1st January 2014, 01:25 PM
The construction industry appears to have made most of the 'law' up themselves as a massive financial rod for the their own backs (no wonder the British construction industry's the most expensive in the world, quite apart from all the other incompetence I've witnessed over the years), most archaeological H&S that I've come across is closer to the actual letter of the law. The sad thing is that most construction guys don't realise that it is mostly made up. Needing a ticket to operate a stapler (or a tracked excavator for that matter - any member of Joe/Jane public can hire one from a big garden centre) is something the construction industry have made up, it has no legal basis whatsoever, the operator merely needs to be deemed to be competent. On a job a while back where we were operating under our own H&S, a guy from National Grid was quite happy for me to use a 4-tonne excavator to strip under a couple of live supergrid pylons without a ticket, he merely wanted to watch for 5 minutes to assure himself I was competent to operate the machine safely [probably have a thousand hours or so, no accidents yet] and following the Risk Assessment to the letter (chained boom etc) - not a circumstance where we were likely to cut corners though...!
The sheer amount of H&S paperwork's getting ridiculous too, was out doing some GI monitoring before Xmas and we had to fill out and sign a permit-to-dig for every hole - ridiculous! Wonder how much it costs to type all that up back at their offices (and it does all get typed up)...but that's ok, its only taxpayers money... :face-crying:
Oh, HAPPY NEW YEAR to one and all. With the economic upturn hope you all get plenty of work and with any luck the odd pay-rise and decent site toilets :face-approve:
The sheer amount of H&S paperwork's getting ridiculous too, was out doing some GI monitoring before Xmas and we had to fill out and sign a permit-to-dig for every hole - ridiculous! Wonder how much it costs to type all that up back at their offices (and it does all get typed up)...but that's ok, its only taxpayers money... :face-crying:
Oh, HAPPY NEW YEAR to one and all. With the economic upturn hope you all get plenty of work and with any luck the odd pay-rise and decent site toilets :face-approve: