OSHA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking Feb. 10 to extend the compliance date for the crane operator certification requirement by three years to Nov. 10, 2017. 

ABC General Counsel Maurice Baskin Feb. 4 testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Workforce Protections during a hearing titled, “OSHA’s Regulatory Agenda: Changing Long-Standing Policies Outside the Public Rulemaking Process.” On behalf of ABC and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), Baskin addressed a Feb. 21, 2013, letter of interpretation (LOI) from OSHA allowing union agents and community organizers for the first time to accompany safety inspectors into nonunion facilities, as long as an unspecified (non-majority) number of employees in the nonunion work place designate one.

ABC is reminding its contractor member firms that 2013 Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Form 300A work-related injury and illness log summaries must be posted in a visible spot on all construction sites Feb. 1 through April 30. 

The 2014 Safety Training Evaluation Process (STEP) applications are now available and have been mailed to all ABC chapters and contractor members. 

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) December 12 released the Spanish version of their ladder safety smartphone app which is designed to improve the safety of extension ladders by using visual and audio signals to make it easier for workers to check the angle of the ladder and offers useful tips for using extension ladders safely. When a user’s phone is set to Spanish language, the Spanish version of the app will install when downloaded.

According to OSHA’s latest semiannual regulatory agenda, released Nov. 27, the agency plans to issue a final rule on confined spaces and a notice of proposed rulemaking on injury and illness prevention programs (I2P2) in 2014. The regulatory agenda lists the priorities of the administration and the rulemakings they expect to release this year; however, OSHA is not required to adhere to the timeline.

The Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a report Nov. 7 showing a decrease in on-the-job injury and illness rates for the construction industry in 2012. The total number of recordable cases declined to 3.6 incidents for every 100 full time employees (FTEs), down from 3.8 in 2011. 

ABC congratulated its member companies that were awarded top honors for the Construction Users Roundtable’s (CURT) Construction Industry Safety Excellence (CISE) Awards and Workforce Development Awards at CURT’s Nov. 12 national conference in Tucson, Ariz. 

Employers have until Dec. 1 to train their employees on the changes made to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Global Harmonization Standard (GHS) including the new “Safety Data Sheets” (SDS).  

On Oct. 25, OSHA announced a 47-day extension of the public comment deadline for OSHA’s proposed crystalline silica rulemaking from Dec. 11 to Jan. 27. More than 25 business organizations, including ABC, the Construction Industry Safety Coalition and others in the industry, requested additional time for stakeholders to appropriately analyze OSHA’s proposal, develop useful data and provide meaningful feedback. Also requesting extensions were the House Education and the Workforce Committee, Small Business Committee and the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy. Most requests, including ABC’s, asked for 90 days