Utility markers don't get the recognition they deserve. If they aren't
essential workers, they should be.... and get hazard pay.
They help protect everyone's fiber and cables and pipes that go boom.
In the scope and performance of their duties includes any work involving essential telecommunications expansion or restoration - then yes.
And agreed. They save lives. Period.
Call before you dig. Please.
Since in our case they are Outside Plant Tech's who are assigned the
duties as needed, they are essential workers.
USIC is not marking on Fridays around here.
URG is marking but only 4 hours a day.
- Jared
If underground construction is an essential activity (and it certainly is, at least repairs generally are - new construction perhaps could be argued), then underground utility marking is, too, since it's mandatory for safely performing underground construction.
Hi Sean,
I agree that they're essential, but what hazard are we talking about?
The virus isn't mysteriously floating about "out there," beyond your
window. it's proximate to other people and more indoors than out.
Utility markers only rarely wound their way through crowds even when
the crowds weren't hunkered down at home.
Delivery workers, grocery workers, medical staff, I see a plausible
source of hazard there. What's the abnormal hazard to utility markers?
Regards,
Bill Herrin
It really goes back to what I have maintained in that you can't really
say who is essential or not because such declarations never extend the
full width and breadth of the supply and distribution chain. For
example, someone manufacturing cardboard boxes might not be thought of
as essential but when these cardboard boxes are used to package food
items so they can be sent around the country, does that mean that they
now are? What if they're being used to package medical supplies?
Trying to judge "essential" and "non-essential" is always going to be
problematic and you're always going to get it wrong.
Utility markers don't get the recognition they deserve. If they aren't
essential workers, they should be.... and get hazard pay.They help protect everyone's fiber and cables and pipes that go boom.
we have a very poorly-defined idea of what constitutes an "essential worker", and in the more general case, what constitutes an essential supplier. Supply chains are complex, and disruptions in one place can serious downstream ripple effects in another. There are plenty of examples like this at the moment:
Nick
Nick Hilliard <nick@foobar.org> writes:
we have a very poorly-defined idea of what constitutes an "essential
worker"
I thought "management" was the definition of non-essential workers. Who
else would have a job without being essential/critical for day-to-day
business?
Bjørn
USIC marked on April 17 (last Friday) here. At least the email said they did in the afternoon - we just had to call them back to locate (there were no red/power flags).
Josh Luthman
Office: 937-552-2340
Direct: 937-552-2343
1100 Wayne St
Suite 1337
Troy, OH 45373