Building a Better Tower Climber Industry

If employers, be they contractors or subcontractors, refuse to change and treat their employees like human beings, then it is up to the employees and their families to unite and fight for justice and equality in the work environment. Tower climbers cannot keep putting themselves at risk so that big mobile companies can make a profit.

Tower Climber Union

While it is true that it is the responsibility of the tower climber to practice safety, good judgement, take every precaution and stay focused, among other things, one of the proactive steps that tower climbers can take is to exercise their rights as employees. Have you wondered why there is not a union that is organized to protect the human rights of these workers that just want to make a fair and honest living?

There needs to be a leader or a team of leaders, someone that will stand up to adversity because these are troubled times. When workers come together they will have one voice to represent all of them about these important matters: life and death.

The National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE)

This is different than The National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE). NATE is a nonprofit trade association providing a unified voice for tower erection, maintenance and service companies. As a member driven association, NATE is led by its Board of Directors. These individuals come from all types and sizes of companies located throughout the United States.

This is all well and good. In other words this is an association for the industry as a whole.

However, where is the voice for the workers, who without them, none of this would be possible? What is needed is the worker-centered, worker-action, worker-representation union. Tower climbing is one of the most dangerous professions known to man. Workers do not have to live with this legacy. Workers die in this line of work often and nearly nothing is done to protect the lives and safety of these Individuals.

Big wireless cell companies do not directly hire these workers because they know that they are a major risk. If cell phone companies hired them under contract they would be responsible for every accident and or death in the field. Instead, cell phone companies hire independent contractors and contractors hire subcontractors to employ tower climbers. This way in the event of an accident or death the big mobile phone company is protected legally and financially.

There are too many workers climbing towers and employees who are not compensated adequately when you factor in the likelihood of major injury and or even in the case of accidental death.

A well led union would be able to address matters of salary, safety, working conditions, insurance and medical benefits to name a few. All of these issues would improve the quality of life for tower climbing workers.

There needs to be a change in the way this work industry is structured, managed and overseen.

Someone must be held accountable when these tower climbers are injured and or die at the

workplace.

The good news it that things can get better. There is not an industry that does not go through these growing pains.

The only thing consistent in life is change and hopefully for this industry a change will come sooner than later.

Building a Better Tower Climber Industry

Tower Climber Equipment Check

Safety equipment is, needless to say, the difference between life and death or serious injury. Tower climbing is the most dangerous job in America, but using proper equipment can lower the risks dramatically. Keeping it in good order is of paramount importance.

The tips below are suggested methods and things to look for to make sure all your safety equipment able to keep you safe. As professionals, you know that what safety gear you use depends on the details of the environment in which you work.

Tower Climber Equipment Check

Safety harness - According to NATE standards these should be secured in a way that that will distribute fall arrest forces over the thighs, waist, pelvis, chest and shoulders. Safety belts can not be used for fall arrests.

Periodically, at least once or twice a months, they should be checked for cuts, rips and tears, electrical burns, rot and deterioration (both physical and UV), chemical damage and evidence of shock loading. Any harness that is suspected of these types of damages should be discarded immediately.

Lanyards/Positioning Straps - Each end of the lanyard needs to be securely snapped into a D ring of the full body harness.  They need to be inspected for spring tension, no exposure of the inner layer, cracks, burns and corrosion, and no excessive side movement. Make sure the rivets aren’t loose or worn and that there is no chemical damage.

Carabineers - These are not the average carabineers found in tool store and retail outlets. First things first is to make sure the don’t have that infamous “not for climbing” stamped on them. Also, make sure they are rated for your weight.

Hardhats - The straps inside the hard hat should be 1” to 1.25” from the outside of the hard hat in order to protect from shock. It should fit securely, not too tight, but not able to wobble around.

Manufactures recommend hard hat replacement every five years, however, if they are exposed to a lot of sunlight, chemicals or heat then it’s recommended to replace them every two years. This guideline is important to follow because hardhats don’t show wear and tear like other pieces of equipment do. Needless to say hard hats with holes or dents should be discarded.

Vehicles - In order to keep vehicle safe from falling objects, they should be at least a half a towers length away from the climb site.

RF monitor - Making sure that they have a full charge just makes sense, they can’t work if the batteries don’t. They should be periodically checked to make sure they are reading RF waves correctly.

Radio – Just like the RF monitor, make sure that the batteries are charged and do quality checks on a couple different channels before climbing the tower.

Rope – Once or twice a month ropes should be check for wear and tear, fraying, and rot. The knots should especially be checked, if the rope has gotten wet, mold and mildew can hide under the knot, making it a hidden enemy.

Regardless of what your equipment is, it should be stored properly. Radios and RF monitors should be placed on their chargers. Ropes, harnesses, helmets, etc… should always be stored in a dark, cool, dry place. Riding around with them in the back of your truck can cause damage to your vital equipment.

Below is a link to the NATE approved checklist for all equipment:

http://natehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Equipment-Basics-Checklist.pdf
http://www.engineeringspecialtiesgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Tower_Climber_Safety.pdf

Tower Climber Equipment Check

Tower Climber Safety Tips

Most employers often complain that the cost of tower fall prevention training and equipment is on the high side. These trainings are however important to prevent tower falls which are mostly very fatal. There have been cases of tower climbers falling to their death during tower installations, which makes adequate training and tower climber safety tips very important to prevent such deadly falls.

Employers know the high expenses that accompany such falls as they will be fined heavily for safety lapses by concerned agencies with their job sites closed for several months while the investigation into the falls last. Most times when such sites are reopened, the enthusiasms among the workforce reduce drastically as a result of psychological distress and rustiness. This has further enhanced the need for adequate training for tower climbers to make sure they observe all necessary safety precautions while climbing to save themselves from such falls and save their employers the losses recorded when such falls take place on their sites.


Employers have been advised to provide proper safety training, site and equipment maintenance to prevent the emotional and financial shakeups that affect all parties involved when a tower climber falls during tower installation projects.

Safety Tips for Tower Climbers

Several factors have been identified as possible causes of fatal falls for tower climbers. Such factors include weather conditions as at the time of undertaking the tower installation project, high electricity voltage, falling objects, and several other hazards that are capable of tipping the balance of a tower climber.

The need for the right safety tips and gear for climbers safety was became more evident after two young amateur climbers had fatal falls in 2011. New tower climbers are more prone to fatalities than the experienced ones. The fact that no other industry has experienced the rate of fatal falls the tower climbing industry has recorded prompted in-depth research into the major causes of these falls.

These researches showed that most of the falls experienced by tower climbers occur due to wrong use of tower gear and inadequate adherence to safety rules and procedures. Only a few of these falls occur due to gear failures. There are certain major safety procedures you must always observe before undergoing any tower climbing project. Below are some of the tips that can help keep you safe while working at height.

Be thoroughly prepared

It is wrong to start your way up the ladder without making all necessary adjustments to all your tools and equipment. Never be in a haste to get up the ladder without checking the gear and all other tools to make sure they are in good shape. Being fully prepared involves taking all necessary security measures like monitoring the weather daily to make sure you are climbing when the weather condition is more favorable. It is a known fact that when accidents occur at high heights, the weather condition can go a long way to determine the safety of the climber before help comes to him.

Be well hydrated

Most times, tower climbers are exposed to intense heat while working up there. It is advised that you stay as hydrated as possible while working at ground level, which makes adequate hydration a must for you as a climber working at great heights. Inadequate hydration can lead to a number of problems that may result in fatality cases. Some of the problems that can arise from inadequate hydration for a tower climber are; heat stroke, weakness, confusion, dizziness, nausea, fainting, and exhaustion.

Give Yourself Regular fitness checks

It is always important that you give yourself proper physical and fitness check before you embark on any tower climbing project. Make sure you feel energetic and strong enough to embark on the climbing project before you commence. Make sure you are not under any heat-related illness before you start climbing. Check for heat cramps in the muscles of your hands to forestall being unable to properly attach the snap hook of your safety positioning lanyard to an anchor point to enable you stop and rest safely at intervals while on the job. Knowing the symptoms of all heat illnesses and monitoring yourself and other members of your tower climbing team is of utmost importance.

Have a Rescue Team Handy

The truth remains that a fall may still happen at any time despite all the safety measures taken. This makes the enforcement of efficient work site prevention and emergency rescue plan to rise to the occasion in case of any falls very important. These precautions have helped handle life-threatening situations very adequately on several occasions.

Use Full Body Slings

Tower climbing equipment manufacturers continue to make the job of tower climbers easier and safer. The full body sling helps redistribute the pressure from your body weight away from the leg straps of your harness. This will not only increase your comfort, but goes a long way to keep you in a work position for longer periods. With the full body seat sling, you can afford to stretch out your leg in front of you, taking attention away from the pain in your legs and focusing on the job at hand.

Give your Crew Adequate Training

If you have a team of your climbers working with you, chances are that most of them do not have the necessary trainings and experience to prevent fatal falls while climbing. It is your job as the crew leader to hire any of the companies reputed for the quality of safety training offered to tower climbers to come to site and train your crew members. These companies offer climbing safety, climbing skills, and rescue tips. Some major climbing equipment manufacturers are also known to offer training and consulting services for tower climbers’ safety.

Following these climbing tips, techniques and using the right safety equipment the right way will help you enjoy a safe and long tower climbing career. Using the right gear for your tower climbing projects and having the required level of professional training and knowledge will keep you safe, and still go a long way to reduce your job stress.

Tower Climber Safety Tips

Tower Climber Deaths in 2014

It has never been a particularly well kept secret that tower climbing is an incredibly dangerous job. Seen by many as more of an extreme sport than a safe working environment, there are many different courses and qualifications that have been made available to those that want to work as tower climbers, in order to better equip them as tower climbers.


Sadly, there has been an increase in people working on towers dangerously over the last couple of years. There are a few reasons for this: firstly, many people are being laid off, leaving the same number of towers for a smaller number of tower climbers. This means that some tower climbers are driving for more than twelve hours, and then immediately going up a tower. Secondly, there seems to be a level of peer pressure to climb with a smaller and smaller amount of safety gear, which is just ridiculous. And lastly, safety equipment is incredibly expensive, and some tower climbers that are just starting out do not have the initial funds to purchase all of the gear that they require.

These reasons, however, are not good enough to justify the loss of life. Nothing is. There have been many more tower climber deaths in the industry in the last few months, which is worrying many people. In 2013, thirteen individual tower climbers were killed at work sites, which was a larger number of tower climbers than those that died in 2011 and 2012 combined. It is only May, and already another four tower climbers have died in 2014.

The majority of tower climbers that die during working perish due to falls from a ridiculously high distance. However, two of those that have died in the last fourteen months were killed when a tower collapsed on top of them in West Virginia, and that was not the end of the incident, a fire fighter died trying to aid the tower climber, and another two tower workers were highly injured due to the destruction. Some have argued that tower climbers have a risk of having a fatality thirty times more likely than the average American worker, which is quite a scary prospect.

Many people believe that tower climbers are paid such high amounts of money per year as partly ‘danger money’, just as surgeons are paid a lot of money because they run the risk of sadly not being able to save someone on the table. It is also why tower climbers should always be covered by a high amount of insurance, to protect them for any potential health costs and to help them live for the rest of their lives if they cannot work again. However, this money can never be enough to cover the loss of a loved one.

There are many calls within the tower climbing industry to make conditions safer for those that are risking their lives to give us good electrical signals. Some suggestions about how to make tower climbing safer is to bring in further regulations about what sort of qualifications new tower climbers will need to have in order to practice tower climbing safety. It has been stated that the deaths this year and last were totally preventable, making them even more tragic. However, it is becoming more and more difficult to accurately follow which tower climbers have the correct training and experience and unfortunately, there really is nothing like actually climbing a tower to make you a better tower climber. It is a bit like pole vaulting: at some point, you simply have to take a deep breath, and start running.

Tower Climber Deaths in 2014

Cell Tower Climber Safety

It is imperative for any cell tower climber to think very seriously about their safety. After all, tower climbing is a very dangerous career for someone to undertake, and therefore it is vital to consider thoroughly what can be done on a daily basis to make their job as safe as it can possibly be. Companies often take a lot of time and effort to make sure that every single part of a cell tower’s day is covered by the safety regulations that all tower climbers need to abide by. In particular, it is very important that the safety equipment that is recommended to be used by climbers is always a key part of a cell tower climber’s beginning of a climb.


However, there are some climbers that are taking their lives into their own hands by neglecting to use all of the safety gear that they are provided with. These types of climbers call themselves free solo climbers, or just solo climbers for short. Solo climbers do exactly what they say on the tin: they go climbing with absolutely no equipment whatsoever. This means that if they lose their grip and fall, they fall. Many people love solo climbing – they claim that it is a more natural way of climbing, and means that climbers can move much faster because they are not being constrained by the use and changing use of different climbing gear. However, when you are a professional tower climber, solo climbing is definitely not the right choice.

For climbing enthusiasts, there are very few new challenges within the climbing world. This has meant that more and more people that are working within the tower climbing industry are pushing the limits to give themselves a bigger challenge, and a bigger thrill. This is, of course, extremely dangerous. For one thing, the amount of electricity that passes through a cell tower is astronomically high, and if a climber that is concentrating on climbing up a cell tower without any safety gear accidentally touches something that they should not, they could die just from the electrical shock. Even if they managed to avoid any of the electrical current going through the cell tower, there is still a huge potential for falling, and sustaining very serious injuries, some of which may be fatal.

On the other hand, despite all of this danger, that has not stopped one website from accidentally encouraging climbers – including professional climbers – from going up cell towers without any safety gear. TheOnlineEngineer created a video in 2010 that was intended to show people that did not know much about tower climbers and what they did, the typical day that a tower climber experienced. Although the video was incredibly informative, it also included some scenes from the helmet cam of a climber that showed that he was not using any safety lines at all – solo climbing, to be exact. What’s more, the narration did not in any way indicate that this was a dangerous way to go about climbing a cell tower. Instead, all it said was: “It’s easier, faster, and most tower workers climb this way…Free climbing is dangerous, of course, but OSHA rules do all for it. Attaching, climbing, attaching and removing safety lines every few feet slows progress and is tiring.”

Of course, this is a very dangerous video, and once concerns were raised about it, it was taken down immediately – but who can know exactly how much damage has already been done? OSHA, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, is a body that is meant to ensure that all workers are completely safe within the workplace, and many people have found it hard to believe that OSHA really permits tower climbers to run such risks with their lives like that by allowing them to tower climb without the relevant safety gear. In fact, Jim Coleman, the chairman of the National Association of Tower Erectors, personally made a statement in response to that video, stating that he does not believe that OSHA “allows for free climbing as an acceptable method of accessing elevated work.”

At the end of the day, in 2010 alone there were seven fatalities from people falling from towers. It is not precisely sure whether they were solo climbing or had the correct safety gear, but in 2013, fourteen professional tower climbers with the correct safety equipment died while on the job. Climbing up and down cell towers is not a safe occupation, and only those with the highest level of qualifications and experience should be permitted to do so – because those people are fully aware of the importance of safety. When you climb up a cell tower, you are taking your life into your own hands, quite literally, and you could also be risking the lives of your climbing companions if you choose to climb with a partner. Every time that you climb a cell tower, you would be a fool not to take the vital safety precautions that can mean the difference between life and death. This is why free climbing and solo climbing on cell towers is wrong, and should never be done.

Cell Tower Climber Safety

Best Tower Climbing Gear of 2014

When you climb towers for a living, you want to know that the equipment that you are using will hold you. You want to know, beyond any doubt, that you are safe. But as we know, all technology eventually reaches a point where it cannot be used any more, and when you are a tower climber, your safety is more important than pinching pennies. If you are new to tower climbing, you may consider the prices ridiculously high, but actually they are very reasonable when you are paying the price of protecting your life. So what is the best tower climbing gear that you should be looking into this year?

1. Tower climbing harness kit.

The best thing that you can start out with is a complete tower climbing harness kit. One of the best ones on the market at the moment is actually on sale, down from $899.99 to $849.99, and is called the GME Supply 90005 ExoFit NEX Tower Climbing Harness Kit. So why is it one of the best that you can buy? Well, when you are looking to invest in really good quality tower climbing gear, then you want something like this that you know will last for years. It is also designed for comfort, which is perfect for when you are spending hours in it.

2. Safety monitor.

When you are climbing a tower, falling to the ground is not the only danger that you are dealing with. Of course you need to keep an eye on RF levels. Without a high quality monitor to keep an eye on anything, you can become severely unwell due to being exposed to high levels of electromagnetic activity. The best on the market at the moment is the FS8000 fieldSENSE Public RF Safety Monitor. Tower climber safety is always better when you have one of these by your side. The greatest feature of this device is its simplicity and it is incredibly easy to use, which is perfect for when you are very high up and have a million and one other things to think about. You can find out more about it, and purchase it for $499.

3. Two way radio.

Every single tower climbing team needs to make sure that they have a set of good radios on them. Communication is the best way to keep yourselves and other people safe, and good tower climbing gear is not complete without them. The greatest radios are those that are two way, so the most open communication can happen. Motorola CLS1410 On-Site Two-Way Radio is in fact one of the cheapest on the market at $209, but don’t let the low prices fool you. The radios have four channels and voice operated transmission, which leaves you with your hands free to sort things out while you chat to your colleagues.

4. Tower rescue pack.

Tower climbing safety rules are all centered around the importance of bringing every person back down to the ground safely. That is why tower rescue packs are so critical. If you want to ensure the safety of your team, then it is probably time to purchase a PMI Towerpack II Self Evaluation/Tower Rescue Pack for $941. It also comes in a variety of lengths, from 164 feet to 400 feet, for all of the different towers that you and your team will be climbing. You should never climb a tower without an emergency plan to get back down safely, and this is perfect way for you to make sure every climb is a safe one.

Get it from here: GMEsupply.com

Best Tower Climbing Gear of 2014