Lawmakers focus on snow worker safety
With temperatures plunging and the year's first flurries fallen, Beacon Hill lawmakers on Thursday will turn their attention to the safety of snow-removal workers.
Rooftop markers for skylights would be studied under a bill Rep. William Galvin of Canton sponsored after a snow-removal worker died in his town when he fell through a skylight last February. Another worker was seriously injured in Avon, also in Galvin's district, when he fell through a skylight while attempting to remove snow piles.
"A local custodian, who I've known for a long time, gave me a call," Galvin said. "I actually filed this for him." The custodian knew one of the workers who died.
The bill (H 3833), set for a hearing before the Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee, directs the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security to study "the necessity and feasibility" of rooftop safety markers to flag skylights when they are buried beneath snow. State officials would have 180 days to conduct the study and submit a report.
"It would probably be mostly pertaining to commercial buildings, but residentials have skylights too. So I thought that the best way to handle it was to have the Office of Public Safety do a study on it," Galvin said.
Galvin envisions markers "like you see on a hydrant -- just something they would put up for winter. When you've got four feet of snow on top of [the skylight], you're not going to be able to see it. And that's what happened last time."
Large crews of workers took to warehouse rooftops last winter to assist owners who feared their buildings might collapse under the tremendous volume of snow. The longtime Sixth Norfolk representative said he could not remember any roof-raker casualties in his district before last year.
"With that much roof-raking, it increased the percentages that something bad would happen," he said.
The bill is among 10 on the docket for the Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee's hearing due to start at 11 a.m.
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