How, Why, and When to Make Safety a Priority
June means a lot of things to a lot of people: Father’s Day, baseball games, rising temperatures, and the beginning of backyard barbecue season, to name a few.
Yet there’s one thing that we can all universally celebrate this June, and it’s something that affects everyone. June is National Safety Month, and it’s an important reminder to work, play, and live safely.
Whatever your job – it’s extremely important to be aware of safety practices. When you work in building management or construction… it’s critical.
According to a 2012 report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “construction accounted for the highest number of fatal work injuries of any industry sector.” Additional statistics in this report stated that fatal injuries in private construction increased by 5% in 2012.
In any area of construction, workers and employers must emphasize safety. This, of course, means wearing all required safety gear, but also includes actively thinking about safety. It’s easy to get too comfortable and let certain practices go. This is exactly when accidents happen.
In addition to remaining conscious of safe practices at all times, one way to ensure a safer workplace is to focus on individual aspects of safety throughout the month—i.e. scaffolding—and commit to ways of remaining safe within this area of focus. Another way is to make a checklist and follow it carefully.
At Knickerbocker Roofing, we are highly concerned with worker safety; however, we realize that our industry is not always the safest, and as a result we encourage everyone to learn from the message of National Safety Month. Recent statistics have shown that roofing falls contributed to roughly one-third of all construction-related fall fatalities during the years of that specific study. To us, this underscores the importance of promoting this movement.
No matter what you do exactly, or where you work, follow the message of the National Safety Council; make safety propriety in June, and every month thereafter.