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Printing Instructions |
ACCSH Transcripts: June 13, 1996
|
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
ON
CONSTRUCTION SAFETY AND HEALTH
(ACCSH)
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Thursday, June 13, 1996
Volume II
Francis Perkins Building
Room S-4215
200 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
PARTICIPANTS |
Chairman: Dr. Knut Ringen
Employee Representatives:
William C. Rhoten, United Association of Journeymen & Apprentices of the Plumbers & Pipe Fitting
Industry
Knut Ringen, Director, Center to Protect Workers Rights
Lauren J. Sugarman, Executive Director, Chicago Women in Trades
Stephen D. Cooper, International Association of Bridge, Structural & Ornamental Iron Workers
Employer Representatives:
Stewart Burkhammer, Vice President of Safety and Health Services, Bechtel Corporation
Stephen Cloutier, Safety/Loss Control Manager, J.A. Jones Construction
Bernice K. Jenkins, Vice President, Safety Management/
Human Resources, P.J.Dick/Trumbull Corp.
Kathryn G. Thompson, Kathryn Thompson Development Co.
Robert Masterson, The Ryland Group
Federal Representatives:
Diane D. Porter, Associate Director, National Institutes of Safety and Health
Public Representatives:
Ana Maria Osorio, M.D., MPH, Chief, Occupational Health Branch, California Department of Health Services
Judy A. Paul, American Association of Occupational Health Nurses
Committee Contacts:
Bruce Swanson
Tom Hall
Dale Cavanaugh
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| Index |
|
PAGE: |
| Paperwork Reduction |
4 |
| Workgroup Presentations |
|
| Health and Safety - July Paul |
10 |
| Confined Space Workgroup - Stephen Cloutier |
54 |
| Women in Construction HASWIC - Lauren Sugarman |
56 |
| Anita Drummond, Small Business Administration |
59 |
| Committee Business |
69 |
| Rod Wolford |
266 |
|
P R O C E E D I N G S |
(9:10 a.m.)
DR. RINGEN: Welcome back. I'm surprised so many came back after yesterday's discussion. Actually, I think yesterday's
discussion was very useful, at least for myself, and I think also for most other people with the Committee.
We're going to deal with the workgroup reports this morning and with the paperwork reduction issue again. Now, unless
there is strong feeling by anybody on the committee, I'd like to start with the Paperwork Reduction issue and try to
get that out of the way as much as possible. Is there any objection to that?
(No response.)
DR. RINGEN: Okay. Barbara Bielaski is here again. She is here again. I don't know if anybody else looked at this. I
went over it again last night, just about all of the citations that are in this, and I have nothing of wisdom or
advice to offer on the matter. I think the exercises are ridiculous and it makes zero sense to me.
Absolutely zero sense. I think it's wrong. I think it's almost -- to the point of almost being irresponsible, in the
sense that no matter how you try to address this, you end up with some sort of Catch-22. In the regulations, in a
number of the areas where there is a certification requirement, what you're talking about is a provision, where
obviously the certification is attached to a real provision, whether it's inspecting a grain, checking out a motor
vehicle, looking at the manhole for venting, or whatever it is, there is an activity that an employer is required to
perform.
These activities, by and large, are important activities.
As Barbara explained it to me today, I couldn't figure out how you come up with the numbers, but she said that the
burden hours measured here are the burden hours for performing the activity that the certification is attached to as
well as the work involved in actually recording down the certification. Is that correct?
MS. BIELASKI: That is correct.
DR. RINGEN: What OSHA is doing here would not do away with the responsibility for conducting the activity. The
proposal is not to eliminate the entire provision that is referred to in these pages, simply the attempt or the
requirement to write out the certification that it's been done.
You would still be responsible for conducting, for doing the thing, whatever it is. Right?
MS. BIELASKI: That is right.
DR. RINGEN: So that the only thing that OSHA is talking about doing is eliminating the responsibility, then, to write
somewhere in the brief record that you've done it.
MS. BIELASKI: That is correct.
DR. RINGEN: That doesn't eliminate him any hours of required work out there by anybody to perform the required
function. It's simply required the two units of extra time, maybe, that it takes to write it down. But it eliminates,
for the purpose of this exercise, that -- and I'm not threatening OSHA with this because this is something that's
been pushed upon by
OMB -- it eliminates the requirement that you write down the thing and, therefore, it takes away all of the hours
that you still have to perform from the function of doing the paperwork. Does that make sense to anybody?
MR. COOPER: It's abundantly clear. Thank you.
(Laughter)
DR. RINGEN: Well, let me ask it two ways; does what I said make any sense?
MS. PORTER: No.
DR. RINGEN: Do you understand what I said? And then does that make any sense?
MS. PORTER: No.
DR. RINGEN: I agree. I don't understand what I said and, besides that, it doesn't make any sense.
Because, here, you are going through something, and if the agency has to go through this, I think it should do it,
but I don't think -- at least I am not willing to sit here and say that this is something that's meaningful to our
industry.
MR. CLOUTIER: I'll second that motion.
MR. RHOTEN: I agree with that.
DR. RINGEN: I don't believe, for instance, that the number of hours in this country, throughout the whole country,
throughout all of US, including the territories, that only 42 hours per year is expended under Section
1926.251(c)(15), which has to do with a well end attachments and the testing of proof. It's got to be more than that.
Thirty-two hours is nothing when you spread it across 250 million people, for all of the construction that takes
place in this regard.
MS. BIELASKI: Are you recommending that we increase the burden now on that?
DR. RINGEN: No, I'm not saying anything. I have no idea what it is, but I don't believe it's only 42 hours. Besides,
I don't think if you increase the number of hours you're going to make any more sense out of the activity. People are
still going to be doing this. And if it's the desire of OSHA for people not to have records out there when they're
doing it, then it seems to me that it's just going to complicate even more efforts and activities when you attempt to
enforce these standards.
So you go out there and you come upon the employer who has a venting device of less than 12 inches, and you ask him,
so, what have you done about vent testing here, just the flow test?
How is the employer then going to be able to respond to that if he doesn't have the record when the inspector comes?
You're going to put an added burden, presumably, on the employer by not requiring them to have the record, so that
they have to go back. Maybe they have to call in this guy who did the testing to come and meet with OSHA inspector.
The whole thing just doesn't make any sense to me at all. It may make sense to some people at the White House, but
that's their problem not ours.
That's my view of it.
Does anybody else have any different view of this?
MS. PAUL: I don't think you should waste any more time.
DR. RINGEN: Thank you. Do I have a motion?
MR. COOPER: I'd make a motion that we -- I think they have got the message, and so I'd make a motion that we -- I
think the committee appears more or less in favor of what you said and others that we move on, and I make that motion
that vote your proposal, which you're going to give in a moment on what I said.
DR. RINGEN: I think the motion is that we don't believe this exercise is of any benefit to the construction industry,
and we don't believe that it has any kind of technical rationale that has any validity and reality at all, and
therefore that we don't think it's responsible to go forward with it.
MS. PORTER: I second that motion.
DR. RINGEN: All in favor?
Well, is there any discussion first?
(No response.)
DR. RINGEN: Okay. All in favor?
(Chorus of ayes.)
DR. RINGEN: Any opposed?
(Chorus of nays.)
DR. RINGEN: Thank you.
MS. BIELASKI: Thank you.
(Ms. Bielaski exits the meeting room.)
DR. RINGEN: Next issue is workgroup reports.
I think we will start with the safety and health programs.
Judy.
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| SAFETY AND HEALTH PROGRAMS |
MS. PAUL: We met yesterday from about 1:30 to about 4:30 in the afternoon and were able to complete another red line
and strike out. This is, you never say "final," but we have certainly been through this several times, and
this is the product of several meetings.
And attached to the letter is a draft for Safety and Health Program Standard for Construction. This draft is the
result of extensive review, comment, and discussion, by representatives of the construction industry.
It represents a general acceptance of the workgroup participants with the qualification that added consultation will
be sought from the organizations that they represent.
The ACCSH and workgroup members will be provided an edited version, with appropriate numbering and syntax for
consideration at the next ACCSH meeting.
This is rough. It, again, was done by
Camille Villanova after we meet yesterday afternoon, and she managed to come up with a good looking document, at any
rate.
We propose that we'll meet prior to the next ACCSH meeting if we receive substantive comments from the ACCSH members
or stakeholders, and we also would like to review and take a look at model programs that may be included in the
appendix. When you read the draft, it says about being in conformance with model programs in Appendix A. There is no
Appendix A as of now, and so that's what the proposed discussion would be.
We encourage all interested parties to provide comments on the draft and possible model programs through the
Directorate of Construction, like we have been doing, and at the very end yesterday we did come up with some proposed
language on multi-employer projects, so that one isn't left totally hanging in the air, but we would like some
guidance on should all employees receive the OSHA 10-hour course or equivalent before they're allowed to perform
construction work, as Bill was discussing yesterday, and what should the owner's role be as Knut was discussing
yesterday. Those issues are not discussed directly in this draft.
So this is our product, and after a lot of hard work and agreements and probably tears and laughter, and so that's
where we're at.
I also would like to pass out to the members of the ACCSH what you sent over regarding the owner positions, Knut, if
that's all right with you?
DR. RINGEN: Fine.
MS. PAUL: Knut sent over yesterday to our group some four documents -- an Overview of the Role of the Owner in
Europe; the European Union Council Directive relating to minimum safety and health requirements and construction.
An example of a pre-bid safety and health program that has to be put together by the construction owner on large
projects before contractors are selected, and a suggested outline contents of safety and health plan to be used by
contractors during construction.
So these came in very late yesterday, and so I'll pass them out to the members of ACCSH now.
Any comments? Bob, would you like to?
MR. MASTERSON: No. Only that this is still a draft and there still has to be some adjustments made to it.
MS. PAUL: Yes.
DR. RINGEN: I, once again, wanted to thank you and everybody else for really doing a fantastic job in a short period
of time and starting to come to closure on a lot of the issues here.
I think there is one provision, specifically, in the draft that you have that I think the members should take the
time to read through here and give some comments on it. It's the issue that at the end, on page three, which had to
do with multi-employer projects, and to see whether that language starts to address the concerns that have been
raised about this issue.
MS. PAUL: Knut, I would like to read into the record that this is the Safety and Health Program Standard workgroup,
draft, June 13, 1996 not June 30, 1996. It's on the very front.
DR. RINGEN: On the top of page 3, it says 13.
MS. PAUL: The cover is wrong.
MR. CLOUTIER: Mr. Chairman, when I read this multi-employer paragraph, I guess I need an explanation where we say,
"by virtue of contractual relationships," is that with the client, the owner, or is that a contractual
ownership that I have with a subcontractor that works for me as a contractor on the site?
What was the workgroup's thinking on that?
MS. PAUL: You're working with Vicki on that particular language, Bob. Did you approach that with her?
MR. MASTERSON: This isn't reading the way I remember it.
MS. PAUL: Do you have a copy of that, Anna Marie? Did you write down the very last thing we were working on
yesterday? Did you write that down as she spoke it?
MR. CLOUTIER: It's my understanding we were taking a number of the words that are still in this final document, this
proposed draft.
MR. RHOTEN: Just a question what you're talking about; you're talking about a subcontractor, right? That's basically
what I read in this. If you're a general contractor and you've got a contractual relationship to evaluate that
performance, and I guess that goes beyond safety, evaluating performance, right?
You've got control over that subcontractor's work performance, so you're basically talking subcontractor, right?
MR. CLOUTIER: But if the general has in his contract with the subcontractor, that type of language, and most of it
doesn't, as a general rule we don't have that in there.
MR. RHOTEN: You don't have control over the subcontractors?
MR. CLOUTIER: We have control over the sub but we don't have -- well, we standardly put in that the sub must meet all
federal, state, and local safety and health laws.
MR. RHOTEN: Right. And if he doesn't, all the jobs I've been on, the general --
MR. CLOUTIER: And if he doesn't, he's going to go down the road.
MR. RHOTEN: Well, which, in fact, means that you've got control over that subcontractor. You can fire him, and I
would think the general contractor, the jobs I've been on, in my experience, has been the general contractor can tell
a sub get those broken ladders off this jobsite, get those cords off the jobsite, because he can exercise that
authority.
In fact, if he can throw him off the job, you can surely make sure that he operate safely.
MR. CLOUTIER: I don't believe that is what is written here.
MR. RHOTEN: I understand. I'm trying to interpret that, but that's the way I would -- I would change the language to
make it read like that if this doesn't, and I see that in this language.
If he can evaluate the performance of a subcontractor by virtue of his contract, that subcontractor is basically
working for that general contractor. He's not working for the owner for himself. He's not out there just
independently putting in a plumbing system. He's answering to that person that's paying his wages, which is the
general contractor.
MR. CLOUTIER: Well, we already have that language in a standard AIA contract with subcontractors. It's already there,
and they're in violation of their contract period, and you take whatever steps are necessary. You either shut them
down or you send them down the road. You counsel with them.
MR. RHOTEN: I guess the debate might be of whether or not a general contractor should take the responsibility to
coordinate the subcontractor's safety and health performance. Is that the debate?
MR. CLOUTIER: That's going to be the debate.
MR. RHOTEN: Then if that's the debate, in fact, I would suggest that that's going on now.
MR. CLOUTIER: And it has been going on.
MR. RHOTEN: Pardon?
MR. CLOUTIER: And it has been going on for quite a while.
MR. RHOTEN: It's happening right now. There's a general contractor down the street, there's no doubt in mind, that is
coordinating and watching out over their subcontractor's safety and health habits on that worksite. And he won't
have, probably long, a contractor like you just mentioned, on that site, that's got a bunch of broken ladders and
disconnected cords, and I would suggest that that's good language to have in the safety and health programs.
There was no doubt about it that when a general contractor, you can't shrug your shoulders and say, while I'm
responsible for this jobsite, and that guy works for me and I've got contract with him, I really don't want to
enforce that part of it.
Now he will enforce the pipe size, the hanger, the specifications, and he'll make sure he gets that done. It's a
little step after that to expect that he can do the other part of it, which he's doing anyway.
MR. MASTERSON: Judy, there was a section we took out of B that was supposed to be moved in and put along with the
multi-employer C(2) that is not there either.
MS. OSORIO: I'm just trying to clarify, I'm trying to reconstruct. And these aren't my opinions, I'm just trying to
be the historian here. I think there's a couple of issues that weren't resolved. I'm just trying to be true to the
debate here.
One thing was that there were some folks that said that there's definitely always going to be some controlling
entity, whatever you want to call that person, and some other people said, no, there isn't.
So I think the idea was they were going to have an opening sentence here, saying that there should be some
coordination when there's more than one contractor, and then afterwards jump into some type of phrase like this.
The other point of debate, and people can jump in if they disagree, was that to put the term "evaluate"
puts a bit more of a burden on somebody than to say, well, I'm going to review a written plan, or something like
that. So there was some debate about what term to use as to how much, if you do have a controlling entity they are
going to be responsible for, so I'm just trying to put out there what some of the discussion was.
MR. CLOUTIER: But that's not stated here.
MS. OSORIO: No. I'm just saying, you know, this is being done like an hour after the meeting and stuff like that, but
I think that's what the nature of the discussion was. Anybody else who was there can jump in, but those were some of
the points that were up for interpretation.
MR. CLOUTIER: I would also think if you go back to v(7), little v, that if you're on a multi-employer site, the
controlling entity sets up the emergency response plan. Each contractor is not going to set up their own separate
response plan for a site-specific program, the controlling entity is going to.
So you all have come a long way and you've done lots of hard work, but there's still room for discussion, Mr.
Chairman.
MR. MASTERSON: In reference to b7(v), on emergency response plans, this was being set up in the light of an
employer's safety and health program, and they should have emergency plans for things that could have happened
through the course of their work, was one comment.
The other comment was there was a second provision inside of b that specifically stated, in the absence of a contract
that's -- how did the language
go -- in the absence of a contract that's set up responsibility for coordination of safety and health between
contractors, the employer remained responsible to ensure the date incurred, was the basic gist of it.
I don't remember the exact words, but that was contained up on b somewhere. It was supposed to have been moved down
to be put in context with this.
MS. PAUL: I left the redline versions, yesterday's versions, how Camille does that.
MR. MASTERSON: Yesterday's version was before.
MS. PAUL: I was just going to say, the version of this that Camille puts out that she redlined and gave us the old
language and the new, what she did, I left it. So Jim just went to the OC to get it.
MR. MASTERSON: It's right here.
MS. PAUL: No, you have yesterday's.
MR. MASTERSON: Yes.
MS. VILLANOVA: B4C2i.
MS. PAUL: That's a later one.
MS. OSORIO: I think for those who don't have it in front of them, it's probably pretty confusing. There was a pause
there saying that each contractor shall, for their employees, establish and follow procedures for coordinating their
safety and health activities with other affected employers at the site.
MR. MASTERSON: All right. And the conversation, as I remember it was, that that would be qualified by saying that in
the absence of a contract that specified control, that the employer would maintain control under that.
MS. OSORIO: Yes. That's what I meant, initially, by having some kind of blanket statement like that, and then going
into the cause. I think that's sort of --
MR. MASTERSON: Yes.
DR. RINGEN: What we were searching for here was some language that I remember vaguely from the asbestos standards.
Referring specifically to this issue between contractors, there is a provision that says:
All general contracts in the construction project, which includes work covered by this standard, shall be deemed to
exercise general supervisory authority over the work covered by the standard, even though the general contractor is
not qualified to serve as the asbestos-competent person as defined in paragraph b.
As supervisor of the entire project, the general contractor shall ascertain whether the asbestos contractor is in
compliance with the standard and shall require such contractor to come into compliance with the standard when
necessary.
In other words, it provides a very clear burden on the general contractor for the work of the subs, even if not
necessarily qualified.
MR. CLOUTIER: Mr. Chairman, I think there's two issues here. I think we want to address construction, employer,
health and safety programs as one issue.
The second issue is what do we do with the multi-employer worksite. For example, on your draft, your latest draft of
6-13-96, b8iv, you're asking that employer to provide their employees with a review of the project fatality, injury
and illness records.
MR. COOPER: Give us that again, please.
MR. CLOUTIER: Your draft of 6-13-96, page two, at the very bottom, last line. We're asking construction employers to
provide the opportunity to involve their employees in the review of project, fatality, injury, and illness records.
MS. OSORIO: That reference was supposed to be deleted.
MR. COOPER: Can you give us the number, please?
MR. CLOUTIER: b8iv.
MR. COOPER: Bottom of page 2.
MR. CLOUTIER: Bottom of page 2. This is your revised draft of 6-13-96, that you handed out this morning -- Judy Paul
handed out.
MS. OSORIO: First of all, I didn't see this latest draft, so I'm sorry if some things didn't quite get translated
appropriately.
But the one point about that line was that it would be inappropriate to allow coworkers to look at actual records,
and that could imply medical records and such. However, it would be appropriate to allow employees to just
depersonalize data or, you know, that there's been X number of fatalities, or whatever, and it was associated with
this kind of job, or something like that.
So non-personalized information about a fatality or injury and illness, that's pertinent to what they're doing, of
course.
MR. CLOUTIER: But you're talking about what a construction employer is supposed to do singularly and, to me, that
would be if you came to work for my company, here's my company's record as a contractor.
The intent, I believe, was if a worker goes to a construction site, and we know more than a majority of them are
multi-employer sites, that that worker would like to know what's going on at the site.
MS. VILLANOVA: So that intent was, specifically, for the orientation of contractor and employee?
MS. OSORIO: Yes.
MR. CLOUTIER: Well, that's a change of what this committee has asked for in years past.
MS. VILLANOVA: This is what was explained to you yesterday. This was originally going to b Part A, for just
employer/employee responsibilities, and that's kind of how the group tried to get the document ready.
MR. CLOUTIER: Then you need to take tout the word "project fatality", of the word project.
MS. VILLANOVA: One of the reasons that they discussed project, jobsite, whatever, was that at least so that the
employees could review those records right there. Even though there is a larger standard that says that they can, in
fact, review all of the records, 1903 gives them permission to review all of the employer's --
MR. CLOUTIER: I understand that, but I thought we were looking for the employer to be able to go to that site and
say, what type of site is this; it's been accident free, it's had two lost-time injuries, or there's been five
fatalities here and I better pay attention.
MS. VILLANOVA: Right. That's something that should be considered and also, probably, some sort of bridge language,
between this and multi-employer, but the focus of this right here under ba, little whatever it is, was just
employer-employee.
That didn't have a broader scope the way it was designed by the workgroup. It started out having a broader scope. The
scope was narrowed, and they just ran out of time again to bridge it to a larger scope.
MR. CLOUTIER: Well, why wouldn't we say review the employer's accident record, instead of fatality, injury, and
illness reports, since fatalities and injuries and illnesses all build up to an accident record.
MS. OSORIO: Well, we don't use the term "accident." The current usage now is actually called an injury or
illness or fatality.
MR. CLOUTIER: I don't believe so in the industry. I think it's the employer's accident record. People want to know
what's your accident record on the jobsite. Employees don't come to me and supervisors don't come to me and say,
what's your illness record, what's your injury record. They want to know what's the accident record on this jobsite
or with you,
Mr. Subcontractor.
MS. OSORIO: All right. We're thinking about adding a glossary, which would include general language out there, but
the current trend now in injury analysis, and all that, is to call it an injury or event or an incident, and not an
accident, which implies that there's nothing there could been controlled and nothing that could have been prevented
and all of that.
It has a lot of negative connotations for certain sectors out there. So I don't mind working on that, on the glossary
and all that, but I think the current way these types of events, if you will, are being phrased, is actually just
specify what they are. It's an injury, it's an illness fatality.
DR. RINGEN: I think the point that you're making, Steve, is that the safety record -- safety and health record of the
employer should be available, and that it's not meaningful to have records, necessarily --
MR. CLOUTIER: The OSHA log gets posted. It's right there. That doesn't show man hours if that's what you want.
MR. MASTERSON: It would seem to me that with the record-keeping standards and the requirements contained elsewhere
that this doesn't need to be there. It's already covered under the other standards. You have to have your Form 200
now, Form 300 later, whatever it's going to be. It has to be made available to your employees. Having it here is just
another redundancy.
MR. CLOUTIER: required by law now to give them the opportunity. It's posted at the jobsite.
MS. OSORIO: I don't have a problem with referencing something. Again, this was a working document and I think it is
good, at least for the discussion, to have all the points out here.
Now, in terms of looking at other parts of the law and what's applicable and all that, I think that's workable, and
we're talking about the concepts.
So do people agree with the concept but they agree; some people are offering that, just a reference to another
existing part of the law should be made, but the concept, I think, people agree to.
MR. CLOUTIER: As an employer rep, representing contractors, I think if you want to open the topic of discussion it
needs to be discussed, and maybe it doesn't need to be discussed here, but when you're putting burdens on us, we want
to make sure that if it's redundant we don't need to use the redundancy in another standard, if there's already a
previous standard that's thee.
DR. RINGEN: Before you go too far in that discussion, there is, of course, redundancy, because on a generality there
is some sort of a redundancy between what is in this standard and all other standards, because this is supposed to be
more or less core, that the employer follows from which the employer's compliance with all other standards and
procedures flow, ideally.
This should be, more or less, the road map for an employer to help the employer have a safety and health program that
will help the employer address all the other things that need to be addressed in the specific standards, based on the
specific standards elsewhere.
MS. PAUL: We didn't put those forth, saying, this is the final workgroup draft, et cetera.
MR. CLOUTIER: I understand that.
MS. PAUL: Do you know what I'm saying?
And in the remarks on the cover, I asked, you know, specifically, for the workgroup. You know, if the members of
ACCSH have some things to say, we need to hear from you prior to the next one, so that we can take all that into
consideration by the next ACCSH meeting, and we can maybe give you what would be the workgroup's opinion of a final.
DR. RINGEN: I think what Judy is saying is that the workgroup, more or less, has come as far as it can on its own, on
this subject matter and address it --
MS. PAUL: Yes, and -- I'm sorry -- and like Ana Maria said, if the concepts; if we could agree on a concept, you
know, the exact wording is vitally important. You know, we understand that. We were excited that we were going over
concepts. And now it's time to get things -- start dealing with the words and how it should be in there, and that's
what we're looking to you all for.
DR. RINGEN: Yes, Bernice.
MS. JENKINS: First of all, as a contractor, you're only going to permit them to look at the OSHA 200 log. Anything
else would be privileged and confidential information, as far as the fatality's concerned, and you would have to have
an authorization and release form from the employee to let anybody else see those records. So you're only going to
show them the 200, which is posted.
DR. RINGEN: Yes, Jim.
MR. LAPPING: To benefit from some of the workgroup discussion, the workgroup members, especially the smaller
contractors and those, were very adamant about including the requirements from, or the provisions of the voluntary
guidelines in 1989.
An employee involvement is a real key one. And of all of those, I think there are several paragraphs of employee
involvement, but the discussion boiled down to, is just the opportunity, the review injuries and fatalities and
incidents that happened.
So this is not a new requirement. If you look at the head of that section, it says: Provide the opportunity to
involve the employees. So all this is saying that, to be consistent with the voluntary guidelines that everyone
thought was working real well, was for the employer to have -- and this is only to have procedures that would provide
the opportunity, so it's a very performance based.
It doesn't say what they will have; they must have the opportunity to review this.
DR. RINGEN: Judy, is that consistent?
MS. PAUL: Yes.
MR. CLOUTIER: Jim, you know down the road, if this becomes a final standard, past history tell us it'll be on the hit
sheet, it'll be a hot item, did you provide that opportunity. So I would see it that, if it was going to be a part of
the process, appearing in orientation at this site, that you would review some records.
But coming to a site as a contractor or coming to a site as an employee, if that contractor was very, very safe, we'd
want to know that, number one, but you would also want to know if there was a bad actor on the site that had a
fatality or had a major incident, for whatever reason, so you could share that with the employees.
Oh, by the way, a wall collapsed over here and two guys were sent to the hospital last week, so you'd have to
continually update it.
By concern with this is if it talks about project here, when you're talking about an employer, and I think you need
to know about the employer's record on that project or at that site, but then we need to talk.
There is a different issue on multi-employer projects, that if you're on a multi-employer site, that you'd like to
know about site's record. And a lot of sites they post up there, this site has worked X number of days without a lost
time injury; the previous record was so many days, and that's a psychological impact, but you see a visual impact as
walk on the site, because the site's proud of what they've done.
Of if you see that that record was 500 days and, boy, that's the last record; now we only have 1 day, and that was
yesterday, it should open your eyes up as a worker, as a contractor coming on site that, hey, we had an incident
yesterday and go forward with it.
MR. LAPPING: As I remember, Mr. Chairman, the word "project" was deleted during the workgroup meeting, with
the concept that the good employees will do just as you said, Steve; will show what's going on other projects, and
some may not, but this is to be as flexible as possible.
So by deleting the word "project," it still left an opportunity open and encourages the contractor to share
more information but didn't require it.
DR. RINGEN: The intent behind this is that employees will have access to the safety record of the employer for two
purposes.
MS. VILLANOVA: The purpose of this was, for the lowest common denominator to be able to pick up the standard and say,
oh, okay; these are elements of employee involvement, and that was just on the employer-employee level. It's a very
simple basic approach.
DR. RINGEN: For the purpose of achieving what?
MS. VILLANOVA: For the purpose of achieving a component part of the overall safety and health program, and some of
the elements are listed above v8.
DR. RINGEN: Yes, and presumably for the purpose of figuring out is this an employer that I really want to work with
or a person for the purpose of saying, I think there is something here that we could help prevent in the future.
That would be sort of, that's why you would want to have access to that as an employee, and to limit that access to
what goes on in terms of the employer's record from just one site doesn't make much sense. Obviously, you want to
know across sites, because the numbers from one site probably isn't going to be statistically or any other way
relevant. So I think it's an issue to look at some more.
MR. LAPPING: I would just like to remind the committee that this is written in such performance language, saying that
the contractor shall have procedures that provides the opportunity, so again, it would be very difficult to pin down
exactly.
It's not specification where each contractor would have to do exactly the same. It's not a one-size fits all. It's
very flexible, and that's why those words were -- I think at Mr. Masterson's insistence, "opportunity" was
put in there.
You insisted on the word "opportunity", right?
MR. MASTERSON: Pretty much. Yes.
MS. PAUL: Mr. Chairman, could we enter
Camille Villanova's name in the record?
DR. RINGEN: Yes.
MS. PAUL: We did Jim but not Camille.
DR. RINGEN: I apologize.
Well, what I suggest we do is, unless there is a strong feeling that we should go through this line by line today and
give feedback to them, I don't think that would be very helpful. Let each of us take this document back, review it
very carefully, and that the committee members make their comments to Judy.
MS. PAUL: And then forward comments to the directorate?
DR. RINGEN: No, let's forward them to you.
MS. PAUL: Okay.
DR. RINGEN: And then you decide how you want to handle them.
MS. PAUL: That would be fine.
MR. LAPPING: Mr. Chairman, administratively, we've been doing that. It's been working very well to forward them to
Bruce Swanson's office, and they're immediately sent out to Judy, so everybody has the same address and all that.
DR. RINGEN: Okay. That's fine. As long as it goes to Judy.
MS. OSORIO: Can I just make one further elaboration on that request; and that is that, if there are problems or
concepts or anything, we also would like any phrases or any reference to any citations, either in the law or other
manuals, or anything system trade groups may have, because we're just trying to gather as much information as we can.
So in your review of this latest draft, please provide any other useful paragraphs or anything or materials that
maybe could help us.
DR. RINGEN: Then maybe we could go back briefly to the two issues that have been raised in the cover memo, which has
to do with the training requirement. There is a training requirement already in Subpart C. It's very general. And the
question is whether it should be made more specific, I think.
One proposal that's been out there, the minimum training that any employee should be required to show evidence of
having had or be provided with before they go to work, is the OSHA 10-hour course, I think. That's what's suggested
here.
Bob.
MR. MASTERSON: And I would have to totally disagree with that. The training should be provided that would be
consistent with the task the individual is performing or hazards they may be exposed to. The OSHA 10-hour cannot be
adjusted sufficiently to cover the options that would be out there.
DR. RINGEN: The question remains whether there should be a general requirement -- a general, minimum requirement,
which does not preclude the need for additional, obviously, task-specific training. Just as when we talk about safety
and health programs, there may be times when the contractor engages in unusual work, where an additional plan will be
required for that work.
MR. MASTERSON: Again, that's all covered by existing standards for an employer to train their employees in, hazards
that they will be associated with, to work even in unexpected or unplanned tasks.
DR. RINGEN: Okay. Bill.
MR. RHOTEN: Yes, Mr. Chairman. For starters, I don't have any illusions that even if we all agreed here that they
should have 10 hours training before they go on a worksite, that, in fact, this program would get passed by anybody.
That's not going to happen.
But the issue is a real issue, and what's happening now is, is that no training is being conducted before somebody
walks on the jobsite, and it's true enough the OSHA standards say you'll train the worker to recognize all the
hazards he's associated with, and the truth is, I think we all know that's not happening.
They're taking people off the street corner down here; putting them in ditches, putting them on high rises, and the
job, in fact, is not getting done, and no matter if it's written done.
I think that, again, everybody should have a basic training of the dangers on the construction site before they walk
on it out of high school or off of that street, and I think it might have to be a separate issue.
Although I would love to see this in here, I don't think it's going to fly in here, but I would like to think that we
could look at this as a separate issue, and then even if you had to have a window period of time so it wouldn't be
disruptive to the contractors before it was implemented, if it was two years or three years or five years, at least
it would, at some point, get done.
And I think that would go, again, a lot further to preventing the fatalities and the injuries on the job than a lot
of other regulations that you've got in this book, and in fact can't be enforced anyway, because of the lack of the
funding and other reasons.
So I would agree, and I concede that this is not going to fly in this document, but I will hope that we, as a
committee, can study this further with the intent of getting this done in the long-run and, again, without an undue
burden on the contractors. I think that can be worked out.
I think you can set up a system, if you had to have a basic amount of training before you go on a jobsite, that
there's facilities out there now and junior colleagues and the building trades, and there's money out there for
NIOSH, for training. There's programs that are put together that are laying there and they're not getting utilized.
There's a lot of programs that are here inside the Beltway that are not being utilized, and they can be if you pass
the regulations that they should be.
That's, I guess, the only comments I have. So, hopefully, in the future this can be readdressed, because I don't
believe it'll fly in this document, although I would love for it to.
DR. RINGEN: Yes.
MS. PORTER: I agree very much with Bill. I hope we don't give up on it here. I don't know what form it's going to
take, but I hope we don't give up on some kind of training requirement in health and safety program standards.
DR. RINGEN: Bob.
MR. MASTERSON: Yes, I have to follow-up. You know, we currently have a standard that fully addresses training and
what should be provided to an employee. We can't get that done now. Why would creating a second standard, just
reinforcing the first standard, make any difference?
I think if we need to address something, we need to address what the enforcement provisions are and how they're
applied to the training, not create more paper.
DR. RINGEN: Clarification for my sake. Which training standard are you referring to?
MR. MASTERSON: Well, there's a general requirement --
DR. RINGEN: In Subpart C.
MR. MASTERSON: -- in Subpart C that requires all employers to provide --
MR. COOPER: That's 21.
MR. MASTERSON: -- 21, thank you.
MR. COOPER: Mr. Chairman, I think the concerns of the Committee is that 21 is too general. You said you could train.
You could have said, Bob, that you'd like to train site specific, about hazards that are right there.
192621 are all-time, original training standards that needs fixed a little bit, and may not need fixed what's going
to cost you any more money, if that's what you're concerned about, because time is money.
But we've been talking about recordkeeping. You know, you wouldn't have records to keep if you had a lot of proper
training, because you're going to reduce a lot of the accidents. I agree with Bill and NIOSH that this is a very
important issue.
MR. RHOTEN: Just so I understand, if I could, your statement. What you're suggesting is that because now none of
these standards are getting enforced, we shouldn't pass another standard that won't get enforced either? Is that what
you're saying?
MR. MASTERSON: What I'm saying is, we have a standard that may or may not meet the intent right now. If it doesn't
meet the intent, fix the standard we have, don't create another standard, so we have two.
DR. RINGEN: That's the intent.
MR. RHOTEN: I would suggest what will fix the other standard is, again, making a requirement that a person has the
basic idea of what the dangers are in that construction site before it goes on there.
In my mind, an OSHA inspector could go on a site and talk to a kid out of high school that's been on that jobsite for
two days and site that contractor because he didn't teach him anything about safety and health. That, in fact, maybe
will get this project going.
You could walk on these jobsites all over town and find somebody that somebody took off the street corner, took out
of high school, and walk up to him and ask him what he knows about the hazards on that job, and he knows absolutely
nothing about the hazards on that job.
DR. RINGEN: Or about the basic hazards of the industry. I think the existing training requirements, if I remember
correctly, is over 30 years old. And the aim is to exactly to do what you're talking about, Bob. Whether this does it
or not, that's a different issue.
But one of the reasons that this program standard is needed is that Subpart C, by and large, is, perhaps with the
exception of that massive insertion of the access to exposure and medical records in it, you know, which dwarfs the
whole rest of the subpart, apart from that, the subpart is 30 years old, and some of it, you could argue, is
outdated, including the training requirement.
Thirty years we didn't have OSHA for one thing; we didn't have the OSHA Training Institute, and the programs that
where being developed, through NIOSH and OSHA, were now 25 years since then, and there have been vast improvements in
what we have in the way of training out there.
You could argue that, A, an overriding standard like this that is performance based, should not get pegged to a
specific development that we have today like, for instance, the OSHA 10-hour course. Maybe tomorrow OSHA will come up
with an 11-hour course that's better.
That you could argue for. But we also have to argue in favor of the notion that we are better equipped to define what
training requirements exist or should exist today than 30 years ago. And the standard should reflect that.
MR. MASTERSON: I don't disagree with that. All I'm saying is if there needs to be a change in an existing standard,
then that's another issue. We need to go back and look at that and make those changes.
What I'm saying is, don't create the redundancy of requiring training here and there and there. It just makes it more
difficult for people to understand the codes, the standards, and they're having a hard enough time with that.
We're supposing being reduce paperwork, and I don't see where creating a separate, second standard is going to be of
benefit to anybody. Let's fix what we've got if that's what's needed.
DR. RINGEN: Do you or anybody else disagree with the notion that the industry would benefit from having a requirement
that all people who enter into this industry have some basic safety and health training before they enter into it?
The fact is that's lots of people aren't receiving it.
For laborers, when we looked at BLS statistics, 16 percent of lost-time injuries among laborers occurred on the first
day that they entered the industry. Sixteen percent of the injuries, simply from inexperience.
When I came to the US, I was on workers comp four hours after I got on my first job. It was unloading frozen
swordfish, which I had never seen before.
MR. COOPER: Was there a physical element?
DR. RINGEN: Physical, yes. Wrestling with the swordfish and losing. I got no training. Should have had it.
(Laughter)
MR. COOPER: Mr. Chairman --
DR. RINGEN: Yes.
MR. COOPER: -- I do not dosage with
Mr. Masterson. We've got 19621; we've got 503, which is in-depth on fall protection, and depends on where you want to
look to find out where you want to train. It would be better if we put the training requirements in one area.
Now, I realize that the easy out is have training requirements in 21, quote, these other areas; say, here they are.
To answer your question which you raise now, I think we've lost you, Knut. To answer your question which you raised,
I certainly would agree, that to work in construction for an employer, you've got to have some kind of training, to
me, and in fact would be site specific in the general area you're working in, period.
I mean, if you don't believe in that you really shouldn't be in this building. But I agree, Bob, that you can't -- we
can't throw all these training things together and have it stretched out. That's what's wrong with 1926. How many
construction contractors do you think knows what's in here, or hire a person to tell them what's in there? What do
you think, what percentage?
MR. RHOTEN: Well, my point is, even -- excuse the chair -- even if the contractor doesn't know what's in there, with
an 8-hour class that's set up, the employee will know, basically, what's in there, and he'll be better able to take
care of himself.
MR. COOPER: That's my point. The individual worker has a responsibility to adhere to the safety regulations governing
that state or United States.
MR. RHOTEN: Right.
MR. COOPER: The individual has responsibility, but if he doesn't know a damn thing about it, how can he be
responsible for it. And that's not only high school kids or people that walk off the streets. We've got 35- and
40-year-old people that are going out in construction areas for the first time and getting injured.
MR. RHOTEN: Again, I would suggest, if we can discuss this further with some committee, that this can be put
together, where it's no financial burden on the employer.
You know, there's plenty of means for a person that wants to work in the construction industry if he was required to
have it before he went on a job, that those finances will take care of itself, you know, if it's required. And, in
the long run, it's going to save everybody money.
I'm not looking to put another financial burden on the employers. I'm just looking for some means that we can protect
the worker on the job, and if he knows what's in that book, the employers aren't going to sit down and read that.
DR. RINGEN: Just to close this out, OSHA
had -- and I don't know where it's at now -- when we first started to talk about this program standard in this
committee when OSHA first came to it, they were still working on a series of building block standards that were
supposed to be attached to it, including training.
I don't know if OSHA is still doing that. That sort of has been dropped. There are a number of people who felt
strongly that OSHA was on the wrong track doing that also, and I would like to see these things centralized.
I think there was going to be a building block standard on -- what was it, training, medical?
AUDIENCE: Surveillance. Medical screening.
DR. RINGEN: And exposure monitoring.
But that's outside the scope of our discussions here today with regard to this thing. If we make our specific
comments on the issue to Judy, then we'll see where it goes. On the employee side, at least here, I think there is
the strong support for the notion that Bill has presented, that there should be a requirement for training for
everybody who enters the industry.
It should not be a burden on the employer to make sure that that happens, but it will be somewhat of a burden on the
employer to make sure that it has happened when it comes to the employer. That's the whole notion of the provision
from our point of view.
Yes, Steve?
MR. COOPER: One, I think, last thing for
Judy Paul. The comment on review of project fatality, injury and illness records and their confidentiality, you could
still give that information and not fall in the problem of confidentiality. You don't just have to give them names.
You don't have to do all this.
You can say there were six falls on this project over six feet. We had four burned hands and two fatalities and
that's legal. There is not a confidentiality problem about that, as long as you don't say, you know, that Bill Smith
or Knut Ringen has certain problems.
So I just -- I don't see a giant problem with the confidentiality as long as you do it right, you don't spell out
names.
DR. RINGEN: Lauren.
MS. SUGARMAN: I just want to add my voice of support of Bill and Diane's proposal that we include a strong training
requirement. I want to add the voice of an employee. I'm an elevator constructor by trade, and when I started in my
trade, on my first day I was asked to get on top of an elevator. I had a hard hat, I had no lanyard. I had a pair of
Channel Locks players, I had no safety training.
I was asked to get into an elevator shift, ride the top of a car that was running about 20 miles an hour down, and I
had no idea where I was, what I was doing, and nobody gave me any guidance.
It wasn't until about six years later that I walked onto a multi-employer site, a public owner, multi-site site,
construction site, that I got any significant safety and health training. And it was a two-hour safety and training
class that the general contractor ran for anybody who walked on the site.
Whether you were going to work on the site or visit for the day, you had to go through this two-hour safety and
health training. It included videos, it included hands-on instruction. It was the best and most thorough exposure to
safety and health training I ever had.
And that site was one of the best run sites in the City of Chicago and had -- you know, I don't have statistics, but
the best injury and illness rate of any site. And I think that's the payoff, is that you're not paying worker's comp
bills. It's not just record keeping. You're preventing accidents and injuries.
But I shouldn't have had to wait six years to get that kind of comprehensive training.
Just two weeks ago in Chicago, a female laborer walked onto her first jobsite. It was the Dan Ryan Expressway. She
worked a midnight to eight shift. I don't know what kind of training she had. She was a laborer and flagger. Two
hours later she was dead. She was run over by three trucks on that expressway.
Nobody has yet explained exactly what happened. Perhaps she stepped outside of a barrier. Perhaps she didn't
understand.
But I think training, was my first thought when I heard about that accident; that there was no reason an accident
like that should have happened, and if she would have had proper training, it probably wouldn't have.
I think it's absolutely essential if we have a place to insert this, we take that opportunity and do it. I agree that
very few people look at 1926. None of my employers did that multi-site project, and I don't think my experience is
much different from those construction workers.
DR. RINGEN: Just sort of in support of what you're saying and in response to the discussion yesterday, it happened
that when I got in the office this morning this was sitting in the fax machine, which came from OSHA's statistical
office.
This shows how construction projects break down in the US. This is privately funded. No government funding, privately
funded. Nonresidential construction so it doesn't include the residential construction, and it can see 85 percent of
the projects started in this one-year period is less than $1 million. Only about 1 percent is 10 million and above.
It's on the larger sites, which are few in number that you will generally get the kind of training that you talked
about that you received in Chicago, and for most of these sites there will not be much in the way of training.
That doesn't mean that 85 percent of the employees in construction are on sites below $1 million. Probably only about
25 percent, or something like that, of workers are in those sites. But the vast number of sites are so small that
you're not likely to get any kind of training on it. That's the point. And I think you would agree with that, Bob.
MR. MASTERSON: I think there's some misinterpretation of what I'm saying.
I am not implying that training is not necessary. It's critical. What I am saying is training should be appropriate
for the hazards the employer is going to be faced. If I have a contractor delivering concrete to my job side, there
is absolutely no reason for me to put that individual through training on fall protection.
DR. RINGEN: You are absolutely right.
MR. MASTERSON: And that's all I'm saying. And there doesn't need to be two or three different sets of standards
covering training. It should be contained in one location so that as a employer they can go to it, they can find it
and understand what it means and what it's asking.
DR. RINGEN: Bill.
MR. RHOTEN: I'm not suggesting that a person should be trained in fall protection that isn't going to work in that
area. But I am, again, going to reiterate that there is absolutely no training going on now, in a lot of cases.
A person that's going to make his livelihood in the construction industry, even for a year, summers, out of college,
need to know, basically, what's in that book. Now, he doesn't have to be an expert on fall protection, but he has to
know enough not to walk under a load, not to walk on ladders with rungs missing, not to work on scaffolds without
handrails. Just basic things that might save him.
In fact, the training was going on now, I wouldn't raise the issue. But I think everybody knows, and I'm sure OSHA
knows, that there is absolutely no training going on before some people walk on a construction site. It's just not
happening. If it was happening, it wouldn't even be an issue, but it's not happening.
MR. COOPER: I realize we can beat this issue to death. It's rather obvious that training is
necessary -- safety training.
On the other hand, I would like to comment what Bill just mentioned. We have a mandatory three- and four-year
apprenticeship programs in the ironworkers.
Our experience is that the young people are the ones that are not getting hurt. Our fatality list over the years has
been the age of 30 to 42, and we consider that as individuals that are complacent and their mind is elsewhere.
But the young people and the ironworkers are not the ones getting hurt due to three and four-year mandatory training
programs.
Mr. Chairman, I am through with any more discussion on training, and I think the idea is there.
DR. RINGEN: I think we have beaten it to death, not that we won't get back to it at the next meeting, I am sure, when
we look at it, but you have a good enough idea about the challenge that you have to meet, Judy.
Let's just deal with the second issue, briefly, before we go on to the other reports. That has to do with the owner's
role, the owner's role, when there is not a single controlling contractor for the project. What did you have in mind
when you raised that?
MS. PAUL: Actually, you raised it yesterday at the meeting.
(Laughter)
MS. PAUL: We had tossed "owner" around a little bit, but we have just been shying away from it. You know,
that's a complex issue, as you said. And so since we have not visited that, we wanted to get the full committee's
feel for what direction, if any, that the issue of the owner should be in the standard.
DR. RINGEN: Unless there are any further ideas that have been to people's minds since yesterday on this issue, we
discussed it quite a bit yesterday, and I don't know that we came to any great closure or conclusions on it, but
maybe people can simply think about that and get back to you with some suggestions in writing. I think that's the
best way to do it. Is that agreeable to everybody?
MS. PAUL: I appreciate that. Thank you.
DR. RINGEN: Okay. So what we would like from each member is to review this carefully and to get the comments back
through Bruce Swanson's office to Judy.
Could we suggest that by the end of June, perhaps to do that, so you keep moving forward?
Do you have any plans to meet again?
MS. PAUL: We would like to have a one- or two-day meeting. We were actually thinking of just before the next ACCSH
meeting, whatever date that turns out to be. If we would come up with enough issues that we thought we'd have to get
together, just like this last time, we would notify everybody.
But, as of now, we just kind of plan on the meeting before the ACCSH meeting.
DR. RINGEN: It may be possible, at this point, when you get all of the comments back that you revise the document and
send it back out to the members in mail and ask them again for comments on the revisions before the next meeting and
before you meet again.
MS. PAUL: We'll do that.
DR. RINGEN: So that maybe we can expect to have something from you by the middle of July, or something like that.
MS. PAUL: Yes.
DR. RINGEN: Okay.
MS. PAUL: That would be great.
DR. RINGEN: Thank you very much.
MS. PAUL: Thank you.
DR. RINGEN: The next issue is the Confined Space Workgroup.
|
| CONFINED SPACE WORKGROUP |
MR. CLOUTIER: Mr. Chairman, there has been lots of activity going on with the Confined Space Workgroup. There's been
faxes and FedEx packages back and forth as far as the designated person from OSHA.
The Committee met three days in a row this week, Monday, Tuesday, and yesterday afternoon. We have gone through
significant amounts of documents, collectively from the group. We have hammered out about 40 pages of a draft that's
going back to the workgroup members this morning, and the workgroup will be prepared prior to the next ACCSH meeting
to provide a workgroup product for ACCSH to vote on.
Prior to the next ACCSH meeting, once the workgroup comes back and goes through the final draft, we will take that
copy and provide it to each ACCSH member to look over, redline, and then come back and look at it one more time. But
there has been a significant amount of work done. I have copies for my workgroup members here this morning.
I would like to thank Mr. Gil Arspoza, for the extra time and effort and hours that he's put in to make this thing
happen, and we're moving forward.
DR. RINGEN: Did you say you're going to meet again before the next meeting, or are you just going to try to do this
through the mail?
MR. CLOUTIER: We're going to wait to see what thank type of comments each workgroup member comes back with from our
cut and past and rewrite and rework document, but I would expect the workgroup would probably meet the day before the
next advisory committee meeting, unless there is a significant amount of comments coming from other members.
DR. RINGEN: And you expect that you will have a draft from the workgroup out to the members of the Committee sometime
in the next month or two?
MR. CLOUTIER: Yes. We will have a workgroup product to the members, yes.
DR. RINGEN: Great. Thank you very much. Again, this is something that is going very, very fast, responding to a very
difficult time schedule, and I know that all of you have worked very hard and have gotten a lot of help from various
people, and we appreciate very much the work that has been done.
Any discussions about this?
(No response.)
The final workgroup report is the Women in Construction, HASWIC.
|
| WOMEN IN CONSTRUCTION HASWIC |
MS. SUGARMAN: Thank you.
The HASWIC workgroup met yesterday. Two of our members joined us by phone, Linda Goldenhar from NIOSH, and Joyce
Somonawitz from California OSHA; Kitty Conlin from the Laborer's International Union, and Jane Walsted from the
Women's Bureau were able to be here in person at the meeting, along with myself.
We met and discussed a number of things before we got to our main agenda, which was the draft report that we're
working on for presentation to ACCSH.
Among the updates was the case of the tradeswoman, the fatality in Chicago, just recently. We wanted to be in a
position as a workgroup to at least to begin to identify and collect data on fatalities like that, become a
clearinghouse, if not necessarily for each and every fatality and injury, the resource for information in general
about problems like that that are occurring.
We would like to use HASWIC's name to further investigate accidents when we hear of them like that, and we'll pursue
trying to collect information about what happened in that specific case.
We also talked about -- and I want to note for the record that the Building and Construction Trades Council of the
AFL-CIO has published a new document on sexual harassment prevention. We are very excited to see this because it fits
with our agenda to promote a hostile-free workplace for all workers. This document, we think, can go a long way to
doing that.
We look forward to hearing more about the Building and Trades Council's plans for dissemination of this document, and
I hope to get copies that I can distribute among this committee so that people here can see what kind of work is
already being done on that.
We also discussed some potential resources for funding the continuation of our work. We were looking at a NIOSH
request for proposal on further research and other opportunities through NIOSH.
One of our hopes is that there will be a resource to publish the document we hope to have this committee support, so
that the information and data that we've collected and knowledge base that we've been able to bring together can be
shared throughout the industry.
We also spoke a little bit about the proposed revision to the health and safety program standard. We'll be looking at
that now that we have a draft from you in terms of how some of the issues that we have been talking about in our
workgroup can connect to this document.
So, Judy, you can expect some feedback from us. I'll be circulating the document to our committee members.
Our HASWIC document, we hope to have a final draft to circulate before the next meeting, the ACCSH, so that you can
give us your feedback and ideas. We'll present to you, most likely, the document without recommendations and then
hope that you'll be able to give us some input and ideas for recommendations.
We have looked at categories for recommendations, and we won't be making general recommendations but recommendations
by sector, like for public agencies, like NIOSH, OSHA, BLS, perhaps other agencies within Department of Labor;
employers, the labor movement and individuals as an outcome of our document.
We continue to work on that. Our next meeting is schedule for July 30th by teleconference.
Thank you.
DR. RINGEN: Great. Thank you very much. This has been two years of intensive work of collecting information in an
area where very little has been collected for. I think it's great.
You had asked me before the next meeting to have some significant time on the agenda to discuss the relates of this,
presumably. Great. Thank you.
That completes, unless there are any questions or comments for Lauren, the workgroup reports.
We had a request yesterday for Anita Drummond from the Small Business Administration to briefly address the
Committee, and it will be an appropriate time to do it now.
|
| ANITA DRUMMOND, SBA |
MS. DRUMMOND: Thanks very much.
DR. RINGEN: Welcome to the public sector, by the way.
MS. DRUMMOND: Some of you may know that I'm Anita Drummond. I'm with the Office of Advocacy at the Small Business
Administration, and I really wanted to give the Committee a briefing on the Regulatory Flexibility Act and how it
applies to OSHA rulemakings, because this will probably arise more and more in your public discussions and in OSHA's
own internal development of regulations.
So I wanted to give you a flavor of what is in this law and what OSHA is required to do, so that you will understand
that, just like the Paperwork Reduction Act, where they are under pressures to meet that law's requirements, they are
also required to comply with the Regulatory Flexibility Act.
The Regulatory Flexibility Act was passed, enacted, in 1980. Since that time, agencies have had spotty compliance
with the law. However, something happened on March 29th that has greatly focused agency attention on this law.
On March 29th, President Clinton signed the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act, and we call it
SBREFA. That's our acronym for it. SBREFA amended the Regulatory Flexibility Act. And what the amendments did was
allow small businesses to challenge agency's final actions under the Regulatory Flexibility Act in a court of law.
Because of that, agencies are now under more pressure than ever to assure that they are in full compliance with this
legislation. The Regulatory Flexibility Act requires a series of steps for the agency to fully consider the impact of
a regulation on small business.
They way you define small business may not -- the way the Small Business Administration defines small business may be
different than what you think of. A general term for small business is companies with less than 500 employees.
For this committee, in particular, I want to point out that nearly 80 percent of the industry has 10 or fewer
employees, those that are employers. In my recollection and recent history, the only active member of this committee
that could have fit that criteria was probably Rick Palmer of Palmer Painting. So one of the things that I want to
stress in my role at the Office of Advocacy, is that everything you do you must thing of what the typical firm is
going to do, realistically, and how this regulation will help them and their employees meet the standards of OSHA.
So, under the Regulatory Flexibility Act, OSHA is required, before any proposed rule is published, to take into
account small business, the number of small businesses that are impacted, the economic impact of this regulation.
Also, under new amendments of this new act, 1996, they must hold special small business advocacy review panels for
those regulations that are expected to have significant impact on small business.
The office of advocacy, which I represent, will be a participant and a panel member that will be doing the analysis
of the regulations.
There will be economic impact evaluations, which are very similar to what are already required by the Executive Order
12866, which is essentially Economic Impact Analysis.
But the thing that is really the most onerous of this law, is the agency is charged to come up with alternatives to a
proposed regulation and take a full and series account of other ways to achieve it, such as performance base versus
prescriptive measures.
Phase-in periods; exemptions.
Those sorts of elements are the types of things that the agencies are charged to consider, and that becomes a part of
the public record when they finally come out with a proposed rule.
In the Office of Advocacy, we are not a representative of the administration but rather a representative of small
businesses to federal agencies and to Congress. We are often asked by Congress to comment on legislation, and we may
not necessarily agree with the administration but that is our charge.
So, too, with the federal agencies. The Office of Advocacy, after a proposed rule comes out, may submit comments that
directly address the issues that small businesses are concerned with.
One of the issues that we focus on is what particular industry is impacted. ACCSH, in some regards, is lucky, because
at least you know much of the profile of the industry you're impacting.
We would take into account the fact that I just presented that nearly 80 percent have 10 or fewer employees. We would
evaluate a standard based on what the typical small business is going to have to do under a standard.
Under your development of safety and health programs, I would like to commend the committee for having workgroup
meetings because this is a big step, under Regulatory Flexibility Act, in involving small businesses early on in the
process.
We are concerned that the smallest of businesses, as Bob has mentioned a couple of times, will have a tough time
actually applying this, when you have already 900 pages of regulations. What we hope will come out of this regulation
is that this becomes a road map on how to get through the regulations they do have to comply with and the standards
of OSHA.
If that is the objective, we want to be able to contribute to the dialogue on that.
You will probably see my face more than you like over the course of the next couple of years because we are trying
to, in the Office of Advocacy, help OSHA fully consider the Small Business Impact before a published proposed rule
comes out because once the proposed rule is out, the agency was under tremendous scrutiny under the Regulatory
Flexibility Act, including their full analysis part of the record, and we are responsible for responding to that
record publicly.
So you will probably see the Office of Advocacy much more active as a result of the recent amendments in 1996,
Regulatory Flexibility Act, in order to help the agency comply.
Thank you.
DR. RINGEN: Thank you.
MS. JENKINS: Your definition of small business was less than 500 employees?
MS. DRUMMOND: Not for construction. For construction, it's 7 million in some instances, and 17 million, I think, for
general contractors. I should have brought my size standards. For specialty trade contractors, I think it's 7 million
in revenues or less a year.
But we have a general definition. If there's a regulation, such as the recordkeeping proposed rule that applies to
all small businesses, our first definition or what we would ask the agency to analyze is anything that's fewer than
500 employees. That would be small business.
We would also ask that they analyze a particular rulemaking based on different industry sectors, such as construction
being an obvious one and saying that the small business in construction, our definition of small business is fewer
than 17 million in revenue for general contractors and less than
7 million -- I think I have my stats right for specialty trade contractors. Heavy construction, I think, is also 17
million.
But we also would ask them to look at the average firm, what the size of that firm is, which is less than 10 or fewer
employees, so we'd say, also, take a look at what it's really going to do the smallest of firms.
So the small business definitions are defined by SBA in rulemaking. Just as in any other agency, it goes out for
proposal, that we are proposing this to be the size standard, to define small business; say a manufacturing or
manufacturing sector, and there's an opportunity for public response.
DR. RINGEN: We've struggled, obviously, with this small business issue in a number of different instances, and it's
difficult. One reason that it's difficult is that, frequently, the arguments presented by the small business
community is ideological rather than factual, say; because we're small, we can't do something, without saying
specifically why they can't do something.
I manage a small business, and I have to comply with umpteen different regulations and stuff like that, in order to
continue to stay in that business, and to do that, I have to hire some experts to help out with it. That's the nature
of the business.
And I don't understand these people who say they're not capable of doing what they should be doing in order to be in
the business.
MS. DRUMMOND: Well, let's just say that our intent is to try to assist that agency to create regulations that are
very functional to a small business, and that will actually reach the objective that you want to reach.
Oftentimes, all I can say is that the other side of the coin is is that often the objective of the standard is
idealistic, so hopefully we can find some middle ground to achieve that.
DR. RINGEN: I think your office can serve another very useful function, and that is to educate also the small
business community, particularly people who want to go into business about the requirements that you have to meet in
order to be in a particular business.
A lot of people in the construction industry who shouldn't be there, who are employers, and who come in and out of
it, fly by night, and so on; don't have the capabilities, don't know what they should be doing, but they have a
pickup and they think they can make some money, and they start in this.
MS. DRUMMOND: The Small Business Administration has an extensive program on business plan development, and one of
those is OSHA and what they must comply with. We hyper text link on the Internet to OSHA's home page directly.
We do an extensive amount of work in the area of IRS and how they must comply in that area.
So that is something the Small Business Administration is very heavily involved in. We have 10 regions in the country
with staff field offices that do that very type of thing.
DR. RINGEN: I apologize for making you the foil for my frustration on this issue, the time shows up.
MS. DRUMMOND: That's my job.
DR. RINGEN: Any other comments or questions?
(No response.)
We will be asking you to come back, in fact, something that we're going to talk about later that relates exactly to
your relationship to the committee, by the way.
MS. OSORIO: I think the point about assistant small business entities is really good, not just for construction
across the board, but I just want to again bring up a flavor of the discussion that we had yesterday and the day
before.
And that was that, according to Jim Lapping, that they are -- allegedly, OSHA is planning a pretty strong outreach
program with this health and safety effort, too, so that -- because I think in the past, you can criticize a lot of
these things as gathering dust on the shelf for a small person, not necessarily a small businessman or not
necessarily with a bad heart, just didn't have a clue it was out there.
I do think what Knut said is very important, too. I don't think OSHA alone can tackle this problem through regulation
or anything else. I think it takes concerted effort by labor, management, and the regulatory agencies, and also
health departments. I think everybody has to pitch in and try to help in the outreach.
So I would just hope that continuing collaboration with groups like yours and all the other groups that I talked
about would be really helpful.
MS. DRUMMOND: I just want to point out, the safety and health and other stakeholder meetings that have been held have
had the flavor, in the spirit of the law, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, and what will come under scrutiny under
that law will be what kind of outreach efforts were done.
The safety and health programs have had a good start.
Finally, what a court of law evaluates is what is recorded and what kind of analysis is done, and I think that a
well-executed stakeholder's process will be able to collect the kind of information the needs to identify
alternatives or a standard that truly fits to the size of the typical construction company, yet meets the objectives
of the regulation and standard.
I would say the stakeholders' meeting have been a good process.
DR. RINGEN: Any other comments?
(No response.)
DR. RINGEN: Thank you very much, Anita.
MS. DRUMMOND: Thanks.
|
| COMMITTEE BUSINESS |
DR. RINGEN: The final issue before us today is Committee Business, and we have two different aspects to it. One is a
memo that I sent tout to you all, and that's in your packet, dated May 29th; and,
Related to that, is a memo that I received from Steve Cooper, that I'd like to hand out.
We've talked from time to time about how the Committee should function and, at least when I came on as chairman,
there were some things that I said I would like to see if we can achieve, have become defined better in my mind as
we've been going along, to maintain the relevancy of this committee.
One issue that I think this real important and that's not in here is that we had said we would like to do more in the
area of monitoring OSHA's program effectiveness, its operational effectiveness in the area of construction, safety
and health, and as part of that, we expected that we would have a report from the construction office at our
meetings; a progress report, the director's report.
I think this is the first meeting when we have not had any kind of report, either from the administrator's office or
from the office of construction engineering about what's going on, what has been learned in the field, who the office
itself was developing and so on.
But at least the advisory boards that I report to certainly expect a report from me when they meet, and I think we
should be entitled to the same kind of thing.
Is there anybody here that disagrees with that?
(No response.)
We would like to have a substantive report from the construction office at every meeting about the progress that's
being made in the development of the office as well as what's going out in the field in terms of both compliance
inspection and consultation activities.
We have been very interested in, for instance, how the focused inspection program has developed and evolved and what
kind of results we've had with that.
That's been one of the things that has given rise to the need for the program standard because under the focused
inspection program, you have to go out and evaluate whether the employer first has a decent program, and the question
is what that is. So these things hang together pretty well.
Anyway, that's something I think the committee would like, and if you'll convey that to Bruce, we'd appreciate it.
MR. CAVANAUGH: We agree, and we have no problems whatsoever in giving you a progress report on our activities. One of
the reasons why we didn't for this particular meeting was the close proximity to the last one. We don't have
significant new activity data from our focused inspection initiative, but at the same time we will do a better job
next time in making sure that any activity that has been done between the meetings that we will report on.
DR. RINGEN: And if anybody here has any ideas about how that report can be made most meaningful, what kind of content
it should have, we'd appreciate hearing about it.
Steve.
MR. COOPER: Did you get a chance to look at my response to the Knut's request for ACCSH, the one that's in front of
you there?
MR. CAVANAUGH: Yes, I did.
MR. COOPER: I try and make clear to Knut that we don't need to do an inventory of your department and get into all of
your budget concerns and your innermost concerns within the directorate, but do you have any problem with that Item A
and, for the record, it was just off the top of my head when I responded, but most cited regulation by frequency,
some of your projects that you're working on that are important to this committee; how many co-shows do we have in
the regions.
You know, I don't know if anyone on this Committee can answer that question on this, and I'm talking about field
co-shows. There's a lot of co-shows that are in the administrative end, and 11Cs, probably are less important to this
committee.
MR. CLOUTIER: I don't know whether everybody on this committee knows what an 11C is. We're going to ask for 11Cs,
we're also asking for 5Bs.
MR. COOPER: For what, Steve?
MR. CLOUTIER: 5Bs.
(Laughter)
MR. CLOUTIER: Well, they never cite it. I know what an 11C is.
MR. COOPER: 11C is investigative reporting for the office of the complaints of discrimination. Is that pretty
accurate?
MR. CAVANAUGH: Yes.
MR. COOPER: The size of your construction division, I could ask you right now; do you have anybody in the
construction directorate that works outside of this building?
MR. CAVANAUGH: No, we do not.
MR. COOPER: And a few simple things like that would clear the water but, again, I don't think this committee needs to
go in depth and do a research on Swanson's office. I mean, I'm sure you'd have enough people interfering with the
manner in which you run that office anyhow.
The state plans -- what do we have, 27, something like that?
MR. CAVANAUGH: I think it's 27 full state plans, there's two others that just run a state program for state and
local, and a couple territories.
MR. COOPER: So more than have the concerns of this committee relate to state plans.
MR. CAVANAUGH: Right.
MR. COOPER: And that's another story. But he also, just for the record, Knut asked in that memo, should this
committee meet outside of 2nd and Constitution sometime, it used to bring the committee to make availability to
public, and just from a credibility standpoint I think it would be smart. Of course, there's a slight expense to
that, but it's relatively slight.
When we talked about coke, this committee went in a bus to the coke ovens up in Chicago area and spent two or three
days on coke ovens, and then came back and deliberated because then we knew a hell of a lot more about coke ovens.
But, to be very functional, I think we should have at least one meeting outside of here for lots of reasons, one
being credibility.
And one of the last questions that Knut asked was the problems with the federal agencies, and I'm not bashful, as you
can probably tell from this last day and a half, but one of the problems we do have is the contract language in
federal agencies as they do work.
Board of Engineers is pretty straight. Department of Transportation is not. We talk about fall protection, from day
one here, and they'll be talking about it as long as this agency is in existence, fall protection.
It's not required. Most of the Department of Transportation, federal money requirement, there's no requirement. It
could be right in the contract that if you bid on this project, you'll have to do this, but it's not there. They've
got the same language that most other contracts have. You'll have to abide by all federal and state programs.
It would seem to me that the federal agencies that do construction work, departments like the DOT, the DOE, and all
the rest, and the ones that fall under OSHA, would do a lot better job in contractual language with the people that
we represent here, insofar as safety and health goes in the contract.
That, in itself, would save a lot of lives because, as you know, most things are federally-funded and some are
totally funded through the DOTs.
I would also hope that we would also have a copy of the 1926 standards, and I realize you don't leave anything in
this room like I did last night, because now mine's gone, but they're a quick reference, because we've been doing, at
least on this side, 503 and 21.
So if we get provided that copy, it's nice to have for quick reference.
MR. CAVANAUGH: Well, Steve, we appreciate your comments on this. This will help the agency, I guess, serve the needs
of this, to have your request spelled out like this and these will help us in helping the Committee be more
effective.
DR. RINGEN: Diane.
MS. PORTER: I was going to say, having been on this committee for a while and whatever, that things feel like they're
moving in the right direction towards more standardization and such that the committee can work more effectively, and
so I appreciate this item being brought to the agenda.
One of the things that I've brought before the Committee several times is this notion of getting out of Washington
and have actually asked the committee to go to Cincinnati or Morgantown to see our research program.
I would love to have a standing item on the agenda that we would present being NIOSH. Actually, the researchers
themselves present something to the Committee; an overview of what we've done in research, at least annually, if not
semiannually, of what's happening with the research that we're doing in the area of construction, because we do have
a significant program in that area, and I think that the Committee would benefit from the data and statistics that we
are collecting, just like they would benefit from information brought to us at BLS and the statistical office here at
OSHA.
DR. RINGEN: The committee that reviewed NIOSH's construction research program last year, and that included Joe Adam,
who used to be on this Committee, and Steve Burkhammer is on it now, made the recommendation as part of that report
that this committee should be used to give more real life industry guidance to the research because some of the
research has been, in their view, esoteric.
Perhaps if we could have an opportunity to comment more on it, they would be more in tune with what's going on.
MS. PORTER: Right. I see this as a mutual benefit. Not only will the committee learn but we will learn as well. The
researchers are -- actually, you know, appreciated the advice of that committee, that they needed to get more real
world.
MR. CLOUTIER: The key point is you've got to get out of 2nd and Constitution. You've got to go to Morgantown, you've
got to go to Cincinnati. You've got to take the show on the road, and we've done that in the past, Mr. Chairman.
DR. RINGEN: So we're in agreement that, as much as possible, we should try to meet outside Washington, and certainly
-- I think we actually had an agreement with the agency before the budget crisis that we would meet outside
Washington once a year, and the first meeting, I think, was going to be in Atlanta, to look at, in part, I don't
know, I can't remember; maybe it was looking at the Olympic.
VOICE: And the reinvention.
DR. RINGEN: Yes, it was to look at the reinvention issue in the office down there, and also the Olympic construction.
That's a little late now.
But this reinvented field office and what they're doing. I would personally be interested in going and looking at
what some of the field offices are doing, and I think everybody else would be.
Yes?
DR. OSORIO: I just want to say, I think all these comments are really excellent.
I just want to say one little particular thing that's been kind of annoying for me is that, not including the
statistics and overall results and experiences of the state plans, it's more than just half the states, because all
the big states have a state plan.
So we're really looking at a skewed view of the world if you just consistently look at the federal OSHA dominated
states. I would just really encourage that if you don't have a quick turnaround for relaying key statistics and all
that to the directorate, if you don't, then I strongly encourage you to start that process, because I really think
you're looking at less than half the picture by not doing that.
Every presentation -- I haven't been on that long -- has always eliminated the state plan stats, and it's a serious
omission.
DR. RINGEN: We have been hampered by this in the last couple of meetings because we have not had representation from
the states on the committee. And I don't know where that's at, Dale, do you?
MR. CAVANAUGH: Yes. We hope to have state representation at the committee for the next meeting. We are talking to the
final review authority right now, and it's moving forward, so hopefully we'll have a full committee for the next
committee.
DR. RINGEN: Steve.
MR. COOPER: In 1994, the Secretary of Labor, as I think most of you are well aware, appointed a 20-person committee
made up of labor, management, governmental agencies, union, nonunion, engineering, general contracting, and et
cetera, to deliberate this for 18 months, it ended up, on issues that we're discussing here as relates to steel
construction.
One of the proposals which went through this 20-person committee, which even had a consultant on the committee;
insurance companies are on the committee, worked numerous hours, and through workgroups and 10-hour days, met in and
around Washington across the country, concerning accountability, employer accountability for worksites, which this
committee is discussing to some degree.
And that discussion will be in the Preamble of the steel erection proposal.
That work has pretty much been done by all sides of the industry. The Corps of Engineers was also on that committee.
They came up with a product, and now we're reinventing the wheel, not that this committee doesn't have the authority
to rule yes, no, or elsewhere, but we have that already, and it's recent on the accountability of the owners,
employers, and et cetera.
DR. RINGEN: Is that included in the document that Jerry handed out yesterday, the draft?
MR. CLOUTIER: No. The site specific safety plan is involved in there; definitions, selection of contractors,
monitoring, start-ups, everything is in here, and it's done through the Department of Labor, through the negotiated
rulemaking process, through the solicitor's office, through the OSHA representative, and through the entire
construction community, including manufacturers, including fabricators, and all the other aforementioned.
So the product is here in my hand. I think we should look at that, and it may help your group, Judy, which is our
group. It's a proposal to properly allocate accountability for construction worksite safety, and it's a recent
product done by some 20 experts. And I will give this to the chairman.
DR. RINGEN: Give it to Dale, and he'll send it to everybody, and Judy will look at it in some detail. Appreciate it.
To put closure on this discussion, we want a report from the director's office. We would like more information from
the state plans in one form or another, whether it's through the representatives who are on the committee or through
some invitations of people from state plan offices to make presentations before the committee.
I think that, unless somebody else objects, that we should try to meet outside of Washington for maybe our next
meeting. Since the budget issue is pretty much taken care of for next year, it looks like it's going to go nicely for
once. That shouldn't be a problem under any circumstances, and maybe that meeting should still be held in Atlanta, as
we had originally intended.
Is there any objection if we try to do that?
MR. COOPER: I have a question. Why do you want to hold it in Atlanta, other than help NIOSH out? Does it have
anything to do with the Olympics?
DR. RINGEN: No, no, the post-Olympics. No. It had to do with look at the field office and what was going on down
there.
MR. MASTERSON: There is a follow-up to the Olympics. The para Olympics are happening right behind the Olympics, and I
know I'm having a hard time booking rooms, right now, for August.
AUDIENCE: The para Olympics are August 16th through the 30th, so by September they will be over.
DR. RINGEN: We'll get to some dates a little later. Maybe that's not feasible, but we will look at a location. But
should we try to hold the next meeting outside of Washington if we can do that? Is there any problem for anybody if
we do it?
(No response.)
We will select the location based on what OSHA thinks will be interesting to look at out in the field, so we'll get
back to you about that.
Before we select the dates for the next meeting, let me just cover the last thing, that I think we've talked about it
before and I thought we've had agreement on it, or discussed it with Joe Dear when he has been here, and that is to
get ex officio participation in these meetings by the various federal agencies that are involved, like the Corps of
Engineers, the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.
And I think the Small Business Administration would be great to have as -- I would welcome having that as an ex
officio member on the Committee, Anita. So if that's agreeable to the agency? I don't know that you all have ever had
any objection to that. For some reason it's never gone forward.
John Moran was an ex officio in his short hiatus in the Department of Energy.
Is there any objection to doing that, first of all?
(No response.)
Can you try to arrange that?
MR. CAVANAUGH: Yes.
DR. RINGEN: By the next meeting, yes.
MR. CAVANAUGH: Yes.
DR. RINGEN: Yes.
MS. JENKINS: I'd like to see Steve's recommendation for the various agencies to include specific language and
specifications in contracts relative to safety and other things so that everything is across the board.
DR. RINGEN: There is, in fact, a specific provision under the statute that establishes this committee that it should
look at things like that -- policy issues related to federally-funded construction.
MR. JONES: And it is the Construction Safety Act.
DR. RINGEN: Yes. Yes. So it is in the Construction Safety Act, and so it would be very appropriate for us to take up
as an issue the federally-funded contracting requirements. We will look at that between now and the next meeting to
see what we can do to facilitate.
Are there any other issues that we need to deal with, other than try to set a date for the next meeting?
Yes, Steve?
MR. COOPER: Are you getting ready to close the meeting?
DR. RINGEN: No, no, no, not at all.
MR. COOPER: I think all of us have seen the videos of Charlie Chaplin when he worked in the cake factory, and all the
cake boxes were coming down, and he was trying to stack them here and there.
Some of the work that we do reminds me of that when we're generating all these additional requirements for America,
trying to advise OSHA to promulgate all of these things, and then we've got Charlie Chaplin down at the end trying to
handle all of these recommendations coming through.
I think it's very important to this Committee to evaluate just the resources we have to implement these proposals
that we're making because I think we're in that category and getting worse because a lot of this deliberation ends up
on some shelf in the dust.
DR. RINGEN: Is there a conclusion beyond that which you were reaching?
MR. COOPER: The conclusion, which you should have caught and didn't, is that in evaluating the resources of the area,
offices, the co-shows, just how much important OSHA is an enforcement agency, it's kind of like the IRS, except the
IRS, you have to give them money every 15th, April 15th. Here, you don't have to give money.
But the committee should have a good understanding of what's out there with the agency and what the state plans.
DR. RINGEN: Yes. Well, that's a good idea. We'd like to understand better what is being enforced, what's the
capability of enforcing. And one of the things that we've had a brief discussion of, which I hope we'll get into more
if we get out in the field, and that's the relationship between field offices and the national office.
And, specifically, where does the construction expertise flow through the agency? How many co-shows out there are
construction, special lists, and so on? And do they have the expertise that is needed to do the work properly?
Definitely.
MR. COOPER: And you forgot the OSHA Institute, which does all the training --
DR. RINGEN: Yes.
MR. COOPER: -- and I think does a very good job at it, but there's all kinds of areas like that that we forget about
it.
DR. RINGEN: Correct.
If you want to take the time between now and the next meeting, as these things pop into your mind, to jot down a list
of issues, special issues like this that we should take a look at, it would be useful to have that for discussion at
the next meeting, from all of you.
There may be issues outside, just looking at standards and what's being proposed or what exists into more of the kind
of program activities that go on, and that involves not just enforcement but things like training as well.
MR. COOPER: I would also like to add that if we do have a field committee meeting somewhere, that if it's possible we
would tie in a jobsite visit somewhat closely to issues that were addressed.
DR. RINGEN: As long as it's not high rises, I'm all for it.
(Laughter)
MR. RHOTEN: It would be mice if that could be a surprise visit, Steve, if you could work that out.
DR. RINGEN: You bring your hard hat the next time you come out.
MR. RHOTEN: I don't think we should forewarn anybody so we can get a really realistic view of what's happening on
these jobsites.
DR. RINGEN: Bill, do you still have a hard hat?
MR. RHOTEN: No. I really don't want one back.
MR. COOPER: I think anything this committee does is a surprise.
DR. RINGEN: So that, unless there is anything else, and there are no surprises, let's see if we can come up with a
date for the next meeting, which is not going to be easy, I don't think.
The month of August is very bad, under any circumstances, for just about all of us. There could be the possibility of
the last week in August, but that abuts the Labor Day weekend, and I don't think it's a good time to meet.
September; the last week of September is absolutely no good for me.
MR. HALL: It's not that good for OSHA, either. You run into a bunch of problems that last week in September.
DR. RINGEN: Hopefully this year not.
MR. HALL: No, I mean any year you run into problems with the State.
DR. RINGEN: Okay. The only other possible week, the only dates that I could probably do this in September that might
be reasonable, would be the 9th and 10th.
MR. HALL: Do you want to try to meet on a Monday, which may necessitate people travelling on Sunday?
DR. RINGEN: It would necessitate travel on Sunday from you all on the West Coast. That's right.
DR. OSORIO: I can't make it. I have to give a talk at (inaudible).
DR. RINGEN: Okay.
MR. CLOUTIER: What about the following week, 16, 17, 18?
MR. COOPER: Can't do it.
DR. RINGEN: We'd have to do it in Stockholm.
MR. HALL: Is later in that week of the 9th not good, like, say, 11 and 12 or something like that?
DR. RINGEN: No, I won't be here. That's a very bad week. That ends up being bad.
In that case, we would be into the week of the 30th, the first week in October.
MS. PORTER: That's not good.
DR. RINGEN: No good?
MS. PORTER: Well, I mean, I've got a lot o budget issues.
DR. OSORIO: Sometimes you get like a one- or two-day furlough.
DR. RINGEN: I don't think we'll do that this year.
MR. HALL: What about the last week of August?
MS. JENKINS: You're running into Labor Day.
DR. RINGEN: We could do it on the 23rd and 24th of -- no, what am I saying.
MR. HALL: I was thinking that week of the 26th through the 30th.
DR. RINGEN: Yes. We could do it during that week, if it's -- you said that was a difficult week. No, I'm sorry,
that's September.
About 27, 28 of August?
MS. PAUL: That's good.
DR. RINGEN: That's good? Good with you? That would exclude Atlanta, anyway, no matter we did.
How's that with you, Steve?
MR. CLOUTIER: I think we need to do what we said we were going to do, and take it outside the Beltway, even if we
need to go to October.
DR. RINGEN: No, no. We'll take it outside the Beltway, but not necessarily in Atlanta.
MS. PORTER: Cincinnati.
DR. RINGEN: Cincinnati? Cincinnati would be fine.
MR. COOPER: Why Cincinnati?
MS. PORTER: We could do the NIOSH research program, the area office. I don't want to speak for OSHA, but the area
office is doing some innovative things out there. Not as interesting what's going on in the Atlanta regional office,
and then there's definitely construction sites.
DR. RINGEN: Spokane?
MR. COOPER: Diane can give us a videotape on all the good work they're doing up in Cincinnati.
Atlanta. There's Olympics down there. We're not going there. You can't get rooms down there.
DR. RINGEN: No, we're not going there.
MR. COOPER: We ought to go somewhere, that the directorate of construction should have some ideas to propose to us on
where we should go.
DR. RINGEN: Yes, that's how we've left it.
MS. PORTER: Right. That's right.
MR. COOPER: Like Steve says, we should go somewhere where we can do good, other than suit up and stay in a hotel. We
should go out and look at something and hold our meeting.
DR. RINGEN: Yes, we will work that out. But we will do it on the 27th and 28th of August.
The other consideration we have, if we wait until October, that makes it difficult for your trying to schedule as
well. We have to try to have finished, if it's at all possible, this program standard and the confined space
standard. That should be possible to be finished by then. In all likelihood, you wouldn't be able to be here to
present and discuss it, so that maybe somebody else would be able to do it in your place.
As you say, there is no way to schedule these things to please everybody. So the 27th and 28th of August.
MR. COOPER: Tom, does that fit in with budget?
MR. HALL: The only budget problem is at the end of September, early October. That's budget problems.
DR. RINGEN: Thanks, Steve. Thank you very much for all your good work.
I see that Steve has adjourned. Should the rest of us join him or are there other matters?
(No response.)
Excuse me. Are there any other matters that we need to discuss?
(No response.)
Do we need a motion to adjourn? I think we have one, and it's approved.
Thank you all very much.
(Whereupon, at 10:57 a.m., the meeting was adjourned.)
|
| REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE |
| TITLE: |
Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health |
| DATE: |
June 13, 1996 |
| LOCATION: |
Washington, DC |
This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Department of Labor,
Office of Administrative Law Judges were held according to the record and that this is the original, complete, true
and accurate transcript which has been compared to the reporting or recording accomplished at this hearing.
| BAYLEY REPORTING, INC. |
June 13, 1996 |
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