House Committee Passes OSHA Bill
 

On Wednesday, the House Education and Labor Committee passed the Miner Safety and Health Act.  This bill seeks to make significant changes to both MSHA and OSHA. The vote was 30-17, with all Democrats voting in favor and all Republicans opposed.  AGC is a strong advocate of worker safety but is concerned about the direction of the bill. The legislation turns the clock back on well over 10 years of progress in improved workplace safety, which has lead to a nearly 50 percent reduction in the construction fatality rate, by creating a more adversarial relationship between employers and OSHA.

The bill does nothing to help facilitate worker safety on a site or help businesses, especially small businesses, improve their worksite safety. Instead, the House proposal focuses solely on introducing vague new standards for criminal liability and imposes complicated and costly procedures for adjudicating whistleblower cases. This legislation is ultimately a punitive measure, and does not promote injury prevention. This approach fails to take into account the construction industry's successful accident prevention strategies that have resulted in reducing workplace injury, illness and fatality rates through the successful efforts of business and government working together. Instead it will hamper continued construction industry safety improvements through increased litigation and discouragement of cooperative relationships.

Supporters of the bill are pushing to have a vote on the House floor next week, though the final schedule has not been released. The Senate is taking a slower approach on the bill and it is uncertain as to when a hearing might be scheduled.

Please click hereto send a letter to your Representative and Senators about your concerns with this legislation.

For more information, contact Kelly Knott at (202) 547-4685 or knottk@agc.org.

H.R. 5663, The Miner Safety and Health Act of 2010, was recently introduced in response to the tragic mine accident in West Virginia. However, the legislation also seeks to make drastic changes to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) by turning back the clock on well over 15 years of progress in improved workplace safety and creating a more adversarial relationship between employers and OSHA. The bill focuses solely on introducing vague new standards for criminal liability and imposes complicated and costly procedures for adjudicating whistleblower cases.

H.R. 5663 should be opposed for the following reasons:
• Workplace injury, illness and fatality rates are at all time lows thanks to the 15-year long bipartisan approach to workplace safety started by the Clinton Administration. H.R. 5663 will hamper continued construction industry safety improvements through increased litigation and discouragement of cooperative relationships.
• Most companies are in fact not "bad actors." This legislation would create vague new standards for criminal conduct and establish new penalties that will likely lead to more costly litigation.
• The legislation would allow OSHA inspectors to order a work stoppage at a jobsite without showing imminent danger or affording employers with proper due process.
• H.R. 5663 creates a new and unnecessarily complex whistleblower paradigm.

Action Needed:
Please take a minute and use the tools on the AGC Legislative Action Center to write your elected officials in opposition to H.R. 5663.

 House Committee Passes OSHA Bill
On Wednesday, the House Education and Labor Committee passed the Miner Safety and Health Act.  This bill seeks to make significant changes to both MSHA and OSHA. The vote was 30-17, with all Democrats voting in favor and all Republicans opposed.  AGC is a strong advocate of worker safety but is concerned about the direction of the bill. The legislation turns the clock back on well over 10 years of progress in improved workplace safety, which has lead to a nearly 50 percent reduction in the construction fatality rate, by creating a more adversarial relationship between employers and OSHA.  

 The bill does nothing to help facilitate worker safety on a site or help businesses, especially small businesses, improve their worksite safety. Instead, the House proposal focuses solely on introducing vague new standards for criminal liability and imposes complicated and costly procedures for adjudicating whistleblower cases. This legislation is ultimately a punitive measure, and does not promote injury prevention. This approach fails to take into account the construction industry's successful accident prevention strategies that have resulted in reducing workplace injury, illness and fatality rates through the successful efforts of business and government working together. Instead it will hamper continued construction industry safety improvements through increased litigation and discouragement of cooperative relationships.

Supporters of the bill are pushing to have a vote on the House floor next week, though the final schedule has not been released. The Senate is taking a slower approach on the bill and it is uncertain as to when a hearing might be scheduled.

Please click hereto send a letter to your Representative and Senators about your concerns with this legislation.

For more information, contact Kelly Knott at (202) 547-4685 or knottk@agc.org.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has scheduled two additional stakeholder meetings, one in Washington, D.C., and one in Sacramento, Calif., to solicit comments in developing the Injury and Illness Prevention Program proposed rule. These additional meetings are part of a series of five.

The stakeholder meetings are informal discussions to provide OSHA with the necessary information to develop a rule that will help employers reduce workplace injuries and illnesses through a systematic process proactively addressing workplace safety and health hazards.

"With this proposal, we will be asking employers to find and fix the hazards in their workplaces," said Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Dr. David Michaels. "This common sense rule will help make the secretary of labor's vision of 'good jobs for everyone' a reality."

More information on OSHA's Injury and Illness Prevention Program is available in a May 2010 Federal Register notice at http://s.dol.gov/35.

Two meetings already have been conducted in East Brunswick, N.J., and Dallas, Texas. Registration for a third meeting in Washington, D.C., to be held June 29 has reached full capacity. To allow more stakeholders to provide input, OSHA has scheduled another Washington meeting for July 20 and the Sacramento meeting for Aug. 3. All meetings will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. local time.  AGC will be represented by Kevin Cannon at the June 29 meeting.

Anyone interested in participating in the newly added meetings should submit a notice of intent to participate through https://www2.ergweb.com/projects/conferences/osha/register-osha-I2P2.htm. Submissions also can be mailed to Eastern Research Group Inc., 110 Hartwell Ave., Lexington, MA 02421, Attention: OSHA I2P2 Stakeholder Meeting Registration. Or fax submissions to 781-674-2906 labeled "Attention: OSHA I2P2 Stakeholder Meeting Registration."

Submission deadlines for confirmed registration are July 6 for the Washington meeting and July 20 for the Sacramento meeting. After these deadlines, registration will remain open until the meetings are full.

For questions and comments, please contact Kevin Cannon, Director Safety & Health Services at cannonk@agc.org.

WASHINGTON – OSHA announced today that the Severe Violators Enforcement Program directive is effective June 18^th. The agency announced in April that it was implementing the program to focus on employers who continually disregard their legal obligations to protect their workers.

OSHA’s SVEP focuses enforcement efforts on employers who willfully and repeatedly endanger workers by exposing them to serious hazards. The directive establishes procedures and enforcement actions for the severe violator program, including increased inspections, such as mandatory follow-up inspections of a workplace found in violation and inspections of other worksites of the same company where similar hazards or deficiencies may be present.

The directive explains that the SVEP is intended to focus enforcement efforts on employers who have demonstrated recalcitrance or indifference to their OSH Act obligations by committing willful, repeated or failure-to-abate violations in one or more of the following circumstances: a fatality or catastrophe situation; in industry operations or processes that expose workers to severe occupational hazards; exposing workers to hazards related to the potential releases of highly hazardous chemicals; and all egregious enforcement actions.

Visit the Severe Violator Enforcement Program directive for more details.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA’s role is to assure these conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit http://www.osha.gov.

OSHA is confirming the effective date of June 15, 2010 for the direct final rule requiring employers to notify their workers of all hexavalent chromium exposures. The rule revises a provision in OSHA's Hexavalent Chromium standard that required workers be notified only when they experienced exposures exceeding the permissible exposure limit. Workers exposed to this toxic chemical are at greater risk for lung cancer and damage to the nose, throat and respiratory tract.

Occupational exposures to hexavalent chromium can occur among workers handling pigments, spray paints and coatings containing chromates, operating chrome plating baths, and welding or cutting metals containing chromium, such as stainless steel. Workers breathing hexavalent chromium compounds in high concentrations over extended periods of time may risk developing lung cancer, irritation or damage to the eyes and skin.

OSHA requested public comments on the revised requirement in a March 17, 2010, Direct Final Rule and accompanying Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. This was done in response to a Third Circuit Court's decision that the agency failed to explain why it departed from the proposed rule that would require notifying workers of all hexavalent chromium exposures. The Agency received no significant adverse comments, therefore it is proceeding with the Direct Final Rule and withdrawing the accompanying Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

Visit OSHA's Safety and Health Topics page on Hexavalent Chromium for more information on protecting workers from exposure to this chemical.

The AGC Safety Management Training Course (SMTC) provides attendees three days of training on the basic skills needed to manage a company safety program in the construction industry.  It will be held in Philadelphia, PA from September 21 - 23, 2010.

The program prepares attendees to manage the key safety issues on the job site and provides techniques for delivering basic safety training to field personnel.  For details, please click on the following link:

http://www.agc.org/cs/event_details?eventId=2199

The Advanced Safety Management Training Course (ASMTC) is a unique three-day course, which will provide a high level training experience for safety professionals and company managers who have a solid background in construction safety and health.  This course will enhance a participant's ability to manage all aspects of safety and health for their employees on field safety, insurance issues and legal and liability issues.  The training will be available October 18-20, 2010 in Madison, WI.  For details please go to the following link:

http://www.agc.org/cs/event_details?eventId=2181.

Today, Secretary Solis selected Jordan Barab to be Deputy Assistant Secretary for OSHA and Acting Assistant Secretary, effective Monday, April 13. Jordan comes to OSHA from the House Education and Labor Committee where he is the Senior Labor Policy Advisor for Health and Safety to Chairman George Miller. Prior to that, from 2002 through 2007, Jordan worked at the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.

Many will remember Jordan from his first tour with OSHA, where he was Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary from 1998-2001.

AGC has a long history and strong relationship with the Directorate of Construction and will continue to strengthen our relationship with OSHA and the Directorate.

Please contact Kevin Cannon at (703) 837-5410 or email at cannonk@agc.org.

On February 17, 2009, a change in personnel was made at OSHA.  Mr. Noah Connell, Deputy Director, Directorate of Construction (DOC) within the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been the Acting Director for the DOC since April 2008.  This was the second time in three years that Mr. Connell has been Acting Director.  However, the Administration has selected Mr. Richard Fairfax, Director, Directorate of Enforcement Programs to act as the Acting Director for the DOC.  Mr. Fairfax will manage both the Directorate of Enforcement Programs and Construction until the new Secretary of Labor and Assistant Secretary of Labor, OSHA select a permanent Director for the DOC. The official announcement has been made within OSHA, but not for public. The official announcement has not been made public.

Mr. Steven Witt was the most recent Director for the DOC until April 2008 when it was announced by former Assistant Secretary Foulke that Mr. Witt would serve as the Director, Directorate of Cooperative and State Programs. Previous to Mr. Witt, Mr. R. Bruce Swanson was the Director for the DOC for many years.

AGC has a long history and strong relationship with the Directorate of Construction and will continue to strengthen our relationship with OSHA and the Directorate.

Please contact Michele Myers at (703) 837-5410 or cannonk@agc.org, if you have any questions.