# Safety first



## Kram (Sep 5, 2003)

I know for a fact that municipal governments that practice safety in the ( outside grounds maint.) workplace has very little accident or death rates compare to the private sector. I would think that if we had some kind of law to make a tree company of 2 or 3 employees or more to be more involved in safety like taking classes one a mouth or in-house training of some sort, etc., this could really reduce the rate tremendously. Nobody shouldn't have to die or suffer injury on the job.


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## MasterBlaster (Sep 5, 2003)

I would think that training would be an every day, ongoing thing.


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## Kram (Sep 5, 2003)

With access to the Internet, there are literally hundreds of websites that promotes safety, if I had my own tree company, I could pull out safety guidelines and practices on everything related to the tree industry. What is so complicated about taking the initiative and being proactive to teach safety to your employees with info you can get free? It would prolly cost me a couple of hours to scan websites for info and maybe an hour a week/day to preach safety to the employees? That could be the best investment for any owner to has a desire to grow his company and yet, remind safety cautious.


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## MasterBlaster (Sep 5, 2003)

Thats kinda what I meant in my previous post.


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## John Paul Sanborn (Sep 6, 2003)

Like Brian said, many people think they are safe enough in thier practice. Further training is a waste of time and money.

There are many ways to further training, NAA (Now TCI) has their "tailgate" series. Local chapters have a number of seminars and workshops through out the year.

The biggest thing out there will be insurers demanding and auditing safety and training programs. More and more underwriters are dropping tree care work for coverage.


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## ORclimber (Sep 6, 2003)

You can train untill your blue in the face, but if there are no teeth to back up the training it means nothing.

Employers need to set clear safety guidelines, practice what they preach, and discipline violations.

I tried "do what I say, not as I do" as a forman, it didn't work. As a business owner I won't take the chance someone will get hurt, if they won't work safe, they can work somewhere else.


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