Chinese Window Cleaning Spiderman Most At Risk

"Spidermen" (window cleaners) clean windows outside a high-rise building in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

China's "spidermen" need more care, protection (BEIJING, Xinhua) -- Suspended from one or two ropes only as thick as a man's thumb, they hang like spiders hundreds of meters in the air, cleaning and maintaining the country's skyscrapers. A recent string of tragedies has drawn attention to the need protect China's fearless spidermen, low-tech workers who don't have the superpowers of the movie character and risk their lives every day to make a meager living.

In a highrise in Xi'an, capital of northwest China' s Shaanxi Province in late July, a sudden wind sent two dangling workers swinging. The spidermen, suspended at the 12th and 15th floors when the incident occurred, cried for help and struggled against the wind for more than 20 minutes before they were dashed against the building.

In another case, two window washers on the 91st floor of the 492-meter Shanghai World Financial Center, were injured when the cradle they occupied crashed into the skyscraper in early April. "Wind is our biggest enemy," said Chen Guofu, 40, a window-cleaner who has survived five years of high altitude and risk in Beijing.

He recalled the first time he stepped off the edge of a tall building. With sweaty palms and a vertiginous head, he carried a bucket of soapy water and a squeegee on a pole, with only a suction cup on a string to anchor himself to the window.

"If those two workers in Xi'an could have anchored themselves to the window, the tragedy may not have happened," said Chen who came to Beijing in 2003 from a village of neighboring Hebei Province. He changed jobs many times before he became a spiderman. "I have no choice since I don't have other skills," he said.

Like most spidermen, Chen is one of hundreds of millions migrant workers working in construction or cleaning to support parents and children. The current urbanization drive has brought a forest of city skyscrapers: Spidermen are important to the expansion. Their safety should also be better protected, said Zhai Jialiang, secretary general of Beijing's cleaning industry association,

More than 1,000 workplace deaths are reported each year in the construction industry, and over 60 percent of fatalities are caused by falls from high places and building collapses, said Huang Shengchu, head of National Institute for Occupational Safety under the State Administration of Work Safety.

Zhai Jialiang wants companies to establish complete management mechanisms including pre-job training for workers, regular equipment checks and emergency plans. Currently, there are more than 300 spidermen in Xi'an, fewer than 200 of whom have licenses to allow them to work aloft, said Wang Wenyong, manager of Xi'an Yunfei Property Management Company. The licenses he mentioned are either issued by China Occupational Safety and Health Association or the local work safety department.

"Without licenses, proper training and supervision, many spidermen don't even attach themselves to a backup line," said Chen Guofu. Xinhua reporters searched "high-rise window cleaning" on the Internet and found countless advertisements. Zhai told Xinhua that many are small firms and are poorly regulated. Liang said the government and association should strengthen regular supervision on cleaning and maintenance of highrise, issue clear regulations and punish companies who break the rules.

Annealed Glass As A Health Hazard

Annealed glass breaks in to shards.

Older Glass Windows Are Potentially Deadly: Lean against or touch certain glass windows and doors and you can actually be putting yourself in danger. CBS 2′s Dave Savini shows how the danger lies with how the glass is made. “This is a deadly weapon,” says glass safety expert Mark Meshulam as he shows a sharp, jagged broken piece of glass from a window. “This is just crazy.”

The type of glass he is talking about is called annealed glass. It is found in windows in older homes, schools and storefronts exempt from more current rules requiring safer, tempered glass windows. Tempered glass breaks into small pieces, while annealed breaks into large, jagged ones that can cause greater injury. There have even been deaths.

Fifty-two-year-old Michael Racky lost his life after falling through a glass window. His adult children, Meghan and Sean Racky, say their dad leaned against an annealed plate glass window in Oak Lawn, and it shattered, nearly amputating his leg. “It hurts a lot,” Meghan Racky says. “I have to wake up every day realizing, I’ll never see him again.” They say a BB-gun hole compromised the window three years earlier. “It’s actually a very big problem that many people aren’t even aware of,” Sean Racky says.

Tape was used to hold it together, says the Racky’s attorney Tom Paris. “Packing tape is not an answer for compromised glass,” he says. CBS 2 found that tape is being used on other annealed glass windows in Chicago, including at a Laundromat and a daycare. Meshulam says they are dangerous. The 2 Investigators found 6,069 city citations were issued for window code violations between 2010 and 2013. “Somebody, sometime, is going to go into that glass,” Meshulam warns outside one building.

Maria Elena Gonzalez was standing outside of a South Side apartment building in 2006 when she was struck by a falling window. “The pain was unbelievable,” says Gonzalez, who had never thought about the danger a window could pose. The 2 Investigators went back to the building where Gonzalez was hit by the window and found five more broken windows.

Annealed glass windows and doors are being blamed for deaths around the country, including a Pennsylvania art professor who fell through a glass door at a restaurant and bled to death. The solution, Meshulam says, is simple, and he demonstrated. He struck a tempered glass window with a special weight bag; initially, the glass failed to even break. It did break on the next test, but broke into tiny pieces instead of the jagged shards of annealed glass.

Building codes can vary by community, when it comes to the type of glass required in homes and businesses. Safety glass is pretty much mandatory in doors, but not all windows are required to have it. Houses and other buildings built before 1977 were not even required to have safety glass. If you are not sure what type of glass you have, look at the corners. Safer tempered glass typically has the manufacturer’s logo etched into it. Attempts to reach the business and building owners were unsuccessful.

Annealing is a process of slowly cooling glass to relieve internal stresses after it was formed. The process may be carried out in a temperature-controlled kiln known as a lehr. Glass which has not been annealed is liable to crack or shatter when subjected to a relatively small temperature change or mechanical shock. Annealing glass is critical to its durability. If glass is not annealed, it will retain many of the thermal stresses caused by quenching and significantly decrease the overall strength of the glass. The glass is heated until the temperature reaches a stress relief point, that is, the annealing temperature (also called annealing point) at a viscosity, η, of 10¹³ Poise = 10¹² Pa·s, at which the glass is still too hard to deform, but is soft enough for the stresses to relax. The piece is then allowed to heat-soak until its temperature is even throughout. The time necessary for this step varies depending on the type of glass and its maximum thickness. The glass is then slowly cooled at a predetermined rate until its temperature is below the strain point (η = 10^14.5 Poise). Following this, the temperature can safely be dropped to room temperature at a rate limited by the heat capacity, thickness, thermal conductivity, and thermal expansion coefficient of the glass. After the annealing process the material can be cut to size, drilled or polished.

Tempered Glass links here.

Cherry Picker Accident Florida

"That is what goes on this time of year. When most of the snow birds are gone is when we do all the outside painting, window washing, cleaning, things like that," said Beutler. The Sheriff's Office says OSHA will investigate. Back in April, another man died after being electrocuted while trimming trees on Fort Myers Beach.

Two men were electrocuted and killed Friday while performing maintenance on a Fort Myers Beach building. Juan Bocanegra, 37, of Fort Myers, and Dustin Manning, 30, of Bradenton were in a cherry-picker performing maintenance on a building in the 7400 block of Bella Lago Drive around 1:30 p.m., according to the Lee County Sheriff's Office. The two men were electrocuted and killed when the cherry picker lifted into the power lines, according to an initial investigation. "Dustin was a wonderful husband, a wonderful father and they were expecting their second child," his friend Sharon Reinhart told NBC-2. "I just want his family to know that he was very liked by so many people." The deaths appear to be accidental, the Sheriff's Office reported. The Medical Examiner's Office will conduct autopsies to make an official determination.

Window Cleaning News + Gutter Cleaning Fall

Leave it to the Gutter Cleaning Professionals! A Rexburg man was cleaning out his gutters this afternoon, when he fell off his ladder, and hit his head on a window seal. The man's wife called for help after she heard a loud crash outside. He received some gashes and was transported to the hospital. First on the scene, Officer Lyndon Barron asked, "Do you remember anything?" "Yeah. I guess, I don't know," the man responded. "What happened?" Asked Officer Barron. "I don't know," replied the man. "Did you just fall right here off the ladder?" Asked Officer Barron. Law enforcement says you should always call for paramedics, especially when there's a head injury.

St George's Church, Middlesbrough, UK: This was the Gaumont cinema which once stood opposite St George's church, this building has also disappeared from our landscape. You can even see the sweet shop on the corner advertising Fry's Chocolate, which must have been convenient for patrons of the cinema. Also there is a barrow parked on the pavement with a very long ladder, probably belonging to a window cleaner. Click picture to enlarge.

Years ago, Sherman’s Sports in downtown Hendersonville employed a young man to wash the store’s front windows. While he was washing the windows, the man asked Louis Sherman, the store’s owner, if he might be excused from work for a spell. Sherman agreed and the window washer headed for the Henderson County Courthouse. “He and his girlfriend went across the street and got married,” says Francee Sherman. “And when they were done, he came right back to washing windows.” It’s one of Francee Sherman’s favorite stories from the decades she has spent helping run the store that her late husband Kalman’s father founded more than 85 years ago on Main Street.

Deaths at construction sites in Bahrain have doubled in four years, according to the latest Labour Ministry figures. Thirty-five workers have already lost their lives in accidents this year, compared to 36 during the whole of last year, 29 in 2007, 21 in 2006 and 18 in 2005. Of those killed, most fell from buildings under construction, we-re hit by falling construction materials or became trapped in workplace machines, said occupational health and safety head Abbas Salman Matooq. He warned the number of worksite fatalities will rise by the end of the year unless companies stopped flouting safety rules and regulations. "They hire cheap labour and purchase cheap equipment to cut costs," Mr Matooq told the GDN. "Construction accident inspectors work hard to enforce construction safety laws by distributing safety brochures that are printed in several languages for the workers' safety. "But we have noticed that no one follows these rules and that's the reason so many accidents happen." Mr Matooq said a risk assessment test should be carried out at any site before construction work began. "Training for labourers is a must and all the contracting and construction companies are asked to hire safety officers," he said.
Labour regulations state companies that employ 100 workers must hire a safety officer, while those with 50 or less should train a supervisor or foreman to monitor safety issues. "We don't advise anyone to leave the labourer alone at the worksite, without supervision," said Mr Matooq.
"But on inspection, we noticed that many supervisors come in the morning for sometime, explain work to the labourers and leave, which shouldn't be allowed. "The foreman or supervisor must stay at the site until the work is complete. Mr Matooq revealed 1,000 construction sites and labour camps had already been inspected this year. But he said part of the problem was that Bahrain was short of occupational safety engineers with only four carrying out daily inspections.
"We are facing trouble, as there is a shortage of inspection officers," said Mr Matooq. "There are only four inspectors and we have to visit many construction sites in a day and write a report about them. "The job also includes conducting investigations (after an accident or fatality) and giving safety lectures to workers. "At least 40 safety inspectors are required to inspect of all the worksites in Bahrain." Mr Matooq said most of the workers killed this year were from India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.
"Two Bahraini workers also died this year, including one, who fell from top of a water tank in Electricity Ministry in Umm Al Hassam," he said. "The other drowned when he was trying to cross a wooden bridge between two ships and fell into the sea. "It took place at the Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Port and the man was the captain of one of the ships." The GDN reported on Saturday that a Labour Ministry probe had been launched into two worksite accidents that killed one worker and left another seriously injured. Indian Pokkillatha Ali Sulaiman, 51, fell to his death from the second floor of a building in Isa Town on Friday. It happened at 10am when he was cleaning a window at the Traffic Directorate. Mr Sulaiman leav-es behind his wife and two children. Hours earlier Bangladeshi Farooq Imam Kabeer suffered serious injuries after a jack fell on him from a building under construction in Shakhoora. It happened at around 8am as the 25-year-old was fixing the jack to make stairs.

Cleanliness May Foster Morality: A simple spritz of a fresh-smelling window cleaner made people more fair and generous in a new study. The researchers figure cleanliness fosters morality. They conducted fairness tests, with subjects completing tasks in a room that was either unscented or one that was sprayed with a common citrus-scented window cleaner. Follow-up questions found the participants didn't notice the scent in the room. "Researchers have known for years that scents play an active role in reviving positive or negative experiences," Galinsky said. "Now, our research can offer more insight into the links between people's charitable actions and their surroundings." The study, led by Katie Liljenquist at Brigham Young University, will be detailed in the journal Psychological Science. Liljenquist and Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto had previously shown that people who have committed sins feel urged to clean themselves physically. A separate study last year at the University of Plymouth in England found that a vigorous hand wash or shower could cause a person to be less judgmental.

Eric Duran laughs when he's reminded that he does windows in both Spanish and English, so to speak. The proprietor of Duran Window Cleaning is also coordinator of Club de Lenguas, a Spanish conversation club. "I have loved learning about languages since I was about 10 years old growing up in Indianapolis," said Duran, 50, who has lived in Bellingham since 1996. "Now I give private Spanish lessons, and I once taught languages in Mexico. I love helping people learn the beauty of the Spanish language and Latin culture." Duran seeks out speakers with an interest in Latin heritage to attend club meetings, and does his best to accommodate all levels of Spanish speakers, especially enthusiastic beginners.

Burj Dubai: The final height of the tower will be revealed when Burj Dubai opens later this year. The last cladding panel numbered 24,348, weighing 750kg, was placed at a height of more than 662 metres. Panels of more than 18 strength specifications and 200 sizes have been used, all of them double-glazed and factory-sealed. Certain panels are yet to be installed. The total curtain wall area stands at 132,190 square metres. The developer had also said that keeping the tower façade clean will be the next engineering challenge. "To guarantee that every corner of Burj Dubai sparkles, 18 window-washing units are built into the tower, including nine track-mounted telescopic cradles, each with an extendable jib arm for cleaning, which reaches more than 20 metres," said the statement. In September, Emaar sent this newspaper a statement saying the last of the cranes atop Burj Dubai would be taken down in a few weeks. The cranes were originally supposed to come down by end-August. Currently standing at more than 800 metres, Burj Dubai is at the centre of Downtown Burj Dubai, a 500-acre mega project described as the new heart of the city of Dubai. The final height of the tower will be revealed when Burj Dubai opens later this year. The development value of Burj Dubai is more than $1 billion (Dh3.67bn). The design inspiration for the mixed-use development has been drawn from the desert flower. Jan 2007. Level 110 (tallest structure in the Middle East and Europe)
March 2007. Level 141 (world's tallest building): July 2007
Level 150 (world's tallest free-standing structure): Sept 2007
Level 160 (world's tallest man-made structure): April 2008

Echtinaw, 50, and single, was born and raised in Rochester, served in the Navy, attended Oakland University and worked as a newspaper reporter until he moved to Alma in 2001. He has two business here, "Rod Cannon Photography" and a window washing business called, "I Feel Your Pane." From his point of view, the biggest issue facing the city is "how to maintain city services or cut them wisely during a time when revenue is dwindling," he said. "My core beliefs for government are fiscal responsibility to the point of frugality, getting government out of the way of economic activity, and common sense." He said he believes the city is well run and that infrastructure spending - sewers, water mains and roads- is important. He also wants to improve the business climate by getting the government out of the way as much as possible. When asked what areas would he look at if the city had to make cuts, Echtinaw couldn't say. "I'm not comfortable answering that," he said. "Nothing jumps out at me. It would be painful for somebody."

Window Cleaners Do Not Get A Second Chance

NYC window washer deaths underscore job hazards: NEW YORK - For more than two decades, Andrew Horton was content with his job as a window washer. But one day, hanging off the 86th floor of the Empire State Building with just a belt tying him to a window, "I did say to myself, there's got to be a better way to make a living! "Horton, 52, now runs New York City's main safety training program for window washers, teaching them how to reduce the risks of an occupation that has claimed three lives in the city in the past year alone. The latest accident happened after midnight Tuesday. Two men, working in a cherry picker off the World Financial Center, tumbled to their deaths when the machine tipped over and fell 40 feet to the ground, police said. The men, both in their 30s, were not immediately identified. A woman who answered the telephone at Total Building Services of Elizabeth, N.J., said one was employed by Total and the other was his cousin, a retired window washer.New York has about 600 unionized window washers, members of Local 32BJ of the Services Employees International Union. It's the largest group of unionized window washers in the country. Another 800 or so work independently and without formal safety training, earning far less. Of the thousands of window washers across the country, industry experts say about 95 percent are non-union workers who on average make about $7 an hour. Safety standards vary by state, with New York having among the strictest regulations. Although the federal Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) doesn't have specific regulations that apply only to window washers, the agency enforces general industry safety standards for equipment and employee training, according to OSHA spokeswoman Sharon Worthy in Washington. In New York, commercial window washers are protected by a special labor law that makes a building owner liable for injuries due to defective equipment such as a safety harness or scaffold. "If the job is not safe, you have the right not to work," said Mark E. Seitelman, a lawyer who represents a window washer injured when his arm got lodged in a hole in the scaffolding on a skyscraper last year. In New York, unionized window washers must learn basic regulations, and also how the equipment works, whether it's a ladder, scaffold or belt anchored to a window. Apprentices earn a $35,000 salary for the first two years in the union safety program, but can make up to $70,000 a year after earning journeyman status. Horton says many of New York's non-union workers are immigrants who get paid off the books in cash. He described a similar situation elsewhere in the country, with families sharing jobs among themselves and their friends. In California, workers are often offered piece work - for example, washing 20 windows at $3 apiece. "It's cash business, and they don't ask for qualifications," Horton said. "If you have a bucket and a belt, that's all it takes. "The largest unionized window-washing company in Chicago, Corporate Cleaning Services, says that about 80 percent of its 66 workers come from one tiny town in Mexico, with window-washing jobs passing from one generation of men to the next. Among New York's union workers, there has not been a lethal accident in 25 years, according to the union. During that time, non-union workers have had about 200 accidents, including more than 70 fatalities, said union spokesman Matt Nerzig. In December 2007, a team of two brothers plummeted from their scaffold 47 stories above an Upper East Side street. One died, while the other miraculously survived the fall and is now recovering. An OSHA investigator determined that a device that holds a lifeline for workers on the scaffold was improperly installed and cited the company that operated the scaffold for workplace safety violations. Horton knows what it feels like to dangle from the side of the skyscraper, having done so for more than two decades before calling it quits two years ago to lead the safety training program. "Safety is our number one topic," Horton said. "Window cleaners do not get a second chance."
Following on from the blog, yesterday & today.

R.I.P. Darin and Robert Fabrizio

'DEATH' MACHINE HAD LEAK - NEW CLUE IN WINDOW WASHERS' TRAGEDY:

A fellow worker at the World Financial Center site where a cherry picker toppled over today, sending two window washers to their doom, said he saw fluid leaking from ill-fated machine just a week ago. The so-called "man lift" fell over at about 12:45 a.m. Cousins Darin and Robert Fabrizio were cleaning the glass near the building's famous Winter Garden when the massive unit suddenly tipped over. They were rushed to New York Downtown Hospital, where they were pronounced dead early this morning. Officials said that they were about 40 feet in the air when the tragedy occurred. It wasn't clear if one or both of the men were in the vehicle's basket.
Today, investigators from the federal Occupational Safety and Heath Administration and the New York State Department of Labor were at the downtown site, investigating the incident.
Neither agency could explain the cause of accident. "We're going to be looking at the equipment itself, the mechanical parts, talking to witnesses," said Department of Labor spokesman Leo Rosales. But one worker at the site said he saw the cherry picker being serviced last week.
"It was leaking fluid," he said. "But it was fixed." Police said that Darin Fabrizio, 37, lived in Milford, Pa., and Robert Fabrizio lived in Las Vegas. One worked for Total Building Services of Linden, NJ, and the other was his cousin, a retired window washer, the company said. The orange and yellow cherry picker has a four-wheeled base with a motor, and a long scissoring arm with a basket on the end. The arm can extend about 80 feet in the air, and it is commonly used to wash the windows on the lowest floors of high-rises. Rosales said that the World Financial Center had the proper permits to operate the lift for window washing: See yesterday.

ANOTHER HEADLINE TELLING OF THE TRADEDY:
Two window washers working across the street from Ground Zero fell more than 40 feet to their deaths early Tuesday after their cherry picker tipped over and catapulted them through the air, officials said. Investigators believe the cherry picker rolled over a dip in the pavement, causing it to topple and eject them from the truck bucket as they cleaned the windows of the World Financial Center, a police source said. Cousins Robert Fabrizio, 35, and Darin Fabrizio, 37, both died at New York Downtown Hospital minutes after the 12:45 a.m. accident, police said. "I heard a boom," said a maintenance worker who was buffing the floors inside 2 World Financial Center as the cousins cleaned the skyscraper's exterior windows. Other workers ran to the cherry picker, which had flipped onto its side on the inclined sidewalk outside the building. "I saw them on the [ground]. ... There was a lot of blood on their heads and faces," said the shift supervisor, Alex Garcia. "I saw one of them trying to breathe, but the other one didn't move." Darin Fabrizio, a longtime window washer, was engaged to be married this year, according to a woman who answered the phone at his Milford, Pa., home. "The family is really hurting," said the woman, who declined to give her name. Other relatives said Robert Fabrizio split his time between Staten Island and Las Vegas. Both cousins worked for Total Building Services of Linden, N.J., a cleaning service that had been hired by Shepard Industries of Cedar Knolls, N.J., to wash the skyscraper complex's windows. An employee who answered the phone at Total Building Services said, "There's really no story here" before ending the call. A spokeswoman for Shepard Industries expressed her condolences to the Fabrizio family but declined further comment. A state Department of Labor spokesman said the agency was investigating whether the cherry picker or the company had received any previous violations at the World Financial Center site.

Cousins Washing Windows Killed

Two cousins working as window washers died early this morning at the World Financial Center, on Vesey Street, downtown New York. WABC 7 reports that they seemed to be moving the cherrypicker, "which can lift three to four stories into the air, when the vehicle hit a depression in the roadway. The lift toppled over, crushing them." The men, ages 35 and 37, died from their injuries.
NEW YORK (WABC) -- Two cousins washing windows were killed when their construction lift toppled over in Lower Manhattan this morning. Eyewitness News is told the men aged 35 and 37 - died while working in front of the World Financial Center, at West and Vesey streets, at around 12:45 a.m. They were apparently moving their construction lift, which can lift three to four stories into the air, when the vehicle hit a depression in the roadway. The lift toppled over, crushing them. The workers were rushed to New York Downtown Hospital, where they were pronounced dead. Officials say one of the workers may have been on the lift, while the other was moving the vehicle. According to reports the cousins live in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, although it is believed they live in the area. They were apparently using the construction vehicle to wash windows at the World Financial Center. The construction vehicle, described as a self-propelled articulating boom, was being checked. The mishap occurred in a construction area, although southbound lanes of West Street were closed for investigation.
A woman who answered the phone at Total Building Services of Elizabeth, N.J., confirmed that both men were working for the company when the accident occurred.

Video's here & here.