SHORING

Steven Cesare, Ph.D.

A frantic business owner from Washington state called me the other day to talk about a recent OSHA investigation conducted on one of her company job sites. The back story is this. Originally, a customer complained about water erosion causing damage to his property. The customer contacted the Washington business owner to have her company develop a work proposal to rectify the problem. The company’s Construction Department did so; the client accepted the proposal; work began shortly thereafter. Lamentably, the problem was quickly determined to be much more difficult than first thought.

Aside from nuanced detail, the work crew began digging in the customer’s yard to identify the problem. They kept digging. And digging. And digging. Eventually they dug a hole six-feet deep and four-feet wide on the property. Faced with this unforeseen complexity, the Construction Manager called the crew off the job site to develop a revised plan to address this now complicated work order.

Though visited periodically by company executives, managers, and field staff, the six-foot by four-foot hole remained untended for several months. Believe it or not, the derelict hole was so neglected by the company that it actually became inhabited by a homeless person.

A six-foot deep by four-foot wide hole, lacking safety precautions. For several months. Not good.

Enter OSHA.

OSHA standards require that employers provide workplaces free of recognized hazards. The employer must comply with the trenching and excavation requirements of 29 CFR 1926.651 and 1926.652 or comparable OSHA-approved state plan requirements.

Per OSHA guidelines, trenches five-feet deep or greater require a protective system unless the excavation is made entirely in stable rock. If less than five-feet deep, a competent person may determine that a protective system is not required. To prevent potential hazards associated with trenches of this degree, OSHA guidelines offer several protective systems including: Benching, Sloping, Shielding, and Shoring. Shoring is a common technique used in these scenarios. Shoring requires installing aluminum hydraulic or other types of supports to prevent soil movement and cave-ins.

Not only did OSHA draft specific corrective action to the company for this obvious job site hazard, true to form, it quickly expanded its audit scope by requiring the company to provide the following safety documentation for a thorough compliance review.

Written Accident Prevention Program
Contact information of the workers involved in the digging of the hole
Safety training records / Excavation training records
Copy of all disciplinary records of all company workers of the past 6 months
Copy of First-Aid certification for all Foremen or Lead Employees onsite
Records of all Safety Meetings
Walk-Around Safety Inspections for this project
Copy of the OSHA 300 and 300A records for the current calendar year

While we are certain that your company has all the above-mentioned documents readily available, like most compliance issues, this entirely preventable scenario painstakingly illustrates yet again, how a single inaccurate task or process (e.g., I-9 Forms, employee timekeeping, safety, wage and hour) can frequently result in an extensive, bureaucratic, and costly administrative review.

By the way, I ardently recommended that every employee who visited that job site (e.g., executives, managers, field staff) receive a formal written reprimand for violating the company’s Safety Program.

In sum, stop digging your company into a hole by not knowing or complying with legal requirements. Spend more time shoring up your employees’ knowledge, training, and accountability, sooner rather than later.

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