anything  from a concrete buggy that you ride on  instead of walk behind to a laser-operated  screen that helps finish concrete in  place of three or four individuals, reducing the amount of stress [on workers].”

Wieland agreed and said it often  involves recognizing potential hazards  and finding ways to avoid them. This  year, Story Construction is focusing on  ways to reduce face and eye injuries  after a number of its workers suffered  such injuries.Weitz Iowa noticed there  were a lot of sprains and strains on its  job sites and has consequently implemented  a program of stretching exercises  each morning.

To facilitate changes, companies  have become more willing to share  ideas with other contractors about  their safety plans,Wieland and Spenner  said.

“One big thing that has probably  changed over the last 10 years is that if  I wrote a safety plan, I held it to my  chest. Now I call any colleagues,”  Wieland said.

ABC has a safety committee that  brings safety directors together monthly  to share information, and general  contractors will work with subcontractors  on safety issues.

Weitz especially has taken an active  role in working with subcontractors.  For example, a few weeks ago, it  brought in all the electrical subcontractors  it works with to talk about the  company’s expectations when working  on energized circuits

“It’s an obligation taken pretty seriously  because we are responsible for  what happens on our sites,” Tousley  said. “Subcontractor work is by far a  large percentage of work that gets done  on our site.”

Many construction companies also  have worked cooperatively with Iowa  Workforce Development’s enforcement  division. ABC used to have a partnership  with the agency, which encouraged  government officials to work with  companies rather than penalize them.  New federal regulations caused the  partnership to dissolve, but Spenner  said ABC is working on a similar  alliance program.

Although safety is becoming part  of many companies’ culture, it hasn’t  resulted in a drastic reduction of  incidents.

“The sad reality is in the U.S., three  construction workers who go to work  in the morning don’t return home to  their families that day,” Spenner said.  “Every construction trade association,  every contractor is working to take  that number down. Construction is a  dangerous job, but proper tools, proper  training and making sure employees  are aware of their surroundings  have contributed to fewer accidents  on the job site.”