NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only.
Bill Buckley Roofers Union Local 96
MR. SCHNEIDER: Now we want to get trade specific and talk about a couple of trades. We couldn't get all 15 building trades represented up here, but we do have 3.
We are going to start with Bill Buckley, who is the apprenticeship coordinator for Roofers Local 96 in Minneapolis. He has been in the trade for 21 years and has been an apprenticeship coordinator for the past 7. He has done considerable safety training and helped the Roofers International rewrite their safety manuals. And he is also a member of the Minnesota Building Trades Safety Committee.
Bill.
MR. BUCKLEY: Well, there is no doubt that industrial and commercial roofing is very hard work and very dangerous at times. We have various problems with the industry because of the heights, the weather, as well as the heavy materials and falls and burns.
It is stated through the Bureau of Labor and Statistics that one in five roofers are injured in one method or another, whether it is off a roof or a strain or some type of a back injury. We feel in the Twin Cities that we have changed that to about one out of fifty people with injuries. We know that because we watch our health and welfare programs, and we know who is injured.
We attribute most of this work to education, working with labor and management, and with manufacturers. I have some slides here that I want to go through. It depicts how roofing started out and where it is going to end up. Hopefully we need more vast improvements again, but we are getting there. It is greatly improved.
We are going to start back in the 1920's just to show how things actually started. It actually started with the horse and buggy. Everything was handed -- material was worked by hand. There was no mechanical equipment involved.
This depicts another way of how they hauled the materials to the job sites.
Here is a job set up, and you can see that there is really no safety involved here. It was just a matter of putting a big piece of wood up on the roof, and either a bunch of guys would pull the material to the roof, or they would have a mule or a horse pull the heavy materials to the roof.
It took a lot of men. Since you had to have a lot of material handling, you needed a lot of people up on that roof. And there was a lot of mass confusion, and injuries occur when you have that type of confusion.
This picks up on roof system again. You can see that there is no fall protection around, and application procedures were very crude.
Things did progress. When they came out with the motor vehicle, it created a situation where even the vehicle itself would haul the materials to the roof.
Here is a roofing crew. It is greatly improved. You can see that they don't need as many men with more modern equipment coming around.
Some methods never change. This is for patchwork. When we do little repair work, this is our method for getting hot asphalt to the roof. Just a little pulley system and the guy down below will pull up those little bits of tar. We do not haul heavy equipment up on such a ladder wheel.
We moved into the industries in the 1960's, whereas we started using hoist systems. These are two different types of hoists. The first one on the right was the first crude one that came out, and there was a lot of air involved in that. You had to be on your toes when you ran this particular machine. The one on the left, the state-of-the-art machine, is a hydraulic machine. And there is really no room for error on that when you are operating it.
This is the hydraulic machine set up on a different jobsite.
This little handle here, on the previous hoisting system, the man, when the materials got to the roof, he had to grab the bar and pull in the materials. Well, he was reaching out over the roof and he had to give it one pretty good jerk. So with the hydraulic, the little lever, you just pull the lever back and the whole materials come in. A good safety feature that prevented the guy from going over the edge of the roof.
This is a monorail system, a different systems that's used.
We now use forklifts on quite a few of the projects. They work real well to get the materials to the roofs.
Now the more elaborate companies are buying cranes, so the materials get to the roof safely and inside the roof system itself.
Another type of crane. Generally, a lot of these cranes are going over 100 feet into the air. So that prevents that guy having to sit on a hoist and pull up materials.
This is another variation of cranes.
In the old days, you can see that's how everything came up on the roof. And it was a bad deal back then.
Sometimes we forget, though. This particular project, we were driving by and you can see the three guys standing up on the roof, and there are three guys below that little house there, and they are pulling for their lives. They are pulling about 350 pounds up. That should not be done.
This is some of the equipment that we use on the roof. Back in the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties, most of the roofs were axed off. Down below that is what's known as a cutting machine. When we had to scrap the gravel, we had to do that by hand. By now we have a brooming machine up in the upper left-hand corner.
This is the operating of the brooming machine. The gravel has to be removed before the cutting operation starts.
These are two cutting machines. And to alleviate back problems, these guys are cutting the pieces approximately 18 inches by 18. Before when they axed the pieces, they would be any size, 10 by 10 or whatever, and these guys would drag it away. This prevents back injuries.
After the material is cut, they did not have to bend over and pick it up. This machine would get underneath the roofing, and it would slide right up so you could pick it up at waist level. Here is another variation of the same machine. Saved a lot of back injuries with this type of machine.
Here is the machine in operation. You can see he just has to reach over and put it on a cart.
Some operations never go away. This always occurs on every roofing job. It is just going to be there forever and ever, and they have to take precautions.
Repetitious movements here. You can see how he has to pry down on that. Axing is still around.
We went from the one-wheeled wheelbarrows to motorized carts, which greatly improved our roofing removal.
Sometimes we need education on how to shovel. We have seen that improve by using longer handled shovels instead of the short ones.
Our heating systems have also changed. These are small ones. And we have to remember that when these small ones are used, the worker has to pick up these pieces and put them in the kettles themselves.
They come in all different sizes. And these, again, the worker has to work right along side these things.
Some get bigger, so that means more asphalt can be put inside. I mean, you can see that the level of the top of that kettle where he will put that material is just about chest high.
Another varation of a heating unit. They come in small sizes, large sizes. Notice that the LP tanks are real close to the kettle, which should not be. We will show a picture of something on that later.
Asphalts come in 100-pound kegs, and a lot of the guys are just throwing the whole keg in. It should not be that way. We see a lot of back injuries that used to occur because of that.
During a day, there's a possibility that 50 to 100 of these kegs would be put into the tar kettles themselves. Alleviate that problem by making 50-pound kegs, which helped considerably in the industry.
This is an operation with a guy wearing a face shield and throwing the kegs inside the kettle itself.
Manufactured design lowered the height of the kettle, which improved the ability to reload them.
This is what happens when the LP tank gets too close to the burners. Education is a must. And this can happen, also. So education was a real important part, and we have nipped this pretty good.
Set-up area is very important. It has to be nice and clean.
We reverted to tankers now. These are semi-automatic and/or automatic, whereas the worker does not have to be near them.
Put the LP tanks in the front away from the burners.
These are automatic kettles. The only situation you really have with these things is to haul them down to the asphalt and load them up at the factory.
They come with operating instructions, too, which we never used to see before. This is how it was. No warning protection, very sloppy work area, and see there is no personal protection, no long sleeved shirts.
Now we have warning lights. Safety areas around the asphalt delivery area. The dumping area has guardrails.
Falling materials, conventional equipment. Lane materials. Instead of carrying materials, it uses a cart to haul it around.
Application procedures.
The guardrail systems bases are 140 pounds. One of the roofers had devised a method to haul them away with little energy.
Old-time graveling. This was all done by hand work back then with wheelbarrow. Now we used mechanized equipment to haul everything. This is a graveling procedure with motorized vehicles. Some handwork still being done, though. Motorized cart. We get the material to the roof by crane now.
We still have some handwork that we have to do with the graveling. Fanning the gravel in so we're talking about 30 pounds on a shovel at a time.
Hot asphalt down before the gravel goes on.
Motorized equipment, a different method with a conveyor.
Using bobcats on the ground instead of using shovels.
Heavy rolls being moved by hand. There's equipment for that now. No need to carry it.
The old-fashioned way. Uneducated people pulling up equipment. Dangerous situations still arise out there.
That's 1,300 pounds of rubber membrane sitting there. The thing we are trying to prevent is the next photo.
Thank you.
MR. SCHNEIDER: Thanks, Bill.
