Posting photos of your jobsites online? Here’s how it can cause you serious legal problems…

Proud of your work? Looking to promote your company?

Posting photos or videos of your job sites online, if done right, can be an excellent marketing tool.

But there can be a downside to this, if you simply snap away without careful planning, instantly uploading the “good, the bad and the ugly” of your work to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.

The world’s biggest companies spend millions of dollars to meticulously stage their TV and online commercial messages. Careless presentation of their products and services can destroy their reputation and their sales. The same can happen to you, the self-employed contractor.

To give just one example, last week I opened Facebook through my cell phone a few days ago and instantly I saw images of a young roofer doing a handstand on the peak of a roof, not wearing any fall safety equipment. His company’s name was there in full sight.

Then I watched a video from a Toronto electrical contractor, panning his cellphone camera across his jobsite, showing numerous safety issues in less than one minute – some of them extremely dangerous. Just perfect for someone to use against him: maybe a rival contractor, or the Ministry of Labour or the Electrical Safety Authority in the event of an accident.

Needless to say, neither contractor was happy when I pointed these items out to them. But I felt I had to. Especially given that the employees of one of the firms carry our CARAHS Fall Awareness training cards! We took steps to document our correspondence to them, after viewing these videos, for our due diligence. Can you imagine when they cart one of their unfortunate workers away to hospital after a fall from heights, with our CARAHS-issued safety card in their back pocket? Can you imagine the liability to us and the firm under investigation?

Even online companies like HomeStars can trip themselves up without pre-planning. Recently I noticed a safety issue with their Roofing U 101 series videos. After a contracting firm introduced themselves, then the video carried on to show a worker at heights not wearing Personal Fall Protection equipment. Yet I’ve got to congratulate HomeStars. Once we notified them, they realized their error and quickly removed the video. Unfortunately, the roofing contractor involved did not share the same outlook, making a bad situation worse through their very defensive online remarks about the situation. To me, it’s all about speaking up and breaking the culture of silence on safety.

Yet no one is squeaky clean when it comes to safety. Last week we at CARAHS removed, corrected and reposted an article I had written about the Ontario Working at Heights new STANDARD, coming on April 1. The Ontario Ministry of Labour (MOL) online watchdog quickly spotted our bloopers and after a lengthy conversation with their representatives we were able to correct it.

If you are planning a job, you’ve got to include safety into your planning. Make sure the safety equipment you use is CSA-approved. Yesterday in one of our Fall Protection courses, we noticed that one of the contractor attendee’s safety equipment said Made in China. Another said Made in Taiwan and this one was a knock off of a top-notch 3M product. Both of these pieces of equipment were NOT CSA-approved. After a fatal fall or a serious injury, under investigation, the contractor who provided this equipment to his crews could be found liable under the Occupational Health & Safety Act and face serious fines – or even jail time.

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