I work in the construction industry. We have about 1:10 ratio of “supervision” to contractors. Getting people to wear PPE is a constant, ongoing 12 hour a day battle. We kick about 1 person off site permanently, every day for something egregiously dumb. The contractor just sends them to another job. And of all the places I’ve worked, my current employer is one of the best, takes it very seriously.
Early in my IBEW (union electrician) training, a particularly outspoken oldguy asked me, mockingly "are those tampons in your ears?!"
My response was "No, Carl — they're sound dampeners SO I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOUR CONSTANT BITCHING SO MUCH."
Old journeyman immediately took me under his wing, and we were inseparable (he even would wear PPE around me). I learned much from this "kind" old curmudgeon.
Why the machismo exists in construction, I'll never know — just as many former co-workers will never understand how I was one of them, once.
Bad safety standards create strong unions. Strong unions create good safety standards. Good safety standards allow stupidity. Stupid people allow safety standards to get rolled back.
Had a friend who worked in construction. He said every day the workplace health & safety person would come in and show them a video of the "dumb [expletive] of the day" doing something very stupid by not following WHS rules, and suffering the consequences of it. Allegedly this helped with compliance quite a fair bit.
"Getting people to wear PPE is a constant, ongoing 12 hour a day battle."
Why is this? I often see firsthand or on television people working in dusty environments with little or no concern for the dust that they are breathing in. It especially horrifies me when I know that dust is silica or like, or perhaps even contains some asbestos. I wince every time I see professional stonemasons chiseling away or using diamond saws to cut up slabs of stone without wearing masks. Surely, if anyone, they ought to be aware of the risks.
I've occasionally had to work in such environments for short periods but I've never done so without wearing a n95/P2 type mask and even then I consider them inadequate protection and go to considerable effort to minimize my time in the dusty environment. I even go to the extent of putting on the mask and removing it outside in a dust-free area so as to minimize breathing in any residual dust.
Whenever I ask others around me why they don't take precautions I never get sensible answers or they offer paltry excuses such as masks fog one's glasses.
Despite all the exposure about the dangers of asbestos in recent decades, the greater dangers of dust inhalation generally just hasn't sunk in. The question is why.
In many respects this rejection seems to closely mimic the rejection of masks during COVID. One wonders what's actually needed to overcome the resistance to wearing PPE. (We've overcome PPE resistance re visibility with the full acceptance of fluorescent hi-vis clothing, so why not dust masks?)
Ppe is usually bad designed, horrible to wear and has bad side-effects that are not documented. Better solutions exist(like sucking dust away into filters at the saw blade or actively air pressures masks) but companies want the cheap unusable minimum crap. Which then nobody uses and which then gets them thus out of all future lawsuits. It's a ritual to calm the lawyer priests, the workers health does not factor into it.
Agreed, PPEs are often badly designed, often excessively expensive and often not conveniently accessible when needed but I've always taken the view that wearing them is the lesser of two evils. Silicosis and especially mesothelioma are truly evil diseases so I'm surprised so many who are at high risk of exposure aren't worried about them.
You say PPEs have bad side effects but as I've mentioned those whom I've asked never explain what they are. Why? And why are they undocumented?
Re sucking dust away, active air pressure masks etc., I agree they're a good idea and ought to mandatory in many environments. I accept sucking dust away as the norm on my table saws and planers etc. but even so I still wear a mask (although not an active pressure one) as the sucking up is not 100% effective. Also, what happens in environments where it is not practical to suck away dust such as a stonemason working up on the side of a building or such? The only solution has to be PPEs.
I wear a mask occasionally but for a lot of physical jobs it's just not feasible. As in the mask clogs and needs constant replacement or just limits the flow of breath. If you shovel with a dirty mask or have one in a cold (freezer) environment, it's like getting waterboarded.
Its no biggy in an office, and I guess for a ton of people that's the reference "work". On construction sites etc you get a ton of pseudo protection where people pretend to comply to escape the jurists and egghead harassment.
I totally agree that stone lung is horrific, but I also think a ton of laws fail that protection goal miserable on purpose.
Right, despite my earlier comments I have to agree that in some situations masks are a significant problem. I've had them clog from dust when my hands haven't been free to change them or similarly perspiration from my forehead has made them wet to the extent that no air could flow leaving me gasping for breath.
So what's the solution? It seems that in some situations there is none. Perhaps in those situations the only move would be to inform people of the risks of not wearing masks and let them decide whether to work there or not.
That said, persons who later develop a dust-borne disease are likely to change their tune when the seriousness of their predicament sinks in and then retrospectively blame their employer for allowing them to work sans masks. Moreover, no insurance company would tolerate such a situation if aware of the fact—hence the laws, even if they're unworkable.
Having watched several Thai builders using the squint method to protect their eyes when stick welding, happily welding together galvanised steel, working on electrical circuits without turning off breakers, and just flat out skipping electrical earthing, I'll never again be surprised by how many safety corners people will cut just because.
