Most of the fallers in my area do not wear chaps, or even eye protection. It varies. The independent fallers are contracted out, and most of the gypo logging outfits are not too concerned if they are not the ones who will be paying the fines. Washington State Department of Labor and Industries is the agency responsible for inspections. I have not seen them out on the ground anywhere I've been here. They visit after a fatality and will then hit an area. The state, like other governments, is having budget problems.
One logger had a yarder set up on a busy road. It was there on the weekend. A safety inspector who was on a touristy trip left his card on the yarder along with a note about the way the guylines were rigged. When I arrived on Monday morning, it was the first time I'd ever seen his chaser wearing chaps and an orange vest.
Insurance rates for yarder crews now almost equal the hourly wage in this state. I do not know what the correlation is, except the rates were raised right after the last election.
Thanks for that info, interesting how things vary from country to country
Independant operators here are not bound by any rules regarding safety either and can do what they want. If however they had, lets say, income insurance, and hurt themselves due to a lack of PPE their insurance wouldn't cover them.
The agency I worked for is ultra safety. There is no requirement for steel toes when running chainsaw. I believe this is because most saw work is done on the fireline, and steel toes do not belong there. Feet can get hot enough without having steel to radiate heat through. We westsiders wore calks on our normal jobs, but had a pair of lug sole boots for fire duty. We all would get blisters on the first fire too, because we weren't used to our fire boots. I wore Whites for fire work.
The steel toe boot and fire aspect is something I wouldn't have even thought of and a good point.
Another thing too slowp that I may have overlooked is the difference in our Workcover and healthcare systems. For example out here in Australia if an employee gets hurt then the employer and Workcover (government run) pay the bills, including time off work (although this doesn't last forever - Workcover is a minefield). Employers pay a Workcover fee for every employee - it is illegal not to. If you are a contractor Workcover doesn't apply - owners/operators can't give themselves Workcover so have to take out other income/health insurance to cover their butts if they get hurt.
An employee operating saws quite simply doesn't get the option of not wearing PPE, it is dictated by law.
This means that workplace safety is sometimes taken to stupid degrees to ensure that the dumbest employee on earth can't hurt themselves and cost the employer money. Unfortunately then a whole new level of dumb always managed to evolve
I still see steel toed boots as a valuable investment though and I rate them as important as chaps and a helmet. They've saved my toes a number of times from being crushed by logs, stumps etc, not from being cut. They also give me the ability to kick stuff really hard and not bust my foot
I got my foot wedged and stuck once when about an 18" tree butt decided to slide back after it fell and slowly came down on my foot which I'd stupidly jammed between other logs trying to make my escape (always clean your escape path
). Didn't hurt, I was stuck fast, but luckily had my saw to cut myself out with. Without my saw it would have been a long day as I had no phone coverage where I was.
I'm not 100% up on the US healthcare system but it seems to me that employees either get a job with health insurance or have to pay for health insurance (or get neither and run the risk). From what I gather if you hurt yourself badly in the US you foot the bills otherwise? In Australia we have a pretty good health system setup that all taxpayers pay for with extra tax. For example if you need an emergency operation or surgery from an accident you'll rarely pay anything - it is all covered by Medicare (government). If you have elective surgery or even a simple doctor's appointment for a checkup you'll normally pay around 30-50% of the total bill and the rest is covered by Medicare. If you have a Health Care Card (Social Security?) you generally pay very little over what Medicare covers. This can be a pain in the butt for working people like myself because when any unemployed bum gets a sniffle they go see the doctor because it doesn't cost them anything - this then blocks up the system for those that really need it.
Unfortunately this also means that Medicare with our aging population is also a massive taxpayer burden at the same time.
