In our companion
publication, Grading & Excavation Contractor, we’re watching an
interesting phenomenon take place; a fiscal sword, wielded by the people with
the projects that is having an amazingly positive impact on both safety and
environmental compliance that we in the waste industry might find worthy of
consideration. First let me pose examples and then let’s look at how they may be
applied to our universe.
Hoofbeats of
the Dreaded EMR
EMR—Efficiency
Modification Rating—is the system developed by the insurance industry to measure
one activity’s safety performance relative to all others with the same SIC.
While the -methodology involved is a little more complex, what it comes down to
is this: If your EMR is 1.0, your safety performance is dead-nuts average for
your SIC group. An EMR greater than 1.0 means your performance is worse than
average; lower than 1.0, your safety performance is better than
average.
A few years back,
several large companies recognized that no matter what the circumstances,
accidents occurring during construction on any of their sites inevitably led to
litigation. These pioneers decided to take matters into their own hands by
making safety part of the bidding process. Quite simply, this was accomplished
by refusing access to the bidding process to contractors with worse (greater)
than a 1.0 EMR, and to bar the use of subcontractors who didn’t meet the same
standard. So dramatic have been the results of this practice that it has been
adopted by an increasing number of project owners—public as well as
private—around the country.
Are contractors
getting the message? You bet, particularly when half of them wake up to the
realization that they are not eligible to bid on a growing number of the most
lucrative projects around ... and that the safety bar will be even higher in the
future as contractors recognize the importance of safety to their competitive
viability. Thus, whether as a matter of enlightenment or terror, the road to
safety in the construction field is showing real progress.
The EPA Sees
the Light
The point was not
lost on the water quality people at the EPA who decided that the fastest, most
effective way to get their message out was not by handing down punishments on
individual contractors but by soliciting the aid —quite often adversarily—of
those engaged in the greatest number of projects. Thus, as the result of
stormwater compliance litigation, the EPA and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. entered into
a consent decree that not only will affect the contractors who work on the
retailer’s massive list of projects, but is destined to impact all dirt-moving
contractors as well.
In compliance
with the consent decree, Wal-Mart has initiated a Storm Water Professional
training program for general contracting firms, completion of which is required
of project managers and superintendents before would-be contractors are allowed
into the bidding process. Other large developers eager to avoid costly sanctions
are emulating Wal-Mart’s approach, and are getting the
message.
Is There a
Lesson Here for Us?
You betcha! If
you contract out services, you have an excellent opportunity—and I would go
further to suggest that you consider it an obligation—to control risks to the
people for whom you work, at the same time taking effective action to upgrade
the safety and environmental stewardship of the entire industry in ways that
have proven to be both effective and fair.
On the safety
side of the coin, by establishing a baseline EMR for would-be contractors,
you’re not telling them how to run their safety programs, instead you are
insisting on a proven level of safety performance.
On the
environmental compliance side for your landfill or other construction--related
activities, I suggest you go to www.forester.net and subscribe to our
sister publication, Stormwater
for information and assistance with storm-water regulatory compliance
training and certification. It is the authoritative publication on this and
related subjects.