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After a Tower Climber Falls, Stand Down Called for on AT&T Projects
Ryan Knutson, PBS Frontline, and Liz Day ProPublica May 25, 2012
This story was co-published with PBS Frontline.
Following a worker's non-fatal 100-foot fall from a Texas cell tower last week, one of AT&T's construction management firms has instituted a stand down across several states, requiring that its subcontractors review safety practices.
Plano, Texas-based Goodman Networks sent out a bulletin yesterday notifying workers of the mandatory safety stand down.
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Built for a Simpler Era, OSHA Struggles When Tower Climbers Die
An OSHA investigator documents the helmet of fallen tower climber. Ryan Knutson, PBS Frontline, and Liz Day ProPublica May 24, 2012
This story was co-published with PBS Frontline.
When federal lawmakers passed landmark legislation creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, they intended to protect workers by imposing clear, uniform rules on their employers.
The 1970 law assumed that the relationship between companies and the people they hired for dangerous jobs would be straightforward, employer to employee.
No one planned for industries like tower climbing.
Tower climbers, the roughly 10,000 workers who build and maintain the nation's TV, radio and cell towers, aren't hired directly by the corporations that rely on their labor. They're subcontractors, sometimes separated by a daisy chain of other contractors from the companies that ultimately pay for tower projects.
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