Category Archives: Safety Training

OSHA Announces Summer ‘Construction Incident Prevention Initiative’

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Twitt

If your business is in the construction industry, it is time to evaluate your occupational safety and health procedures. The United States Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has announced a “Construction Incident Prevention Initiative,” which will be focused around ensuring employer and employee knowledge around the four major causes of fatalities in the construction industry: falls, crushing events, electrocutions, and caught-in-between events.

“Construction is a high-hazard industry, and when employers do not employ an effective safety and health program, workers are left vulnerable to serious injury and possible death,” said MaryAnn Garrahan, OSHA’s regional administrator in Philadelphia. “The increased presence of our compliance officers and the immediate inspections conducted in response to unsafe scaffolds, fall risks, trenches and other construction hazards should help to prevent work site fatalities.”

OSHA investigators will be offering informational materials and focusing on any potentially unsafe work sites. This initiative is primarily focusing upon the areas covered by OSHA’s Wilmington, Delaware Area Office; this includes Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Should you own a construction company in that region, or anywhere nationally, and are unsure if your policies relating to these four high-hazard areas are up to code, it is important to bring a qualified third party occupational safety and health auditing firm in to evaluate. Doing this now can, and will, save you from having to do it after OSHA stops by.

If you have any questions about this initiative or about third party safety audits, please contact us. If you have anything to add about this initiative or the importance of a third party safety audit, please leave a comment.

OSHA Forms Alliance With American Staffing Association

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Twitt

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has signed an alliance with the American Staffing Association in an effort to protect temporary employees from workplace injuries. Temporary employees are often not given the same training as permanent employees and as such are at greater risk of injury. This alliance will mean a greater focus will be placed upon the safety of temporary employees.

“We want to make sure that at the end of every work shift, all temporary workers in the United States are able to go home safely to their families,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels. “Through this alliance with the ASA, we will increase outreach to staffing agencies and host employers and provide information and education that is vital to protecting temporary workers.”

So if you employee temporary employees, it is important to be up to date on all regulations relating to temporary employees and to be sure you have a sufficient training program in place for these employees. If you are not confident in your temporary employee training, it is time to review it and update it; if you wait until an incident occurs, it will be too late.

If you would like to have your temporary employee training reviewed, please contact us and we will discuss strategies to improve workplace safety for these employees. And if you have anything to add about the consequences of the alliance between OSHA and the American Staffing Association, please leave a comment.