Lift Directors & Non-Fatal Injuries

Seven years ago I began to own tower cranes. My whole model was supplying small cranes. Self-erectors were being pushed out of Seattle. So I brought in small top slewing tower cranes to replace them. My whole philosophy was supplying the small jobs that were ignored by the large tower crane suppliers. The model worked in that I served a decent chunk of that market for a number of years. Today it's coming to an end. The look back on why leads to questions of what the goals are, and what could the unintended consequences be.

The cost to have an operator and a small tower crane on a project 7 years ago was in the 30k range per month. Foundation, Erect, rental, operator... this is about what the cost would be. A number of those costs have moved higher. It's probably 40k under the same circumstances today. However, a much larger change has happened. Labor and Industries started to focus on Lift Director compliance a couple of years ago. The rule exists stating that a Lift Director needs to be present for all lifting operations. This was mostly a hat put on the Superintendents. A fake hat for a faked role in most cases. LnI wanted to change that to an active role. And they did. Now you have a $105 per hour added on support person known as a Lift Director. The intentions are all well and good. Hopefully it can be shown to make a difference. But I'm not sure the whole picture will really be seen.

The added cost now drives up the cost to have a small tower crane on site to 60 to 65k per month. This has decimated the small crane market. North of Tacoma, I only know of one 100 meter ton class tower crane up. I only know of one 200 meter ton class crane up North of Tacoma. There could be others, but they have become rare. The result has been that projects don't get off the ground, or they get by with a rotary forklift, or a boom truck just a couple of days a week on the 80 - 100 unit apartment projects. You really won't see a tower crane on many projects under 140 units unless there is no other way.

What this means is that we have people on the edge of buildings packing out materials. Obviously, the crane injury statistics are going to look great with this scenario. Less cranes, less injuries related to cranes. Success! But are we just transferring injuries to stress related injuries because now we'll have more people carrying items across 100' wide buildings? Is this better? Do we really want to remove the tools that get the product to where the workers need it? Aren't the tools to lift things for workers a good thing?

This can all come across as sour grapes. But the issue I'm raising is likely one that I'm seeing just because it has hit my market. There's nothing to save for me, I'm already in the sell-off process, and in the restructure phase. I'm ready to let go of small tower cranes. But I don't think the industry should. If we want affordable housing and healthy workers, the Lift Director role as it is currently implemented is impeding both of these goals. I don't have the right solution. I'm just presenting the challenge for digestion here. It's probably important to start that conversation now rather than when the statistics show the problem down the road.