NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only.
Question and Answer Session
MR. SCHNEIDER: Well, we had such a crowded program, we don't have a lot of time for questions, but we do have some time and I hope we will have some discussion if we can get people from the audience who may want to contribute some of their experiences in the construction industry of things that they have noticed that could be done to reduce the risk of ergonomics injuries.
Does anybody want to get up? Any questions?
Q: Yes. I am Jordan Barab, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. I thought this was a fascinating session. I mean, I don't know a whole lot about this, and we have a lot of highway construction people who really need this information.
I have a specific question, Mr. Burkhammer, and I don't know if it is a problem with time or what. But a lot of the other speakers talked about different kinds of equipment they use, more or less engineering controls and that type of thing. You didn't mention any of that in yours, and I was wondering whether there were any different equipment engineering controls you use, aside from the stretching and the back belts and that type of thing.
And also, you did mention some decreases in your workers' comp claims or injury claims and whether you have broken that down at all to whether that was due to the stretching, the training, or the back belts; and if you had done any analysis on that.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Basically I concentrated my talk on the program. We do a lot of other types of ergonomic improvements in our equipment. We have vibrating equipment, we use proper rubber handles. We use all kinds of different things to improve our tools and equipment. We use rubber grips and rubber grommets in our vibrating equipment. All the carpenters have rubber-handled hammers and grips that they use to reduce the vibration that comes up through the arms. We use lifting techniques. We have all kinds of different things on our jobs that help employees lift better. We have the bearing technique on the cable tray that Tony talked about, when the guys are pulling cable in through the trays and through the conduit.
So generally all across our types of work that you saw in my cartoon there, we try to have something or some type of new technology or invention that helps protect the employees or make it easier for them to perform their function.
The second part of your question is statistics. We implemented a new statistic program. It took us three years to build the damn thing, and it still doesn't work right. But it is supposed to slice and dice everything every way you can imagine. I haven't seen it yet, but we are supposed to have it. And as soon as they give it to me, I would be happy to share some statistics with you, if you would leave me your business card.
MR. SCHNEIDER: Ira?
Q: Yes. This is also for Stew Burkhammer. Regarding the body mechanics training, I got the impression that there was some sort of evaluation of people's follow-through on the job and some sort of reward system. I would like you to talk about that a little bit more, how was the effectiveness of the training evaluated? Did people actually use good body mechanics? Were they able to use good mechanics? Or did they revert to the usual way that people bend over, which is to save energy and get the job done?
MR. BURKHAMMER: That's an interesting question. We didn't really do a scientific evaluation of how each type of stretching exercise -- and there's about six or seven of different types that they go through during this five-minute period -- whether it made them stronger, limber or more flexible, whatever, to help them perform their tasks.
The thing we did get for the majority of employees when we went up and asked them what benefit they got out of the stretching was, one, it loosened them up in the morning and made them feel better and helped them get started quicker in the morning than when they didn't do the stretching, it cleared their heads and made them a little more alert. But it also reminded them that their body is a big part of what we are getting from these employees.
And when contractors get employees, they get a mind and they get a body. And a lot of employers use the body and not so much the mind. But we try to take both parts of that.
I think the mind plays a great part, also, in injuring the body. There has been some studies in psychological behavior versus mechanical injuries. I don't know a whole lot about that, but there is a big difference, I think, when you do stretching exercises in the morning and you do some type of exercises after lunch, because it just improves you mentally and physically and makes you a better employee.
Q: But I assume that the training that you were talking about was body mechanics training, like how to lift.
MR. BURKHAMMER: No. The initial employee training that they got in orientation is, you're right, body mechanics and how to lift properly, how to pick up, how to stretch, how to move, how to do the different positions that we do. And we dragged that down in task training. So yes, that's exactly what you are saying.
Q: Well, in construction most people don't have options as to how they can move and lift. That seems to limit the effectiveness of training in my mind.
MR. BURKHAMMER: No. I don't think I would say that. I think it is a combination of that plus individual task training. Whenever we perform a task, we have a program called STAARRT. It's S-T-A-A-R-R-T. And what it does, every employee in the morning goes through this program. If he has a particular job that he has to perform that day that is unusual, different, has a different twist to it than he has ever done before, we give him specific task training how to perform that task ergonomically safe. I think in conjunction with the stretching, when you do the task training, that in combination makes it easier for him to work.
We also have a job where the foreman is responsible for getting the proper lifting equipment to do the job, whatever equipment he needs to do his job, the right vibrators, the right hammers, the right tampers, the right saws, the right everything.
So all that in conjunction makes up a good program. If you take any one of those parts away, I think you take something away from the effectiveness of the effort.
MR. SCHNEIDER: Any other questions? Billy?
Q: Thanks, Scott. Billy Gibbons. I worked with Tony Barsotti and Steve Hecker on the Intel site, and I had a question about your stretching program, also. We did an evaluation, a perception evaluation, on the Intel side with their stretching program. Although it was widely accepted and was actually used every morning by 80 percent, like Tony said, of the workers out there, that is on contractor time.
What we also found in our evaluation was that even though so many of them received a lot of benefits from it, two things, they directly found benefits if they received training on the stretches that they were doing. And the kinesiologist that we worked with, something along the lines of having to do it for a certain duration to actually see the benefits of it.
My question to you is, on this five-minute stretching in the morning which was on your time, the five-minute stretching that was on what you are saying is their time after lunch, what do you do to motivate them? Our group of workers said that even though they love the benefits of it, they didn't feel like they would do it if, a, it wasn't mandatory, and b, it wasn't on the contractor time. So what do you do to motivate them and how do you know, in fact, they are doing it after lunch?
MR. BURKHAMMER: The after-lunch program was strictly motivated and driven by the crafts themselves. We didn't do anything to motivate them. We didn't do anything to tell them to do it. It wasn't mandatory to do. But every craft person did participate in it, because they felt that it was something that they believed in and they got some improvement out of.
It got so bad toward the end that the non-manuals even got out after lunch on their time and participated, too, because they felt they were not doing it properly by letting the crafts do it themselves and them sitting in the office for the extra five minutes.
We, the management team, did nothing. It was all done by the crafts themselves.
Q: Okay, great. One more question. You referred to periodic retraining. Was that periodic retraining with your stretching program and the back prevention program? And to what extent was that?
MR. BURKHAMMER: We do periodic lifting technique training. We do periodic how to wear the back belt again training. If we see somebody that isn't wearing it right or it is hanging down or he has not got in on properly, using it properly, we bring him in, we say, you know, "Let's show you how to do this again, just to make sure you understand."
We also do periodic training in how to do the exercises. Sometimes, people look for shortcuts in doing this, and exercises are no different. You try to find different ways to do them that will affect a different part of your body than we want affected. So we will go out four times a year, and we will have an instructor go in with every exercise group. He will reshow them how to do it to make sure they are all doing it right.
Q: Okay. Thank you.
MR. SCHNEIDER: Next question?
Q: Yes. Marshall Balk from Alberici Construction out of the Midwest. For anybody that hasn't tried what Stew and some of the other people talked about, the stretching and the training really does work. However, we have an additional problem that I haven't heard addressed, and I don't know if anybody can help me with it or not. If it seems offensive, I apologize.
Our statistics kind of match what Stew put up there, but I have broken them down a little bit further and found that in addition to those type of statistics, we had a higher frequency rate toward the end of a job. And it further broke down as a higher statistic incident rate toward higher benefit comp states and lower construction employment rates. And I don't know if anybody can help address that part of the equation as well.
MR. BURKHAMMER: I guess I get that one, too. We had the same problem. Depending on where you work, what state you work in, the amount of jobs, how many people are working or not working, you are going to have a problem like that.
A couple things we do, and it is not a cure-all -- I mean, we haven't eliminated the issue certainly, but when a craft comes on the job in the beginning, we do a little pre-task evaluation of the employee. There are certain things you can ask. There are certain things you can't ask under ADA.
We do a little bit of history on the employee. It is all voluntary. If they want to tell us, fine; if they don't, fine. Then at about six months left on the job, we bring in a loss consultant from the insurance carrier. Every employee who is laid off due to reduction in force between the six month and the end of the job -- and that's where most of your layoffs occur, your reduction in force occurs, the job is completed -- they bring every employee in and do an evaluation of that employee.
So there are no surprises after he/she leaves. If there is a surprise, it is pretty well documented what happened and what didn't happen to that employee. And we keep pretty good records on the employees throughout their tenure with us. We haven't had a lot of the end-of-job syndrome problems. But when we do, we have pretty well documented ourselves to where we are able to take care of the issue.
MR. SCHNEIDER: Well, one thing I should mention is that in this Iowa survey that Tom and his friends did, we found that one of the biggest problems we had that workers complained about was that 40 percent of them said that they had a problem, one of the biggest problems, was working while they were hurt. What we found is that a lot of guys are going to work even though they are having shoulder or back problems or whatever because they need the paycheck.
And then maybe -- it is conceivable that when the job is ending -- they are not going to have a job anyway, they may report it more. But I think a lot of them are going to work hurt and not reporting it because they need the paycheck. So it is a problem.
But the other data we have, the symptom survey data, we have data from Sweden on 93,000 construction workers. It really shows that people do have a lot of problems that are not necessarily tied to what state you are in or what job you are on or whether the job is ending.
Tom?
Q: I would just add that the end-of-job syndrome is not unique to construction. In terms of manufacturing and other seasonal work, it is not uncommon at all that when layoffs are announced, all of a sudden people start reporting at least the back pain that they may or may not have had for a long time.
So I think Scott's point in well taken. Many of these people may be working continually with these problems. But when they realize that their paycheck is going to dry up, they say, "Heck, I'm going to go ahead and report it." So it is not unique to construction by any means.
MR. SCHNEIDER: Susan?
Q: Susan Moir from the Construction Occupational Health Project in Boston. Another thing that we have found that I think reinforces both what you, Scott, and Tom have said is that end of job also means, oftentimes means, increased production because there are a lot of deadlines in construction. When production levels increase, we have consistently found that safety programs decrease.
New workers do not get orientation, tool box meetings do not necessarily happen. At least the safety elements to those tool box meetings do not necessarily happen. The safety programs deteriorate as production -- there is a direct inverse relationship -- as production pressures increase. We have consistently found this.
Another piece of information that we found out is that there is a commonly held belief that layoffs cause people to work, construction workers particularly, to work slower so that they can increase the work to prevent the layoffs. What we have consistently heard from workers and front line management is that layoffs are a safety hazard because people work harder because they are afraid they are the next one who is going to be laid off and because they are working on short crews.
And oftentimes, at least in Boston, what we are finding is towards the end of the production schedule, money is tight, production pressures are high, safety goes down the tube. And that is another reason why you have more injury, in addition to people reporting injuries that they have had right along, because they are afraid they are going to be the next one on the line.
MR. SCHNEIDER: Any other questions? Sure.
Q: I am Anne Egan with Metro-North Railroad in New York, and we actually have a project going right now with Bechtel. I was curious, you said you issue back belts to your employees. I was wondering what statistics you use to actually issue them and why all of our data that we have developed has shown that back belts have given a false sense of security and not actually been a preventive measure, at least in our industry in the things that we have come across.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Well, back belts by themselves are a false indicator. I think Linda Rosenstock has a saying: You throw a box of back belts out on a dock and everybody comes and picks one up. That's not a back injury prevention program. Giving somebody a back support singularly is not a back injury prevention program.
You have to have training. You have to teach proper lift techniques and how to wear the belt properly and you have to provide a belt that fits and one that is ergonomically feasible for the employee to use. There are different kinds of back belts in the industry, all different shapes, Velcro, non-Velcro, straps, no straps. You can line up 50 or 75 of them on a table. But not every one of those is right for the job that the employee does, you have to find one that is right, and you have to make sure the employee understands what the belt can do and what it can't do. Just putting it on and wearing it around all day isn't the answer. That doesn't do anything.
Q: Yes. We just never found any positive reason for wearing the back belt, that it has very limited use no matter what. We have gotten to the point where without a doctor's note from an employee we won't even think of it. Actually, we have recently stopped completely, we don't issue them at all.
Q : I guess I am intrigued by it myself. I have this kind of cynicism towards the back belts. I am interested in the data, or if the studies have looked at whether there have been programs which have gone to the same level of training and ergonomic interventions in the analysis of the tasks that haven't used the back belt, so we begin to break out those variables.
Like Stew mentioned, you have to have all those pieces in that as an injury prevention program. The stuff that I have looked at before either has all of it in there or it will have, maybe, a back belt specific kind of program, but doesn't really have a program. It has all of those other elements in it without the back belt for a comparison to it. I just suspect that all of those other elements are the ones -- the rest of your program, the way you have managed your work, the way work is done on your project, are really the ones driving that more than the belts myself.
MR. BURKHAMMER: On the Metro North, we would be happy to sit down with you and show you all the statistics that we had before we had the program and how many dollars it cost us, and then we put the program in and the four years since we have put it in and the benefits we have seen to the program. I like to look at back injury prevention as a system, somewhat like fall protection systems.
There are different parts that make up the system, and if you don't have all the parts, you don't have the system, and if you don't have the system, you are going to hurt people. So it is a whole thing put together.
Q: Do you visit all your jobs?
MR. BURKHAMMER: Any employee that is laid off, reduction in force, quits, what have you, with six months left on the job, before he is checked out or given his final papers, sits down with a loss control rep. and there is a form that they go through.
There are about ten questions, I think. Do you have any injury on this job? Have you been hurt? Different things like that to get a feel for the employee of, do you have an ongoing problem that you had happen here, is it going to continue on after you are laid off? Have you had any problems? You don't have any problems? Are you happy? It is kind of a shuck and jive form, but it does work when six, seven months later the employee comes back and he says, "Oh, by the way, I got hurt on Bechtel's job down the road." And you find out he hasn't worked since, and there have been other kinds of problems that he has had, too.
It helps a little bit in getting the records back and figuring out whether the guy really did get hurt on the job or he didn't.
MR. SCHNEIDER: Let's have one last question.
Q: I am Larry Chapman from Wisconsin. Listening to all of your presentations, it seems there is one theme running through which was: there are certain simple, quick, cheap fixes that immediately become very popular and employers don't resist and seem to go some way towards solving the major problems. How do we get more of those? And of the ones that already exist, are they widely appreciated throughout your industry?
MR. BURKHAMMER: Yes. I think that is a key question, and I think the answer is no, they are not widely appreciated. There is a lot of people doing innovative things in different places, but a lot of information is not shared. I think we need to do more of that or figure out better strategies for doing that.
I don't know if other people have other suggestions on what we can do.
MR. COOK: : I think all we can do is more of the kind of thing we are doing here, where somehow we communicate and dialogue. For example, this contractor that we have been dealing with, he is very happy to share. He came right in and said, "Bring in your video camera. I don't care who you tell about this, if this will help somebody from getting injured," even though it might be his competitor.
There are a lot of very creative people who come up with really nice, cheap, quick-fix solutions that can make an impact, but they never go beyond that shop or that facility. And I think somehow we need to increase the information exchange and share all that wisdom that is out there. It is in little pockets. And I don't know an easy way to do that, other than these kinds of forums, publications, trade journals, videotapes, any medium you can think of that will help share this information.
MR. SCHNEIDER: Billy?
Q: I just wanted to add to that really quickly. The consortium that we work with, the CPWR, and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell puts out a publication called Bright Ideas. It is a little one-page pamphlet. Scott, go ahead and expand on that.
MR. SCHNEIDER: Yes. We have a newsletter that goes out to probably 2,000 people, and we try to publicize things through our newsletter, through our conferences, through academic publications, through lectures that we give. I mean, we will be giving talks like this all over the country and other countries as well. So that is one way to do it certainly.
Hopefully we can work more with trade associations, some of the roofing contractors and others perhaps, to try to spread some of these innovations.
Tony?
MR. BARSOTTI: One thought on that is construction, as this group would know, is very complex in the trades, in the tasks, within a specific trade, on a particular job. And I think the key element is a commitment to do it with the empowerment of the people who are on that job, on the project, and a culture on that job and within that company that supports it. Most of the people who are doing the tasks can come up with these ideas, just like the ones on the equipment modifications, the other ones. It is not as much a need to develop those ideas as it is to have a process within a particular company, on a particular project, that supports that, where crews really believe it. Then it will come with that.
Not that we shouldn't share and pass on information and make equipment modifications and change standards and bring those things in as well, too. But as far as what was talked about, picking off the low hanging fruit and what things are available on what jobs today, that it is more tied to just being willing and committed to do it.
MR. SCHNEIDER: I agree. I think the knowledge is out there. I think 70 or 80 percent of all the interventions are already out there. Someone is doing them, and it is because people gave them the opportunity to do them, good management that was interested and committed and believed in this process and set up a process that allowed people to innovate. I think that is what we need to encourage.
Thanks very much for coming and have a good lunch.
(Whereupon, the session ended.)
