Scaffolding
USAIndia Scaffolding
Scaffold Industry News
India is known as a huge exporter of general commodities, and scaffolding is no exception. However, as opposed to poorly made clothing or accessories, inferior-quality scaffolding poses a serious threat to workers' safety - and even their lives. Scaffolding imported from India, albeit cheaper, it is usually poor quality, faulty systems that lend more easily to accidents, falls and malfunctions. Therefore, do we sacrifice workers' and passerby's safety by going with the cheaper scaffolding options? Is saving a few pennies on scaffolding from India worth the cost of innocent lives?
As India is a huge manufacturer, supplier and exporter of scaffolding, it is important to call into question the quality of the products being produced and distributed from this country. Typically, the scaffolds are economic, fast solutions. Therefore, quality is often compromised. Considering there is a slim to none chance that any type of reliable quality assurance program is in place, the standards by which these scaffolds adhere are not the highest. The compliance with industry standards for quality, namely, the standards set forth by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The accordance with OSHA regulations is imperative to scaffolding safety.
The major problems with scaffolding out of India are that the systems feature inadequate bracing, unsafe access, missing pins in the scaffolding and lack of guardrails. However, the quality of the scaffolding systems from India cannot be solely to blame for the abundance of accidents and deaths. Proper training and qualified workers are also a main reason why there are so many injuries and fatalities related to scaffolding. Especially since many of the workers are immigrants from India.
Often times, workers from India and other foreign countries are hired due to their acceptance of lower pay and no health insurance. Likewise, the language barrier that often exists prevents immigrant workers from demanding or undergoing the proper training. Many of these immigrant workers are not competent with using, erecting and working on scaffolding, leading to unfortunate accidents on the job-site. In fact, only trained, qualified workers should be allowed near, let alone to work, on scaffolding.
Every day, we hear about another scaffolding-related death or injury. Whether it is attributed to poor-quality scaffolds purchased for cheap from a country overseas like India, or due to immigrant workers not provided the proper training for scaffold work, it is a problem that must be addressed. That being said, there are reputable exporters of scaffolding and trained workers from India. However, until we demand higher standards for the quality of every scaffolding system and the extensive OSHA training of each competent scaffolding worker, we cannot expect to see the incidences of scaffolding accidents decrease.