Construction Industry Safety and Health

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OSHA’s final rule revising the standards for power generation, transmission and distribution will be published in the Federal Register on April 11, 2014.  It will be effective 90 days following publication, although OSHA has adopted delayed compliance deadlines for certain requirements.

EYE INJURIES: some facts . . .About 1 ,000 work-related eye injuries occur each day. CONSTRUCTION HAS THE HIGHEST RATE! Every day, more than 120 construction workers are disabled and forced to miss work because of an eye injury. The alternative . . .

A Florida construction company employee suffered severe burns to his legs and feet after becoming tripped in hot liquid asphalt – an incident which earned his company OSHA citations for ten serious safety and health violations. Proposed penalties are $63,360.

A University of California ergonomics team has designed an innovative concrete drill jig that is proving to be highly effective in limiting worker exposures to respirable crystalline silica, as well reducing fatigue and risk of musculoskeletal injuries.

A construction worker fatality at East Georgia State College in Swainsboro, Ga. has resulted in five safety violations against Smiley Plaster Co. The company faces $57,000 in penalties.

OSHA has released a new educational resource that focuses on requirements for injury recording of temporary worker injuries and illnesses. The bulletin explains the requirements for both the staffing agency and the host employer.

A Colorado company and the framing subcontractor it used to locate a damaged water pipe have both been cited for safety violations, after OSHA inspectors found their workers in a trench that exceeded 11 feet in depth with no cave-in protection.

A company inspected in January as part of OSHA’s Local Emphasis Program on fall hazards in construction was cited for two repeat and two serious safety violations for failing to provide required protective equipment and to protect workers from serious fall hazards.

A new NIOSH-funded study on fatalities in the construction industry suggests roofers in residential construction are among those most likely to die in falls from roofs. The study, "Fatal falls from roofs among U.S. construction workers," finds that "the odds of fatal falls from roofs were higher for roofing and residential construction than any other construction sector."