Federal workplace safety and health inspectors have cited a Steuben County rail manufacturing and repair service facility for 17 serious violations, including exposing employees to unsafe levels of known cancer-causing chemicals such as cadmium, lead, nickel and silica.

In the construction industry, precision matters – corners need to be square, lines have to be level and plans must be followed. Following the rules keeps buildings and people safe. But when construction companies cut corners, workers often pay the price.

Work on the Olympic Park and Village in Rio de Janeiro has been halted over fears for the safety of workers, Reuters has reported. With less than three months to go until the start of the games on 5 August, officials who reviewed work on a television tower in the Olympic park and digging work at the Olympic village have shut down operations at those and two other sites.

Two times in three days, OSHA inspectors witnessed Premier Roofing Company LLC and its sub-contractor Walter Construction LTD exposing workers to falls. On Dec. 21, 2015, OSHA responded after receiving a complaint about employees in danger of falling as they installed shingles on a three-story, multi-family building.

Berlin Builders Inc., a framing subcontractor on many residential construction projects in southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and northern Delaware, has failed 21 of 27 federal safety inspections in 12 months by putting its employees at risk of potentially fatal fall hazards.

The risks of working at heights can be deceiving. In workplaces, no matter the height, the risks are too often discounted – until someone falls.

GET REAL. Start with research. If you’re not comfortable with the statistics, facts, and requirements regard falls, you’re not going to be able to deliver them in a convincing manner. If you’re not comfortable delivering the information, find somebody who is. This doesn’t have to be a one-man show.

Every day on the job a construction worker is killed by a fall and about 40 are seriously injured. You could easily be one of them. All it takes is a slip or trip and down you go.

Chinese authorities said 18 people were killed and another 18 were injured in an accident at a construction site in Dongguan city in the eastern Guandong province in April. The accident occurred after a crane fell on a shed that was sheltering the construction workers due to heavy winds, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.