Employers across the world allow their employees to listen to music each day while on the job. Allowing workers to jam out can boost workplace morale, job satisfaction and productivity. Listening to music is increasingly popular in construction-related fields since canceling out loud noise is required to protect hearing. The problem is that listening to tunes while performing high-risk jobs can often lead to unfortunate accidents.

A recent spate of construction deaths in the U.S. illustrate the dangers faced by workers in the industry – in a variety of circumstances. A fall from a highway killed a worker in Harris County, Texas June 21. News reports say the man, a subcontractor with Choctaw Construction who was from Mexico, fell to his death at the Highway 288 expansion project being developed by Blue Ridge Transportation.

A 28-year-old man who died July 12 was the fifth construction worker killed on the job in New York City in 2018, according to news sources. Angel Espinoza was killed when he was hit on the head by a beam that fell 12 stories from a scaffold that was being dismantled on the roof of a building in the city’s Morningside Heights neighborhood. Espinoza was part of a crew working on a residential building affiliated with Columbia University.

With peak construction season comes a surge in efforts focused on awareness, education and solutions to keep crews safe. In a move addressing the hazard of dropped objects, Ergodyne has announced the release of the Squids® 3760 Water Resistant Phone Pouch & Trap and the 3765 Water Resistant Tablet Pouch & Trap, designed to carry, secure and easily tether the essential electronic devices nearly every worker carries onto the jobsite.

An increase in workplace fatalities in three Midwestern states has OSHA concerned enough to ramp up the “Safe + Sound Campaign" it launched in 2017 – one which urges employers to develop and implement a safety and health program that includes management leadership, worker participation, and a systematic approach to finding and fixing hazards.

The Protective Guarding Manufacturers Association (ProGMA), a product group within trade association Material Handling Industry (MHI), is promoting the fourth in a series of educational videos about preventing accidents resulting from objects falling from overhead conveyor systems.

Ergodyne has announced an addition to its line of pioneering one-step attachment points meant to simplify the challenging process of tethering power tools, hand tools and instrumentation.

OSHA last week launched a regional Focus Four Campaign in the Mid-Atlantic States to address the four leading causes of fatal injuries in construction. Throughout the month of March, the campaign will use toolbox talks and outreach events to focus on electrical hazards.

The family of a sanitation worker who was accidentally run over by a colleague driving a street sweeper was awarded $41.5 million by a jury of six in Queens, New York last week. The incident occurred while 43-year-old Steven Frosch was making adjustments to his own street sweeper in a Department of Sanitation garage.