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$600k Fine Over Data Center Death (datacenterdynamics.com)
judgecorp writes: UK contractors Balfour Beatty and Norland have been fined £380,000 ($580k) after an electrician was electrocuted while working on a data center owned by finance firm Morgan Stanley. The fine follows mounting concern that safety is being compromised because of the need for data centers to remain online non-stop. This leads to pressure for contractors to work on live power supplies.
600k is nary a blip on MS' radar. That's not a punishment.
Didn't RTFA but if companies want 24/7 99.9999% up-time. Then they better have paid for the all the stuff to do it safely including line techs trained and certificated for live work. If they cheaped-out they deserve the an even bigger fine. Yes, live work happens and sometimes for no good reason then trying to save a few bucks. But even power companies do live work on their critical infrastructure and even with best tools and training a life is lost here and there.
Seriously... $600,000 fine? For a human life...
(The company says) deal! We're in! Much cheaper than our SLA
non-compliance clause!
CAP = 'suicidal'
How about a mandatory downtime for the data centre of say, 24 hours?
Hit 'em in the hip pocket - which is what a fine is supposed to do, but rarely, in the case of corporations, achieves its desired affect.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
This was done by individuals, there must be a record of who was in control and made these decisions - they are responsible for manslaughter, as individuals, and should be tried for that crime.
Working live is recognized as an acceptable risk in circumstances where it is not practicable to turn stuff off (UPS's and backup-generators may have made this a logistics nightmare even if you DGAF about uptime.) There are qualifications you can get to prove your competence to work live, and there are some very comprehensive procedures to follow that make live working a reasonably safe undertaking (even for the boys doing live joints on HT cables)
If the guy was a "competent person" in the eyes of the law, then he was perfectly within his rights to take the decision and was fully and personally responsible for any consequences of doing so. If he was not a competent person then he had no business attempting the work.
I'm a UK fully qualified electrician, I know there are plenty of lads who have been "on-the-tools" since they left school and call themselves electricians, but those of us who actually have the relevant bits of paper can enjoy a great deal of professional autonomy and responsibility, and I find this decision insulting.
What does this story have to do with contractor vs. employee? Idiot.
With Load balancing, fail over clusters, hot sites, all the thing that can make part of a site go offline for a while without serious impact.
He didn't sign a contract which said "you indemnify us even if we appoint a moron to direct your work which allows circuits to be energized completely willy nilly without a care of his workers". We don't allow contracts like that to be signed.
How much downtime was caused by ensuring the circuit was safe and removing the body?
If zero, SUE THEM INTO OBLIVION. Risking either this contractor unnecessarily (you could have just switched it off) or other workers and emergency workers (because you didn't switch it off after it had demonstrably killed someone).
If some downtime, then why couldn't you have done that to do the work?
Sorry, but I fail to see how the risk of a death and possible short-circuits, joined phases etc. because of working with the terminals live in any way "secures" uptime any more than scheduling proper downtime and having properly redundant systems.
You are just ask likely to bridge the WRONG circuit while working live, or causing a short, which will cause more damage and more downtime than just switching things off to do the work. And you guys have redundant power with UPS that you can bypass to work on the UPS, etc. if necessary? If not, that downtime isn't all that important to you anyway.
There's no excuse for this, hence the court fine. And you've got to be an idiot to knowingly let people work on a live multi-phase system. Hell, even a fused, RCD'd, single-phase can be bad enough.
In working in data centers, I can totally see how this happened. Reading the actual source article, it reads like they had already connected the first circuit, and he got popped while working on the second. I would assume they had shut off both, installed the first PSU, then probably someone turned them BOTH back on instead of just the first one. When he went to connect the second PSU...
These are the kinds of accidents proper "change control" is supposed to stop, it seems no one working there really knew the over-all implementation plan. At our local data center, we have actual licensed electricians for high DC stuff, they know to "never trust always test". Even though we contract all that out too, we try to make sure the people on the site are aware of these things via bright stickers, lock-outs, etc. I have no idea if they have required licensing and training for their "cable jointer" positions in the UK.
But IT SHOULD NOT BE ILLEGAL. If some people are prepared to take the risk they should be allowed to. The magic of the market means they be able to command a higher rate than the do-nothings and gate-keepers who insist on doing it "by the book". Ever had IT refuse to install something because "you didn't raise a ticket" - same thing. Lazy scum the lot of them. They only get away with it because of unions.
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roman_mir
Management doesn't understand the difference between telling them it's technically possible to do live maintenance and that it's a challenge like the rest of our technical feats. I feel for the guy and his survivors. I've seen the same pressures play out on my data centers, but thankfully we were able to arrange that type of work as semi-regular full DR test and the place I was working at simply didn't have the same uptime demands when push came to shove. From a safety angle, I can't help but think that moving over the DC voltage for datacenters might be a better option. Some of the big boys are already doing it as we're currently taking AC power, running it through or along side DC power backups, then up to AC for power supplies, then DC for the servers. There's an economy to it, but DC is just safer to work with. That said, there's always going to be an AC/DC bus that's dangerous to work on and live electrical work on it will always take appropriate design ($$) and proper training.
Does any of that fine money go to the electrician's family? Nope! It goes to the political class who benefited from his death.
The DC bus is likely at a lower voltage than typical AC circuits, therefore less able to cause electrocution.
With the right PPE and proper procedure, it is safe to work on a hot circuit.
The worker probably took short cuts and violated procedure, resulting in his death. But, as usual, those with deep pockets are chased down and fleeced any time a member of the proletariat suffers from his own stupidity.
Industry has already developed safety protocols to address this (LOTO) and three way communications to lower the risk of misunderstandings.
Trolling?
I tend to doubt that the terms of the job stated that there would be bare wires running through the data center. Nobody hired to work as a maintenance person would reasonably expect that such a hazard existed. The idea that he was completely aware of these risks and took the job anyway is speculative nonsense.
Furthermore, if you RTFS, this was a FINE imposed on the company, not the result of a lawsuit by the deceased's family. I'm sure that the UK has workplace safety regulations which prohibit exposed high voltage wires, reenforcing the idea that a worker would not anticipate finding one.
I feel bad for him, and I hope his family gets a decent settlement*, but have to ask why didn't he check the live line first? When I work on electrical stuff at home, I always check AND DOUBLECHECK that the breakers are off and that no juice is running. And, that's with voltages that won't necessarily kill me. Working with this level of voltage? Holy crap.
* As stated by some in the UK, it's not likely to be a big settlement. Too bad in this case.
This is why (at least in the US), standard (and required) practice is to place a lock on the source of energy, and retain the only key to said lock. If multiple workers are all working on the same circuit, each worker has his (or her) own lock on the circuit.
It's called lockout/tagout, and there are SEVERE fines for removing somebody else's lock (and if somebody gets killed, due to your removing his lock, that would be considered manslaughter)
It's mandatory in the UK too. Often ignored by independent electricians working by themselves, but hopefully less so by those working for large companies....... UK Health and Safety Executive page on the topic: http://www.hse.gov.uk/safemaintenance/permits.htm
As I read the article the accident was caused by a screw up in communications by the contractor doing the work. They tried to blame it on the data center pressuring them, but the judge apparently didn't accept that argument and fined the contractor. It seems submitter is looking for evil where there is really just incompetence.
Thanks for the basement dwelling sociopath's opinion.
Unfortunately, the case appears to be improper Energized Electrical Work (EEW) Google EEW hotwork. There are many cases where EEW is performed. Common applications include linemen replacing cutouts, changing insulators, installing new cutouts for new home construction, etc. EEW hotwork requires special permits and tools and protective clothing.
Death and resulting fines was due to the failure of following proper proceedures for EEW hotwork. LOTO is preferred over EEW, but there are reasons to do EEW. Only those prpoerly trained and follow the permitting process may do EEW.
Google EEW Permit for more info. Many pepole are killed as in some codes 600V and under is considered LOW Voltage, not to be confused with Limited Energy Class 2.
The truth shall set you free!
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred!
Operator/electrician IGNORED NFPA 70E standard and associated requirements. Anyone that has spent a few hours in a 40 calorie suit for Arc flash protection knows what a pain life safety can be. Now you know what safety feels like while having wet feet from sweat! Now as a brit, if his contractor demanded he do work without safety equipment/procedures, he should have walked off the job, filed a complaint with the Jobs office and he'd still get paid + be alive!
Life is in a state of dynamic equilibrium, it both blows and sucks
I don't understand why you would need to work on a live rain. Seems to me like a very badly designed system ..