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«« Back to the FACOSH Page    Federal Advisory Council on Occupational Safety and Health U.S. Department of Labor + + + + + Federal Advisory Committe for Occupational Safety and Health + + + + + Thursday September 28, 2006 + + + + + Arlington, VA + + + + + The committee convened at 10:00 a.m. in room 2537-G on the 25th floor of 1100 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, Virginia, Assistant Secretary Edwin Foulke, Jr., Chairman, presiding. Present: EDWIN G. FOULKE, JR. Chair W. COREY THOMPSON Vice-Chair FRANK DENNY Designee of R. Allen Pittman CURTIS BOWLING MILLY RODRIGUEZ DONALD BATHURST THOMAS GALASSI DIANE M. BRAYDEN Secretary SHELBY HALLMARK RICHARD WILLIAMS KEITH NELSON ROBERT LEE MARTIN VICKERS MEADOWS JOSE GONZALES Also Present: JIM MEREDITH SUEY HOWE JENNIFER SILK DAVID MARCINIAK CATHY OLIVER LAURA SEEMAN Attending: RANDY ERWIN BRIAN ROGERS BILL TUMBLIN W. CZAPLA MICHAEL THOMAS DAN GLUCKSMAN MARVIN GREENE JOAN FLYNN MARIA A. JONES SAMARA MOORE TONY PIERPOINT ALFRED POPE SANDY GUCHES LOUIS ROWE ART KAMINSKI ELLEN BYERRUM BARBARA QUINN SEAN CUSSON MELISSA TERLEY VENETA CHATMON ALICE JACOBSOHN BURL KELLER LaVEETA MOTEN WILLIAM BASS MIKKI HOLMES DAVID MARCINIAK STEPHEN WALLACE JIM STEVENS LEWIS LIGONE LITA ARNOLD JONATHAN MADDEN OWEN GREULICH STEPHEN ECK I-N-D-E-X     Call to Order      Edwin G. Foulke, Jr. 5 Introduction of FACOSH Members 9 Introduction of Attendees 11 Council Organization and Procedures      Edwin G. Foulke, Jr. 20 Election of FACOSH Vice Chair 21 Approval of April 12, 2005      Council Minutes 22 Program Updates      GAO Audit on Federal Workplace           Safety & Health                Diane Brayden 23      SHARE Initiative           Edwin G. Foulke, Jr./ Shelby Hallmark 32             i)   Progress to date              ii)   Proposed extension             (Question/Answer regarding SHARE)             iii)   Agency Recognition Program        Federal Agency Recordkeeping Change           Diane Brayden 64      Federal Agency Training Week           Diane Brayden 83      Pandemic Flu           Suey Howe/Jennifer Silk 94      Motor Vehicle Safety           Larry Liberatore 121 New Business 129      Facility Systems Safety   Program Updates (Continued)        Cooperative Programs           Cathy Oliver/Laura Seeman 150 Additional New Business 177 Adjourn   P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G (10:09 a.m.) SECRETARY FOULKE: Good morning. My name is Ed Foulke. I am Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Administration. I want to say, first of all, thank you to each and every member of the FACOSH Committee for being here today and agreeing to serve. I know that you probably have other things that you could be doing and probably have other duties that are always pressing, but we deeply appreciate you agreeing to take time out of your busy schedules to participate in this committee. And this is a very important committee in that what we do here in our -- as part of -- is helping to make sure that federal employees have a safe and healthy workplace. Hopefully, what we do will allow additional things, changes and best practices or whatever that will allow to reduce injuries, illnesses and fatalities in the government. And that's really an important thing when you think about it -- the opportunity to try to help allow -- to do something that will actually help allow employees and workers to go home each and every night back to their families safe and sound. So it is an important charge, and I just want to say thank you very much for agreeing to serve on this committee. Also, I'd like to recognize that the this is Labor Heritage Month, and in recognition of that, AFGE Local 12 has provided coffee and donuts and food for this meeting, so we deeply appreciate that, too. The notice of today's meeting was published in the September 8, 2006 Federal Register. A copy of that notice is included in each of the members' packets along with a copy of the accompanying OSHA trade news release. The agenda which is in on the second page is included. That outlines the topics to be discussed at today's proceedings, and copies are also available for the other attendees in the audience. And I'd like to thank all the attendees that are here today for showing interest in this important area, too. Also in your meeting materials is documents relating to a program topic which we will be discussing today as well as a booklet that we have been asked to provide to you on emergency preparedness for individuals with disabilities, and I think that's this right here (indicating) here at the front of the desk. Before we move on to the next item on the agenda, I'm going to ask is Keith Pendergrass here? There is back in the back there. Keith works here at MSHA, and I must admit you all have a nicer view than I have at down at 200 Constitution Avenue. Keith is going to go over the emergency evacuation and shelter in place here at the facility. MR. PENDERGRASS: Good morning, everyone. I am Keith Pendergrass. I'm with the Facilities and Property Management branch here. Welcome to 1100 Wilson Boulevard and to my Safety and Health. I'm going to give you first of all the two most important things, where to eat and the bathrooms. They're next door, and you need a code to get into them, and the code's are posted on the walls. As far as eating food, we have a cafeteria down on the mall, and we have a couple of little eateries down on the lower mall. And if you want to go to some place like Chipotle's, we have that across the street. Blimpie's is across the street. And McDonald's is just around the corner by the subway. Now for emergency evacuations, if we should happen to have an incident, there will be an alarmed sounded, an audible alarm, and they will tell you to evacuate the building. The evacuation routes are both stairwells. One is located just back here (indicating). When you go out, just turn to the right, and you'll see a sign saying Exit. Take the steps all the way down, and it will let you out right here on this side of the building. Once you get outside, just cross the street to Rosslyn Plaza, which if you look out the window, you can see it. The second set of stairwells are right over here next to Strayer, and they're to the left. Once you get passed the elevator lobby, just turn to the left, and you'll see this exit for the stairwell. Take that down, and that will take you to the same spot as this set of stairwells. And then just proceed over to Rosslyn Plaza, check in with whoever is over there, and let them know that you're here. If you have a list of all the attendees, let them know that everybody is present, of ir anybody is missing or if anybody is still in the building. As far as emergency holding rooms, the emergency holding areas are within MSHA suites, and you actually will need a card key. But in case of an emergency, there is someone who sits near both doors. Just knock on the door, they'll let you in. There are two rooms, one on each side of the building, and they're right as you go through the glass doors. As far as shelter in place for this floor, we have one large library that's also located in MSHA space. If we have a shelter posture 2, that's where you would go to. In case there is a shelter in place, posture 1, everybody will remain here. We just keep the windows closed, and somebody will be up to give you further directions and see if you need anything. That is basically it as far as the evacuations. Usually, if it's a fire, they'll evacuate the floor above and floor below. So if you hear an alarm and it goes off on this floor, then it is for this floor. If you do not hear it on this floor, then it's not for this floor, and it's probably for the floors above us. In that case, everybody just stays put. And I think that's it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll let you know. Thank you. SECRETARY FOULKE: Okay. Thank you, Keith. I appreciate it. I think what we'll do first is to kind of start off by introducing each of the members of the Council, and then also what we'll do, I'd like to have the other attendees here to introduce themselves, too. When we get to that point. I think there's a wireless mic so we can record this, we have a -- what I'd like to do is everyone, if you would, please state your name, your official title, the organization you represent, and for the Council members here, indicate whether you are a member or you are a designated alternate. My name is, like I said, Edwin G. Foulke, Jr. I am Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, and I am also, under the FACOSH charter, designated the Council Chair. MS. BRAYDEN: I'm Diane Brayden. I'm the Director of OSHA's Office of Federal Agency Programs. MR. HALLMARK: Shelby Hallmark. I'm the Director of the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, and I guess I'm sort of the ex officio member of the committee. SECRETARY FOULKE: Why don't we go this way? MR. THOMPSON: Corey Thompson. I'm the National Safety and Health Specialist for the American Postal Workers Union, and I am a member. MR. WILLIAMS: Rich Williams, Chief Health and Medical Officer, NASA, and I'm a member. MR. NELSON: Keith Nelson, Assistant Secretary for Administration at HUD, and I'm a member. MR. MARTIN: Robert Martin, Assistant to the President, Organizing Director of Marine Engineers Beneficial Association, and I'm a member of the Council. MS. MEADOWS: Vickers Meadows. I'm the Chief Administrative Officer at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and I'm a member. MR. GONZALES: Jose Gonzales, Supervisor, Immigration Enforcement Agent, and I'm a member. SECRETARY FOULKE: Thank you. MR. DENNY: My name is Frank Denny. I'm the Acting Director for Occupational Safety and Health for Department of Veterans Affairs here for Mr. Pittman who is a member. I am not. MR. BOWLING: I'm Curtis Bowling. I'm the Director for Environmental Radiance and Safety, Department of Defense. I am a member. MS. RODRIGUEZ: I'm Milly Rodriguez. I'm the Health and Safety Specialist of the American Federation of Government Employees, and I'm a member. MR. BATHURST: I'm Don Bathurst. I'm the Chief Administrative Officer for the Department of Homeland Security, and I'm a member. MR. GALASSI: Tom Galassi, Deputy Director, Directorate of Enforcement Programs, not a member. SECRETARY FOULKE: All right. Why don't we go ahead and start in the back there, and just, you know, if you would just tell us your name and your organization. MS. WALKER: Hi. I'm Michelle Walker. I am Team Leader in OSHA's Office of Federal Agency Programs. MS. MILLS: Laura Mills. Again, OSHA Office of Federal Agency Programs. MR. LeGAINIER: Louis LeGainier, Office of Federal Agency Programs. I'm an Industrialist Hygienist. MS. HOLMES: Mikki Holmes, Office of Federal Agency Programs. MR. WALLACE: Steven Wallace, EHSD Program Manager, Treasury. MR. VAND: I'm Richard Vand, Director of Employee Safety and Health with MSHA. MR. STEVENS: Jim Stevens, Safety Director, Department of Agriculture. MS. ARNOLD: I'm Lita Arnold with the Transportation Security Administration. MR. GREULICH: Owen Greulich, Pressure and Energenics System Safety Manager, NASA. MR. ROHT: Louis Roht, Deputy, Safety and Health, National Park Service. MR. MEREDITH: Jim Meredith, Safety and Occupational Health Manager, Department of the Interior. MS. GUCHES: Sandy Guches, Chief of Safety and Occupational Health for Bureau of Land Management, Department of the Interior. MS. CHATMON: Vaneta Chatmon, Program Specialist, OSHA Office of Communications. MR. CHOPLA: David Chopla with Plexus Scientific and the Department of Defense Volunteer Protection Program Center of Excellence. MR. ROGERS: I'm Brian Rogers. I'm also with Plexus Scientific in the DoD VPP CX. MR. TUMBLIN: Bill Tumblin, Director of ESO Programs for Concurrent Technologies Corporation and the Voluntary Protection Program Center of Excellence for DoD. MR. MADDEN: Jonathan Madden, Associate Counsel, Seafarers International Union. MR. DICKERSON: Marvin Dickerson, Disaster Safety Officer for FEMA Occupational Safety and Health. MR. PIERPOINT: Tony Pierpoint, Department of Homeland Security. MS. BYERRUM: Ellen Byerrum, Reporter with BNA. MS. TURLEY: Melissa Turley. I'm a reporter with Federal Human Resources Week. MR. KELLER: Burl Keller, Supervisory Safety Specialist wit GSA National Capital Region. MR. MARCINIAK: Dave Marciniak, Safety and Health Manager for GSA. MR. POLK: Alfred Polk with GSA. MR. COSSEN: Sean Cossen, Government Affairs Coordinator of the VPP Participants Association. MS. QUINN: Barb Quinn, Contract Support for FAA Headquarters EI Services Group. MR. BASS: Bill Bass, Safety and Occupational Health Manager for the Office of Surface Mining, U.S. Department of the Interior, and home of the Superbowl champs. MS. MOTEN: LaVeeta Moten with Department of Interior Office of Surface Mining. I'm Program Analyst/Collateral Duty Safety Officer. MR. ALDRICH: Robert Aldrich, Office of the Solicitor, Department of Labor. MR. ECK: Steven Eck, Safety and Occupational Health Manager for the Department of Justice. MR. THOMAS: Michael Thomas, Federal Aviation Administration, Office of Environment, Energy and Employee Safety Policy. MR. KAMINSKY: Art Kaminsky, Assistant for Safety, Health and Fire, designated alternate for DoD. MR. GLUCKMAN: Last but not last, Dan Glucksman, International Safety Equipment Association. SECRETARY FOULKE: Great. Thank you all very much, and I appreciate you being here for the meeting. It was interesting -- I'll just kind of give you a little bit of background on myself. Let's see, tomorrow I guess I'll have been the Assistant Secretary for six whole months, so I'm still kind of learning where everything is. But I've been involved with Safety and Health for about 25 years from a legal perspective. And in the first Bush administration, two years in the Clinton administration, I was the Chairman of the OSHA Review Commission, so I have a little familiarity with the federal government and workplace safety involving federal employees. You know, it was interesting. Last week I was in China. I had the opportunity -- had the honor to get invited to come speak at the Chinese Third International Safety and Health Expo. And they're just kind of changing, kind of moving into the safety and health area, but they are very much interested in what they're trying to do. And I met with the government officials from what the call SAWS, which is the State Administration for Work Safety, and this is the organization, I guess, as close as you can get to as a counterpart for OSHA in China. But they are very much interested in workplace safety and health for all their employees and including -- I talked a little bit since I knew I was having this meeting this week -- I asked them a little bit about their open involvement with their government employees, and they said they do take that very seriously and have been trying to work on it. It's interesting to see the comparison, though. I mean they have such a much longer history of civilization than we do. But, you know, OSHA's been in effect now for 35 years. We're celebrating our 35th anniversary this year. And, you know, in talking to the Chinese safety government officials, they're very much interested in finding out what we are doing in workplace safety and health, because they really want to learn from us, and I think this will give us an opportunity, working on this committee, maybe to provide them assistance and information that they can use in making their government employees safe. As a matter of fact, they are talking about coming over and doing an educational tour in '07 bringing some of a lot of their governmental officials within their of with them to look and see what we're doing in all areas of safety and health. So it was a very interesting dichotomy there that even though they had a very old culture, safety and health is kind of new to them, where safety and health, to a certain degree, is new to us in that we've only been doing it really, from the federal perspective, from a federal law and a coordinated law, for 35 years. But I think we have made great strides with respect to workplace safety and health. In 1971, when we were instituted or when we started, there were a little over 14,000 workplace fatalities countrywide. This past year in '05, we had 5,700 approximately fatalities. Now obviously that's a significant reduction, but it's even more significant when you recognize that, in fact, between '71 and now, the number of people in the workforce has more than doubled. But I think you would agree with me that even though we have reduced the number of fatalities, just having one fatality is one fatality too many. And we're going to work very hard to continue to try to reduce that with the ultimate goal of getting to zero fatalities in this country. And we've also had significant reduction in that 35 year period -- we've reduced injuries by 60 percent, and we've reduced illnesses by 40 percent I believe. But once again, the idea is still that we have a lot of people that are getting injured on the job and contracting occupational illnesses because of their work. And so whatever we can do here today to help reduce those numbers is a good thing and a very important thing. So I'll say again, I appreciate and I want to thank you again for your participation in the organization. I guess at this time, I'm going to spend a little bit and kind of do some more housekeeping stuff, I guess, is the best way to describe it, about the Council's organization and procedures and how it's organized and how it functions. In your packet, we have the FACOSH Articles of Incorporation, which addresses all these areas. The Council is a 16-member body comprised of an equal number of management representatives of federal departments and agencies and labor representatives appointed by the Secretary of Labor. This Council represents all new members appointed by the Secretary on June 6, 2006 for terms of one, two and three years. These staggered terms are meant to reestablish the continuality of the Council since the terms of the Council members all expired simultaneously about last year. As your membership expires, the succeeding members will be appointed to a three-year term so that one-third of the membership will expire annually. The purpose of FACOSH is to advise the Secretary on matters relating to occupational safety and health of federal employees. As I mentioned earlier, I, as the Secretary designee chairs the Council and will call and preside at all of our meetings. If for any reason, I am unable to attend a meeting, the Vice Chair will act in my absence. The Vice Chair is to be elected under the Articles of Incorporation by the members to serve on an annual calendar year basis. This position will rotate between agency and labor members. The office was last held by a management on the last council, so only labor representatives are now eligible to serve in this capacity. In a few moments, I will take a formal vote to elect a Vice Chair. Because of the unique relationship between OSHA and OWCP, I've also invited Shelby to participate, and as he noted, he is the ex officio member of the Council, as he has done on preceding councils. And you did a really good job, I understand, but, you know, so -- MR. HALLMARK: Thank you, sir. SECRETARY FOULKE: We are required to hold at least two meetings each calendar year including the annual meeting. And I am very much committed to this. I know in the past, we've had some problems on a lot of the advisory committees on meeting, so I am very much committed in making sure that the committees meet and that we meet at least the minimum number that we're required. To convene a meeting we must have a quorum of at least six members or alternates with a minimum of three management and three labor representatives. Alternates must be designated by the member, in writing, to me as Chairperson, which we have previously requested from each member. The parliamentary procedures as outlined in the Robert's Rules of Order will be followed at all meetings of the Council. Resolutions require a majority vote by members or alternates in attendance. Is there any question on the make-up of the Council or how it will function by any of the members? (No verbal response.) SECRETARY FOULKE: At this time then, we will elect a Vice Chair, and I would like to enter a motion to nominate W. Corey Thompson, Jr. as the FACOSH Vice Chair. Mr. Thompson represents the American Postal Workers Union AFL-CIO and has been an active member of the Council in the past previously serving a three-year term. Because of his dedication and commitment and proven leadership in the safety and health field, the Secretary has appointed Mr. Thompson to serve a second three-year term on the Council. Mr. Thompson has expressed a willingness to serve in this capacity, and I appreciate you're willing to do that. Are there any other nominees for the position of Vice Chair? Hearing none, I would ask for a vote to say all in favor of Mr. Corey Thompson to serve as FACOSH Vice Chair, please signify it by saying aye. (Chorus of ayes.) SECRETARY FOULKE: All opposed, nay? (No response.) SECRETARY FOULKE: The ayes have it. Congratulations. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Let the record show that W. Corey Thompson has been elected by the membership to serve as Vice Chair of the Council for the calendar year 2007. If you will turn to the Minutes. All right, the draft minutes of the April 12, 2005 FACOSH commission were previously emailed to you, and one modification was requested. An updated copy of the minutes is included in your packet. Based on a staff review of the official transcript, I attest that these minutes accurately reflect the discussion of the Council at its April 12, 2005 meeting. Therefore, I will entertain a motion that these minutes be accepted as written and incorporating any other changes. First of all let me ask you, are there any changes to the April 12, 2005 minutes by any Council members? Hearing none, then I will entertain a motion from someone to accept the minutes as written. MR. WILLIAMS: So moved. SECRETARY FOULKE: Mr. Williams, okay. Thank you. Is there a second? MR. GONZALES: Second that. SECRETARY FOULKE: Seconded. All in favor of approving the minutes of April 12, 2005, please signify by saying aye. (Chorus of ayes.) SECRETARY FOULKE: All opposed, nay. (No response.) SECRETARY FOULKE: The ayes have it. The minutes of April 12, 2005 have been approved. With respect to program updates, we have seven program matters to discuss today, and the first report we're going to discuss is the GAO Audit on Federal Workplace Safety and Health. In April of 2006, the Government Accounting Office, GAO, published a final report on how OSHA can improve its oversight of federal agency safety and health programs. I have asked Diane to talk to you about the GAO findings, their recommendations, the OSHA Statement of Executive Action and Response to their report, and anything else you want to talk about on that. So I'm going to turn it over to you. MS. BRAYDEN: Thank you, Ed. I think many of you are aware that the GAO did a rather extensive audit of the state of worker safety and health in the federal sector. The audit was done because federal Workers' Compensation costs exceeded $1.5 billion dollars in 2004 with approximately 148,000 new claims filed that year. The audit was initiated due to concerns both for the safety of federal workers and for the costs associated with the unsafe workplaces. This audit, I believe, took place over a period of about 18 months, and in the course of the audit, GAO surveyed 57 agencies and found that most reported having at least some activity in each of the six components generally associated with good safety programs. These components include management commitment, employee involvement, education and training, identification of hazards, correction of identified hazards, and medical management including a return to work program for injured workers. GAO also found that agencies faced implementation challenges in the areas of data management, accountability and safety resources. In the findings of the report, they stated that many agencies do not have automated systems to track employee training, and several agencies did not hold their managers accountable for maintaining effective safety programs. Many agencies also admitted that due to limited resources, they often depend on safety officers with limited professional safety experience. The bulk of the report addressed OSHA's oversight of the safety and health programs and policies in the government. The report alleged that OSHA's oversight was less effective than it could be due to not using enforcement and Compliance Assistance resources in a strategic manner. There were four basic findings that they came out with. First, that OSHA did not conduct a large number of inspections of federal worksites and did not have a national strategy for targeting worksites with high injury and illness rates for inspection. The second finding was that OSHA did not track disputed violations to resolution or refer unresolved disputes to the President. Thirdly, it stated that reports on the status of safety and health that are due to the President each year were overdue. And lastly, it reported that OSHA's Compliance Assistance programs designed to help agencies comply with its regulations and improved safety were not being fully utilized. In summary, the GAO stated that OSHA faces a number of challenges in monitoring federal agency safety programs and, over time, has adapted its methods to try to make the most of its resources. However, OSHA's oversight could be further strengthened if it took a more strategic approach says the GAO. It recommended that the Secretary of Labor should direct OSHA to take certain actions. First, OSHA should develop a targeted inspection program for federal worksites based on the new worker injury and illness data federal agencies are required to collect. They suggested that be done by requiring the agencies to report summaries or relevant portions of that data in their annual reports or by obtaining the data from the agencies through period selected surveys. The second recommendation was that OSHA should track violations disputed by federal agencies to their resolution and ensure that the unresolved disputes are reported to the President. The third recommendation was that OSHA should conduct evaluations for the largest and most hazardous federal agencies as required and to use evaluations, inspection data and annual reports submitted by federal agencies to assess the effectiveness of their safety programs and to include that assessment of each agency's worker safety program and recommendations for improvement in Department of Labor's report to the President. OSHA responded to that report in the following way: We found that several of the weaknesses that were identified in the report had been recognized by OSHA prior to the initiation of the GAO survey and plans for initiating new approaches to enhance OSHA's effectiveness were in various stages of development. Additionally, in some cases, there seemed to be some confusion in the survey results which led to misleading findings. So OSHA responded to the three recommendations for executive action in the following ways: The first recommendation had been to develop a targeted inspection program. OSHA's Office of Federal Agency Programs has been struggling for some time to develop a targeted inspection program directed toward the most dangerous workplaces. We fully recognize the need to do so. The problem is that sources of data for injuries and for workplace employment have been and remain incompatible. This makes the determination of injury rates for individual worksites impossible. Recognizing that there is a serious need for a national targeting program, we have attempted to develop such a program which is presently undergoing departmental review. This program would be based on injury rates at the departmental level or independent agency level, because we do have rates at that level. We simply do not have rates at the individual worksite level. This process would be a short-term fix to carry us over until we find a way to access site-specific injury and employment data making it possible to accurately identify and address the workplaces that are posing the greatest degree of risk to workers. The second gap noted by GAO, which was the failure to track appealed violations, was largely due to misunderstandings. All notices of violation that are issued to federal agencies are tracked in the same tracking system as are the citations that are issued to private sector employers. Therefore, if the data is entered properly into that system, all notices are tracked as to status through appeal and to closure. However, the appeal process for the federal sector does differ from the contest process for the private sector, which apparently led to some errors in data entry. Nevertheless, we did note that we could improve our internal tracking of appealed cases within the Office of Federal Agency Programs, which is the point at which the appealed cases go for OSHA-level resolution. So we have developed an internal tracking system so that as we receive a case on appeal, we will enter the case into that system so we have a very condensed, consolidated database to follow so we will know what we have that we need to be addressing. So we did make improvements there. The third recommendation by GAO was to conduct annual federal agency evaluations. Due to staffing limitations, OSHA has not conducted full scope field evaluations of agencies during the past several years. We will be looking at the possibility of re-instituting agency-level onsite reviews at some time in the future. However, for the moment, we are enhancing our use of other tools at our disposal to address this issue. In this regard, we have been working diligently to increase the staff in the Office of Federal Agency Programs and are pleased with the progress we have made during the past year. In fiscal 2006, we brought one certified safety professional and two highly skilled Program Analysts. My staff that is present here has already introduced themselves, but Mikki Holmes in the red there and Laura Mills are the two new Program Analysts that we have on our staff, and they have really hit the road running and are doing a great job for us at this time. With this new challenge on Board, we plan to apply a significantly higher level of analysis to the annual reports and where serious deficiencies are identified, they will be addressed and noted in the report to the President as was recommended by GAO. Very shortly, the request for agency annual reports will be sent to the DASHOs of each department and independent agency. You will find the information requested this year considerably more extensive than what was asked for in the past. In addition to requesting the more specific data, including some OSHA 300 summary results, if they are available, we are also asking for agency feedback on certain issues of interest or concern to allow us to begin developing meaningful and practical methods of addressing more fully some of the gaps identified by the GAO. For instance, we will be asking about the manner in which the agency has implemented the new OSHA 300 record-keeping and how that system is managed. Is it an electronic system? What all can the system do? Would you be interested in a common system for all federal agencies for the accumulation of the OSHA 300-type data. We are also asking for information about the agencies' use of volunteers and how the injuries experienced by that subset of employees is being managed at this time. You will be pleased to learn that the annual reports to the President are current at this time. In an effort to maintain the state of timeliness of the annual reports to the President that we have worked so hard to achieve, the annual report request that goes out to the agencies will be asking for your reports to be due by January 1st, which is the regulatory deadline from 29 CFR 1960.71(a)(1). Unless we follow the mandate in the Regulation, OFAP will not be able to conduct the analyses we have committed to while still compiling the report and getting it to the President by our deadline as prescribed in 1960.71(b). In summary, OSHA has been working diligently to use the insight provided in the GAO report to reinforce our support to the federal agencies and to assure the federal employees the most safe and healthful working environment possible. In this regard, you can expect to be asked that more comprehensive and detailed information be provided in your annual reports. Meanwhile, we will be working toward an efficient and effective means of gathering establishment-specific information to be used as a tool in focusing our enforcement and evaluation efforts. SECRETARY FOULKE: Thank you. Does anybody have any -- do any of the members have any questions about the GAO report or OSHA's response to that or anything we're doing on that? (No verbal response.) SECRETARY FOULKE: On thing I know we are trying to look to do more federal worksite inspections, and one of the things that I've instituted among our regional administrators is going to be a flash report which will indicate -- give me pretty much, at least on a monthly basis, the number of federal site inspections that we are doing. And I do have the goal of basically trying to make sure that an appropriate number, at least, of inspections of federal worksites are conducted by our OSHA investigators. So, hopefully, you're going to see a little bit more activity in this area and that that will also be helpful to you. The second report is dealing with the SHARE Initiative, which is the Safety, Health and Return to Employment Initiative, and it goes by SHARE. I think we got a little PowerPoint presentation there. Shelby's going to help me. We've actually done this a couple of times. As you can see, the SHARE Initiative is a federal executive branch initiative which was announced by Presidential Memo back in January 9, 2004. It was intended to go through this fiscal year, and we have requested -- both Shelby and myself have made presentations to the Secretary to recommend to the President that the SHARE Initiative be extended for an additional three years, because, as the results that you'll see, I think, are very impressive and demonstrate the worthwhileness of the program or the initiative. As you see, the emphasis is on the Return to Employment programs and it ran through this fiscal year, and it basically establishes four goals, two of which are under OSHA's purview and two are under OWCP's review. The four goals are one, to reduce the total case rates by at least three percent per year; to reduce the lost-time case rates by at least three percent per year. The third goal was to improve the timely filing of injury and illness notices by at least five percent per year, and the fourth goal was to reduce the rates of lost productive days due to injuries and illnesses by at least one percent per year. And the SHARE goals are basically aligned with the President's Management Agenda goals on human capital, and also aligns with the Department of Labor Strategic Goals; one, to foster a quality of workplaces that are safe, healthy and fair and to minimize the impact on work-related injuries. And it aligns with OSHA's mission to promote and assure workplace safety and health and to reduce workplace fatalities, injuries and illnesses. Under SHARE, the Department of Labor's role is first to lead the initiative, also to provide assistance to all federal agencies, then to also measure the performance of each department and agency against their goal, and then to report annually to the President. And going now to basically seeing where we've been tracking the goals here, the first goal, as I mentioned, the number one goal is dealing with total case rates. And as you can see, the baseline for Fiscal Year '03 was about 4.25. In '04, our goal was basically about 4, and we did not meet our goal in '04 for the entire federal government. On '05, we basically reached our goal. We were slightly above it, but just basically we were very close to reaching it. And then '06, we actually have, through the third quarter, and based on the initial numbers that begin for the fourth-quarter -- as you can see through the first three quarters of fiscal '06, we are on track to actually meet our goals by a fairly significant amount considering that we hadn't met the goals the last two times. With respect to goal number one, here it is by some, but not all, of the agencies that we have on. And this is for Fiscal Year '06. As you can see, goal versus actual. And you can see, for the most part, almost all the agencies, all the departments within the government, have met their goals. I think you can see why. One of the reasons we've actually kind of -- actually are going to meet our goal and actually exceed our goal in case rates is the dramatic increase that the Department of Homeland Security has done. They've done a yeoman's job on addressing their issues, and I think they realize that -- they went trough a lot of growing pains, and I think we were pretty excited about the reduction there. But you can see where we are, and we're going to keep focusing on all the agencies to continue to reduce it government wide. Our goal number two on lost time case rates, once again, we did not -- we had a baseline of about almost 1.75 in '04. In '05, once again, we did not make our goals. But as you can see for Fiscal Year '06 through the third quarter, and looking at the data we have on fourth quarter, it looks like we will meet our goal federal government wide less the postal service for Fiscal Year '06. Once again, with respect to goal number two dealing with lost time case rates, these are the major agencies for '06 goal versus actual. And once again, you can see we've done a good job of reducing our lost time case rates, but we obviously still have some work to be done. So. MR. HALLMARK: Okay. As Ed said, the third and fourth goals are monitored by OWCP since they focus more on the what happens if injuries do occur side. And it's important -- and I've spoken to this group several times about SHARE -- it's important to keep the two issues linked, because obviously we want to stop injuries, and that's the whole point of the safety program, but injuries will always occur, and it's important that we take care of the individuals and make them whole when they do occur. The goal number three is particularly apt in that regard, but that's focused on timeliness of submission of claims. One of the reasons why my organization really wanted to have this goal included in the Presidential Initiative is to address one of the issues that GAO talked about -- could in fact agencies be inclined t meet the goal by not filing the claims, in effect by fudging the numbers, if you will. This goal focuses on the fact that when a claim, when an injury occurs, you must get the injury notice in quickly and that, I hope and I believe, contrary to anything that GAO may have suggested, has resulted in a tremendous improvement in this whole area. Agencies have gotten their act together, and the data show it. About ten years ago, OWCP started talking with the agencies about the problem of getting claims in timely. At that time, the national average across all the agencies was in the 30 percent range, 30, 35 percent. And that's within 14 days. In our day and time, a completely abysmal product. We started talking about that. The agencies started looking at their processes. Many agencies have done a lot of work on this and have reorganized different ways to try to get it done. And once the Initiative has kicked in, you'll see that we've made tremendous progress, and I'm really very pleased about this. We can go to the next slide, Michelle. This breaks it out by the individual agencies, and I would just note here that, again, Homeland Security deserves a tremendous amount of credit for the very substantial improvement there that they've made against the goal in 2006. I believe Homeland Security went to use of the Department's SHIM system, which allows for an electronic submission of claims. And that is a big help in getting these claims in quickly. It's not the only answer, because obviously somebody's got to get that electronic transmission going. But obviously it does help, and several agencies that have gone electronic have improved. The Labor Department uses, of course, it's own SHIM system and continues to be the leader on that particular measure. The lost production day goal is a little bit -- this is my favorite goal, actually. Since I made it up, I like it. But I think the reason why I really like it is because both the safety side of the house can accomplish this goal by avoiding injuries happening in the first place, so you don't lose days if the injury doesn't happen, and the FICA case management side of the house can address it by making that process work well and getting the return to work process going so that people are made whole and get back to work quickly. So it's a really nice metric that shows the integration of those two sides of the house, which don't always talk with each other as much as we'd like. It's also a very difficult goal, because unlike safety, which can address major areas across the board in broad management approach, case management is an individual person-by-person activity, and it really takes hard work and intensive focus. That's why this is, I think, the most difficult goal, and it's one that's clearly been difficult for us in the last three years under SHARE. The first two years, we didn't make it at all. I think in '04 a big part of that shortfall was the startup of TSA and the difficulties that agency had in trying to get baggage moved in airports that weren't designed for that kind of activity. '05 looked a lot better but still short and, again, as Ed indicated, in Fiscal Year '06 through three quarters, and we bleive this is sufficient margin to carry us through in the fourth quarter as well, we are finally meeting the goal. So that means cumulatively all four goals for SHARE look as if they're going to be met,. and that's a tremendous accomplishment and one for which the folks in this room deserve credit. Just breaking this out a little bit on lost production days by agency. We have a couple that are struggling. DHS is still struggling on this and that, I think, largely goes to the fact that at TSA and a number of the law enforcement entities, it's very difficult to find return to work and make that process happen. It's not impossible, and we're certainly working with DHS, and they've been working with us. But that's a challenge. Justice has the same problem. Bureau of Prisons is the major contributor to their shortfall. Again, a difficulty in finding places for people to go back to work. But most of the agencies are making significant improvements. I'd like to specifically cite the Defense Department, which has really done well in this area and has a very effective program. So that's sort of the rack up of the data and, Ed, if you want to talk about these issues. SECRETARY FOULKE: Why don't you go ahead. MR. HALLMARK: What can DOL -- DOL obviously, as Ed indicated, is the entity asked by the President to monitor and lead the SHARE initiative, and we in OWCP spend a lot of time and effort as we can in our management structure to help on this. First of all, obviously to capture the data that's used to track these accomplishments against the metrics. And in my view, that's job number one, because if you don't know where you are, you can't make improvements. And I think at this time of the year, when we're all sitting down trying to figure out whether we met our GPRA goals and our performance goals for our personal evaluations, metrics become very important. They also can become anxiety producing, but they are the reason why people get better. Because you look at those numbers, and you have a clear understanding of where you're reality is and you need to get better. So we've done that. We've put it up on our Web site. We apologize that our Web site was out of commission for the last several weeks due to some serious security breaches, but it's back up now. Knock on something. And we really encourage everyone to use that data. Obviously, we also do a lot of outreach. OWCP and I know OSHA as well have addressed inter-agency meetings that we convene, FEB meetings around the country where agencies are getting together, joint management union meetings where we can to try to get this word out. Because SHARE and all of these goals are things that I think everybody on both sides of the LMR fence can sign up to and work hard to accomplish. And that is, I think, very important as well, and we feel strongly about that. We do in OWCP, and I know OSHA does as well, workshops on how best to train your folks to address these issues, especially in the difficult FICA area for us. We try to get out and respond to requests from agencies to get these training courses in so that their injury comp folks can be up to speed, and we're continuing working with them on that here through our national office folks and our regional staff. Newsletters, training, technical assistance, all of those things are available. Ed, I don't know if you want to or Diane wants to expound on the OSHA side of that. SECRETARY FOULKE: I think we can move on. MR. HALLMARK: The next slide talks about the future. The President's Initiative for 2004 through 2006 is over on Saturday. We believe that the progress that was shown in 2006 especially makes it clear that it's appropriate to continue this effort. We have made really good strides, but if you look at the base numbers, they're still not acceptable. We still have a very large number of injuries in the federal workplace, and the lost production days number, which is how many days actually get lost because of workplace injury and illness, per 100 FTD is about 52 right now. That means if you figure we have about 2 million employees covered by this Initiative, that's roughly 1 million lost days every year. One million lost days, I would submit, is way too many, and in our view, that suggests that we need to get this project extended and get those targets out in front of us again so that we can, in fact, make further progress. Ed, do you want to speak to that? SECRETARY FOULKE: Yes. Well, we are definitely going to be -- the Secretary -- like I said earlier, the Secretary had requested -- had made the recommendation to the President to extend the initiative through FY '09 basically maintaining all the 2003 baseline goals. Also, as I indicated, the Secretary has forwarded it to the White House for their consideration. Hopefully, they're going to -- we've been pushing very hard. We sent that up a week ago or two, two weeks ago, I believe to the White House and trying to see if we can get it finalized in the White House and approved for the start on October 1st of this year. MR. HALLMARK: As Ed said, we're really trying to get this signed off and out to the agencies quickly. Those of you who were around in 2004 know that the Initiative started in January which made it rather difficult to charge ahead in Fiscal Year 2004 since most of it was -- or a lot if it was already behind us, so we want to avoid that. We want to make sure that people know that we're moving ahead and that this is, in fact, going to be a continuing undertaking. I suspect most people felt like that was probably going to happen, and I certainly hope that the President agrees that it's appropriate. The only things that we're really doing in terms of changes the goals is we're making a couple of adjustments in goal three and four, primarily aimed at avoiding sort of inappropriate results. In goal three, we're putting sort of a cap on the top, and I'm responding, in part, to my own Assistant Secretary for Administration, who is unhappy that if he has to keep making a 5 percent improvement of 98 percent, he's going to have to go crazy. So we've said 95 percent is an acceptable cap, and I think that's a reasonable outcome. But we're also saying that the 5 percent increase every year is not enough for those agencies that are still down in the 30's and 40's. We're proposing to set a minimum of 50 percent in 2007, so that, in effect 50, percent timeliness is really not that hard, and anything less than that is, in my view, completely unacceptable. And then we would move that minimum up each year. For most agencies, that's not going to come into play, because you're already in the 70, 80, 90 percent range now, and that's fine. But there are a few agencies that haven't really focused on this issue, and we'd like to send that signal that getting half of them in in two weeks is really not that hard. With regard to goal four, lost production days; again, a lot agencies that had very low injury rates are going to have a very difficult time continually reducing those injury rates, especially the small agencies that only have a few employees. So we're proposing to set a sort of a base level of performance of 15 lost days as being a, you know, you don't need to get better than 15 lost days and continually improve from a level that's really quite good. So those are the changes. They're really just tweaks to the metric as opposed to anything fundamental. And that's what's on the table now for the President to consider. SECRETARY FOULKE: I don't know if any of the Council members have any questions about the SHARE initiative. As you can see from the data, clearly it has been successful. It is working and doing what was envisioned that it would do when it was implemented. Once again, as I mentioned before, we want to try to continue to move forward on reducing our injuries and illnesses as best we can. And one thing I will say from an OSHA standpoint, is that, of course, we do have a lot of tools and resources that we can help provide to agencies and departments within the government. I really sincerely want to do that. I'm probably going to be sending out a letter to, or maybe the Secretary will, offering assistance to the departments and agencies within the government, whatever OSHA can do to provide that. If you have the opportunity to look on our OSHA Web site, I believe its one of the best Web sites in the government in providing a lot of practical information. We get a lot of complements from the private sector on this. But we want to try to assist and provide whatever resources we can to the agencies to further help them, first of all, achieve their goals, which is important. But the more we can do in just overall reducing injuries and illness even if we didn't have goals, we'd want to provide assistance in that. I don't know if anyone has any questions about that. Yes. MR. BOWLING: I just have a comment. I would lie to work with Shelby on the Web site on the way defense is rolled up in goals three and four. The Army, Navy and Air Force are now rolled up in the DoD total, and I just think it would be a better presentation if we do that showing DoD as all of DoD, including the services. So I'll work with you on that. MR. HALLMARK: Certainly a reasonable notion, and I guess we've never done it just because history, but I think you're -- MR. BOWLING: Right. MR. HALLMARK: -- I certainly approve of the notion right off the top. MR. BOWLING: Thank you. SECRETARY FOULKE: I would agree with that, because they got guns. MR. HALLMARK: Well, yes, they do have -- they have persuasion. MS. BRAYDEN: I believe one of the reasons that sometimes we don't report that all rolled out together is because you're so huge that the number becomes very large and so by breaking it down, we can fit you on the chart with everyone else. But we can certainly take a look at that. MR. BOWLING: Okay. MR. HALLMARK: Well, I take it you're suggesting the summary would be in addition to the breakouts of the -- MR. BOWLING: Whatever works. I'm open for discussion. We appreciate just having the conversation. MR. HALLMARK: Sure. MR. BOWLING: Thank you. SECRETARY FOULKE: Yes. And I would note, too, one of the things that OSHA provides to -- that we're trying to do more on with the federal agencies is our Compliance Assistance programs. We have some partnerships, I know, with the Army, and I think with some of the other departments and also our Voluntary Protection Program, the VPP, which basically is a recognition -- is a program where we recognize basically the best of the best. I know we have three naval facilities, shipyards that are in the VPP, and based on the calculations for '05, they have determined that the fact that -- they believe that because of the fact that they were in VPP, that they saved approximately $2 million dollars last year in Workers' Comp cost, which is a tremendous amount. I know Secretary Rumsfeld has been very interested in moving into this area for the whole Department, not only from a standpoint for money, but also I understood it was an issue of readiness that really piqued his interest in trying to find out what would be the best -- how to get into programs that are going to help reduce injuries and illnesses and, clearly, fatalities. And so I would recommend to you -- and I'm hoping we're going to provide -- like I say, again, we're here to provide assistance. These programs, this Compliance Assistance programs can be extremely helpful and beneficial and, like I say, reduce injuries and illnesses but also at the same time save your agency a fairly significant amount of Workers' Comp. We're just talking three facilities saving $2 million dollars in Workers' Comp costs. That's a tremendous amount of money. So if you don't know about the VPP or our partnerships in there, then we'd like to talk to you about each. And I think that's something we're going to try to do this coming year, really make a conscientious effort to sit down with every department, every agency in government and talk a little bit about what compliance assistance, what additional things we can do for you so. Any other questions? Yes. MR. NELSON: If you have them, we'd be interested in seeing any of other agency's statistics on '06 through three quarters that weren't listed here on the slides. MS. BRAYDEN: If you access the OSHA Web site, we do have raw number within the OSHA Web site. And then we also link to the ESA Web site, which gives the rates and the goals and who's meeting what goals. And you have access to all the data there. SECRETARY FOULKE: Okay. MR. WILLIAMS: Yes. Just one comment, question. The comment -- we at NASA have embraced the VPP -- SECRETARY FOULKE: I'm sorry. You're right. You have. Yes. MR. WILLIAMS: We've got -- several of our centers participate with that program. We've found it very useful, and thank you for that program. The second thing is kind of a narrow question. You may have eluded to the answer, but could you shed just a little light on the challenges within the Department of Homeland Security and why those data are so markedly different. TSA and bag handling, is that the main reason or? MR. HALLMARK: That's a big one, and obviously that's one we've been focusing. It's not the only issue, because you have Border Patrol and other kinds of -- a lot of law enforcement, and recently in the news, Air Marshals. There's a lot of people who are at risk in high-risk kind of situations. The baggage handling, however, is particularly difficult. It brought 60,000 employees in a very short period working in 400 airports that didn't have any kind of real provision for them. And lifting 75, 100 pound bags and twisting and turning is really a prescription for back injuries, and so that, I think, is the major cause for the spike in 2004. I don't know if you wanted to -- MR. BATHURST: Yes, there's a couple of things with that. A, as said, we've threw a lot of these -- one of the unintended affects of the establishment of the department was we actually put a lot of hazardous types of occupations together, and the baggage issue, and the TSA screeners, both on passenger lines and in the baggage screening lines, they trend consistent with private sector work. Again, it's the lifting, twisting, turning type of injuries, and we're working, you know, both on the design of the equipment and, you know, how we can move that stuff long, but those are longer term solutions. Plus getting people back to work is a bit of a challenge because of the type of work and the rotations of -- you can't just put someone on an x-ray machine all the time, because you've got to give them a break from that or you're going to end up with other problems. The other thing is with '03 base. It's a little bit of a challenge for us because we came into existence in '03, and it's very hard to match exactly a lot of our components into the base, especially when we were established, a lot of the legacy organization actually got split into multiple organization, so the numbers don't exactly tie to what our current organization is. So probably in aggregate, it's a little bit better, but when we try to break it down internally, it's a little bit harder to track that data. And then, of course, on the law enforcement side, we've got most of the law enforcement activities in the federal government, and I would say some of the most active law enforcement. And my tours on the border, amazing as to how many arrests, apprehensions, gun battles, scuffles, vehicle accidents really in very, very inhospitable environments. You know, we're very happy with the focus we have both on our vehicle work, law enforcement work, our aviation programs, but we can always improve, and we're certainly trying to redouble our efforts. MR. HALLMARK: The fact that the injury rate has gone down is tremendous and obviously, as Ed said, is one of the reasons why we're meeting the goal -- if it's not the primary one. We appreciate that. MR. BATHURST: That's one of the reasons we didn't meet the goal as a government, you know, force, so we try to bring it back. SECRETARY FOULKE: My wife's bag is the one that's marked forklift only. MR. BOWLING: I'd just like to give another commercial for VPP, and I thank you for the kind words on what the Department of Defense is trying to do. We have five installations that have reached the start status and, as you say, we've seen, you know, increases in the number of accidents, in injuries, reduced Workers' Compensation cost, improved the safety culture. And I think we've recognized that as a real key to where we want to go with our safety program in the future. And I want to thank OSHA and their support in helping us do that. At the introductions, you heard three gentlemen introduce themselves as a DoD VPP Center of Excellence, and that's a group that has stood up to help us move forward on VPP in a broader scale in the Department of Defense. We looked at 43 sites in FY '06. We did the GAP analysis and the action plans to kind of get them ready to become part of the VPP program. That included the Pentagon, which I think is a great undertaking. The Pentagon is a huge office building that has all sorts of activities, not only from office space, but it has package handling; it's a heliport; it's got law enforcement; it's got a whole bunch of functions that you normally don't see in an office building plus it's huge. So we think that's going to be, as the corporate headquarters, kind of the keystone of what we want to do in the safety program. In '07, we're probably going to do another 40 sites to get them started. And as I said, I think we're looking -- this is really the way we're going to change the safety culture in the Department of Defense and really do the right thing for the people who work in our installations and office buildings. SECRETARY FOULKE: And I would note for those who are not familiar with the VPP program, in the private sector, the companies, the facilities that are in VPP, their lost time injury rates are 50 percent below the industry average as a total average, so clearly the proof is in the pudding, and it's there. And I would say, to kind of put a plug for OSHA, we actually have had three sites, three of our area offices are in VPP, so we are walking the walk, I guess, is the best way to say it. As a matter of fact, last night at midnight, I signed our fourth one, the Chicago office, a big area office, is going to be in the VPP, so. The results are actually just tremendous and, like I say, we're here. We have the people here to help you get into that and provide you the assistance, to show you how we can help you get your facilities across the country into the program, so we're happy to do that. Anything else about the SHARE Initiative? Yes, Corey. MR. WILLIAMS: Let me just add, of course, the postal service is very big into partnerships and VPP. I think we have 80 facilities with 78 of them getting star. But from a union perspective, let me just give you a little idea, because I know you all deal with that, is it's been fantastic. We've seen incredible reductions in injuries and injuries that we have seen, we've seen a reduction in lost time. So it's a win/win. And I definitely would say to anybody that has an idea of doing this that I would be happy to talk to you about it from the labor perspective or how you might approach those things. So we've been very happy in coordination with our ergonomics program. We've seen even greater reductions, so it helps your numbers. SECRETARY FOULKE: And we appreciate that. I mean the post office has been really one of the leading forces on VPP in the federal government, and I think they're committed to getting something like 34,000 facilities in the VPP. Probably won't do that this year -- MR. WILLIAMS: Next year. SECRETARY FOULKE: -- but the following year, they should be close to it, but anyway. MR. HALLMARK: Just as a footnote to this, the total claims we expect to have for this fiscal year will be less than 140,000, which is still a lot, but it's the lowest number since 1973 or thereabouts. So that suggests to me that these programs are working, that SHARE is helping, and this is the second year in a row we'll have like an eight or nine percent reduction, and that's really good news. MS. RODRIGUEZ: A question for Shelby on follow-up with agencies, that you might, you know, qualify as poor performers. What happens? I mean certainly the numbers will show you that, but what kind of follow-up is there from your office or even from OSHA's end? MR. HALLMARK: Well, we have tried to work directly with agencies where we see there are significant problems on lost days and on timeliness. Timeliness is rather difficult, because it's kind of spread. Right now it's now kind of moved to the smaller agencies where it's, you know, we run into people who just, you know, have system problems and other things. I'm open to somebody, you know, to request or suggestions about how to address that, and anybody here from the State Department, we're always looking for improvement on State's results on that score. As far as lost production days are concerned, as I've said, it's a very intricate and difficult goal. And I think it's frustrating, especially in light of the reduction in the total number of injuries that the lost days isn't going down in a sort of lock step. It is going down, but it's not as dramatic. And that really gets to this sort of one person at a time process that is involved in getting people back to work. And, as I said, we provide help. We've talked with TSA, and I believe there's a pilot operation going on about coordinating their efforts with safety people and nurses with our nurse process to try to get the best results. Hard there when you have, you know, these job duties that are really extensive and bump up against somebody who has a surgically repaired back and just can't do these physical activities. So, you know, that breaks you down to a sort of agency by agency, workplace by workplace, person by person effort. And certainly one of the things that I would say today is agencies that think they would like to hear from us, that would like to hear some of the best practices and suggestions about how to do these rather difficult lost -- return to work activities, just give me a call, or, you know, my folks. My number is 202-693-0031, and we'll get you to somebody who can help. SECRETARY FOULKE: Yes? MR. ROWE: Are you taking questions from the participants? SECRETARY FOULKE: Sure. Unless you get out of hand and then -- MR. ROWE: Have Michelle drag me off. SECRETARY FOULKE: That's right. MR. ROWE: My name's Louis Rowe, National Park Service, and we only have about 25,000 employees, so we're relatively small. But we have 390 sites geographically located all over the nation, and most of our sites are smaller sites where they're not SES. The superintendent might be a GS-12. And as much as possible, we're shoving the SHARE goals, and we think SHARE is great, and we're putting those goals right down into those performance appraisals for those individuals as well as key staff at those parks. We would love to see the goal language correlate with what the OSHA 300 summary now says, because that superintendent and staff can pull up anytime during the year information out of our electronic system, which is OSHA 300 now. So we don't see recordables, and don't see DART on the SHARE goals. What we see are lost time cases, and we see total incidents. But for my people that are very technically competent, they say you know there's a difference in the way those are calculated. We say, yes, yes, just ignore that. But for those that are less sophisticated, they say, well, I'm being graded on one thing, but I'm looking at something else at my own site, so what does this mean to me. So it would be good to have DART and recordables in the language on the SHARE goals in the future so that as we put those down to those sites, that superintendent, that division chief can look at that and say, yes, that's what we're looking at folks, pull it up for our division, this is where we're at, got to work harder at it. SECRETARY FOULKE: Okay. That's a good suggestion. MR. ROWE: The second thing that we would comment on is that the annual report that will be due January 1st is going to require us to put data together that's -- with an annual year now, a calendar year that closes on December 31st, because we're not longer doing the old record-keeping system. We're now on a calendar year OSHA 300 record-keeping system, and my last OWCP data dump where I correlate my data against OWCP doesn't come in for about a month, month and a half. So I won't have all my data to give you a good report until somewhere around the middle of February. And when we used to have that fiscal year report, that was fine to hit a January mark, but now that we're on a calendar for the OSHA 300 system, that's going to be very difficult for me to give you good data as I still have things coming in from OWCP. MS. BRAYDEN: Okay. In response to that, your annual report is a fiscal year report. It is not a calendar year report. Now we understand that your OSHA 300 data is recorded as an annual year, so when we go out and we ask, we know that we cannot get good OSHA 300 data from all of the departments. What we're going to try to do is find out what we can get and what impediments you have to providing that kind of information to us. It is very important that we get that information at some point in some way, but we have to find out how we can actually accomplish that, and what works for you, what kind of systems you have in place that you can use to get us that data. And with that feedback, then we can develop systems and processes within our office to work with you to get the data that we need so that we can manipulate it and use it in a positive way. MR. ROWE: Well, we're fully on board with you. We want to do everything that we can to make our own programs better. I just wanted to make sure you know that a big piece of that report we won't have until 40 days after you've asked for this report to be due, so just to keep that in mind. MS. BRAYDEN: Okay. MR. ROWE: Thank you very much. SECRETARY FOULKE: Yes. MR. DENNY: Just a cautionary note. I know that everybody's talking about this data and cost, but if you push it down too far, then your lower level managers have a tendency to concentrate on the final data numbers rather than improving the program, and the manipulation of the data becomes the driver as opposed to the outcome, which is why we're, within the VA, are tending to use the data at a national level, perhaps even at an administrative level. But insofar as holding our managers at the facility level accountable, we're looking at performance measures that are in the process area rather than the outcome area. SECRETARY FOULKE: Yes. I know that's something that OSHA's always been concerned about in the private sector about incentives and goals and everything else like that -- are the numbers being somehow skewed or not everything being reported or whatever, because clearly we want to have accurate data, and we want to have -- the intent of the system -- the intent of the initiative is clearly to help reduce injuries and illnesses in the government. So I understand where you're coming from on that, too. Any other questions or any other comments? Okay. Thank you. I think the Secretary has said that she wants to establish a program to formally recognize some of the more notable performance accomplishments of the agencies and meeting the SHARE Initiative goals. And I know OSHA and ESA and OWCP are working together to explore ways to develop such a program, and we're going to keep you apprised as we work through that development process. The next report that we have is dealing with federal agency record-keeping changes. I know we have two more reports that we want to try to get finished before we break for lunch, so our next report is going to be on the federal agency record-keeping changes, and Diane's going to give an update on the status of the changes on the injury and illness record-keeping requirements that took place for federal agencies effective on January 1st of '05. MS. BRAYDEN: Now as you all know, the federal government did adopt a new method of recording injuries and illnesses experienced by our employees that became effective January 1st of 2005, so we're now well into our second year under this new system. This new system is nearly identical to the system used in the private sector. There are a few nuances that are different because of special things that apply to the federal sector. During the past year, a great deal of training and guidance has been provided to assist agencies in their transition. I addition to the many speaking engagements we have participated in, information is posted on the Office of Federal Agency Programs Web page. We hope to update that page in the near future to expand the Frequently Asked Questions regarding the record-keeping and also to create so me special links designed to funnel the federal agencies more directly to the guidance that will be most useful to them. On that page, you will also find a link to a video that was produced by the Veterans Administration with OSHA and post office participation. This has been distributed to the DASHOs and the Safety and Health Councils as well as to the OSHA area offices. At this point in time, most of you should be far enough into the change to maybe not need that basic information anymore, but for anyone who feels that they need go back and get a grasp on what the differences are and what actually happened there, you might want to go back and access that video. It is available on the Web site and can be very useful in guiding you through what the change is, why it came about and what the basic differences are. Although the federal and private industry record-keeping regulations are nearly identical, one of the differences has to do with the recording of injuries and illnesses experienced by volunteers. In the private sector, you don't have a lot of volunteers in your workforce. The people who are working for profit-making entities typically are getting a salary. That's part of the deal. With the federal sector it's quite different. We have hundreds of thousands of volunteers that work with us regularly. They work in all different kinds of capacities. Some work even full-time without compensation. Some work in office environments, but others work in the field where they have as much exposure to hazards and injuries and illnesses as our paid employees do. So it's very important for us to make sure that we are tracking the injuries and illnesses that are experienced by this section of employees, and they are employees in the federal sector as defined in Part 1960. MR. HALLMARK: They're also eligible for FICA. MS. BRAYDEN: Right. They're eligible for compensation which is also probably different than what is in the private sector. In the 1904 regulations as they apply to the private sector, it specifically states in the preamble that their volunteers will not be included in the record-keeping. In the federal sector, we do need to include them in the record-keeping because in the definition of employee, volunteers are included under all aspect of 29 CFR 1960, the safety and health programs, and record-keeping is a component of that regulation. So we do need to keep track of the injuries and illnesses to volunteers. Now we are still kind of feeling our way through this, and we are anxious to get feedback from you about how you think that can best be implemented. If there is some way that you think we should be specially tracking them separate from the others or making a notation when the injury or illness is being experienced by a volunteer. This kind of information is important to us, and so this is some of the information that we're asking for in the request for the annual reports from the agencies. We want to hear back from you what kind of experiences do you have: What do you have for volunteers in your workforce; what kind of work do they do; do you have an idea of what the injury/illness experience is with this group of people. We have made some initial inquiries of a couple of the departments to find out what it is they're doing. We are trying to get a sense of what's going on out there, how is this being managed at this point in time. One of the departments that we reached out to was the Department of the Interior, who has a high level of interest in this topic. Jim Meredith is here from the Department of Interior. He has asked to address the Council on this issue. Jim is the SMIS Manager at DOL. Jim, would you like to speak? MR. MEREDITH: Good morning. I'm here on behalf of Kathleen Wheeler, the Interior designated safety and health official, and I appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak with you a few minutes today. I did want to talk to you about this issue, which is very important to the Interior Department, regarding the accounting for and including of work hours specifically for volunteers and the calculation of agency injury and illness rates. I do have a statement here which I don't know if you have that in your packet or not, but I'd like to read it into the record for you. (Reading) The Department of the Interior is the nation's principle conservation agency. Our mission is to protect America's treasures for future generations, provide access to our nations natural and cultural heritage, offer recreation opportunities, honor our trust responsibilities to American Indians and Alaska Natives, and our responsibilities to island communities, conduct scientific research, provide wise stewardship of energy and mineral resources, foster sound use of land and water resources, and conserve and protect fish and wildlife. The work that we do affects the lives and experiences of hundreds of millions of people annually, including visitors, land owners, farmers, ranchers, employers, communities and other stakeholders. Interior is a large decentralized agency with over 70,000 employees located in approximately 2400 operating locations located across the United States, Puerto Rico, U.S. territories and freely associated states. Each year the Department attracts some 200,000 volunteers that help care for and are sharing in the stewardship of our public lands and natural resources. They contribute their time and talents to a wide array of volunteer duties including assisting staff with scientific experiments, data collection and clerical assignments. They also serve in many areas of resource management and recreation. We estimate the dollar value of the hours contributed by volunteers in 2005 to be at nearly $162 million dollars, but their value goes much further than that. The volunteer workforce has proven to be an important adjunct to the federal workforce assisting with hundreds of programs and projects. They bring fresh energy and enthusiasm, new ideas and skills that energize us all. Retirees and older volunteers find an outlet for their knowledge and their expertise. Younger volunteers gain job experience. Volunteers come away with a deeper understanding of the breadth and complexity of the Department's mission, and the Department is reminded of the depth of the public support for public lands and our missions. DOI agencies take many precautions to protect volunteers. We include training, personal protective equipment and placement into positions where they are physically and mentally prepared to succeed. Even so, upon occasion, a volunteer is injured while working for Interior. Official volunteers are directly supervised by government employees and are covered under FICA. These volunteer injuries are included in the OWCP injury and illness case totals reported to BLS, and injuries and illnesses are logged at the installation OSHA 300 logs as required by 29 CFR 1904. While Interior agencies with active volunteer programs do compile records of volunteer hours, the Department of Labor does not currently collate or include the work exposure of volunteers when publishing injury and illness rates for federal agencies and for the Safety, Health and Return to Employment, SHARE, Initiative. Since volunteer hours are a significant portion of some agencies overall work exposure, including volunteer accident cases without including volunteer exposure hours results in inaccurate and, we believe, higher injury rates with the implication that the agency's safety experience is worse than it actually is. For example, this is an example of our exposure. In 2005 we had just short of 9 million volunteer work hours, and that amounted to about 6-1/2 percent of our combined volunteer and employee work exposure. The National Park Service, it's an even more significant portion in their case, about 5.2 million hours, and that amounted to about 12.7 percent of their combined work exposure. So you can see from our standpoint, this has a significant impact on our programs and on any rates that might be reported. While this correspondence represents only the viewpoint of the Department of the Interior, other federal agencies, particularly those with resource management responsibilities similar to the Interior such as the U.S. Forest Service, are facing the same issue. We also understand that other agencies like VA and FEMA have very, very large volunteer exposure. The Department of the Interior requests that the FACOSH ask that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Bureau of Labor Statistics take this issue into consideration. The Department is prepared to take part in any effort to more accurately quantify injury and illness rates and looks forward to the resolution of this problem (end reading). And that is the statement that I have. I'd be happy to take any additional questions. I also have, like I said, Louis Rowe, from the National Park Service and Sandy Guches from the Bureau of Land Management, both agencies which have very large volunteer programs. SECRETARY FOULKE: Are there any questions from the Committee members? MR. DENNY: I noticed in your presentation that you used the term hours worked for calculating your volunteers. Is that true? MR. MEREDITH: We collect on an annual basis -- unfortunately, that's the best we have at the moment -- on an annual basis, we calculate -- we do collect hours, and we -- MR. DENNY: So you calculate the number of volunteers by the number of hours worked? MR. MEREDITH: That's correct. MR. ROWE: We calculate both ways. We know the number of volunteers and the number of hours that volunteers work. MR. DENNY: Because that would be a little bit different than the -- would that be different than the way you are calculating for your employee injury and illnesses since many times federal agencies use FTE as a mechanism and go through OPM to do the calculations? MR. MEREDITH: We are fortunate. Our electronic database allows us to capture employee work hours through our payroll system so that we do know -- based on payroll, we know how many hours. So within the Department, we do our injury and illness calculations based on hours of work exposure. MR. DENNY: How do you report that to OSHA? MR. MEREDITH: Well, we track what -- you know, like I said, that's what we have, and I think in our previous annual reports, that's the information that we -- that's how we have reported it. MR. DENNY: You report is as a calculation under hours? MR. MEREDITH: Yes. MS. BRAYDEN: As far as the SHARE program works, because we don't have accurate employment data for volunteers, when we get the OWCP injury and illness data, we subtract out the injuries and illnesses that were experienced by volunteers, so that data is based only on paid employees. And the reason for that is the employment data issue. MR. MEREDITH: Okay. SECRETARY FOULKE: Anything -- MR. DENNY: Just to continue on. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to figure out how this is going to -- do you calculate them out separately insofar as whenever you report volunteers versus employees or do you mix them? MR. MEREDITH: To be honest with you, I don't really have an answer for that. To the best of my knowledge -- I mean we would like to report them. Obviously, we feel that because -- in a general rule, we don't want to put volunteers perhaps in some of the more hazardous environments that we may perhaps have some of our full-time employees in. You know, if we included those, it does, you know, from an accounting standpoint, it makes our organization rates look better. But again, that's not what it's really all about. MR. GALASSI: Jim, as you well know, from a safety and health perspective, the OSHA record-keeping system, one of its big purposes is so that the site safety and health person has that information so that they can use it a as a form of hazard identification. And I think you just said that -- is there an effort to make sure volunteers are not in the more hazardous types of activities? Are there hazard assessments they do to ensure that they're lowered hazard jobs or things of that nature? Because it is a very important tool to identify where the hazards are and what actions to take. MR. MEREDITH: I think that's a case of the journal. I may defer that question back to Sandy or Louis who are more directly -- MS. GUCHES: Sandy Guches with BLM. At least for our Bureau, we have a volunteer manual that states specifically what volunteers can and cannot do, and they are not allowed to do things like fight wild land fire or do hazardous materials and hazardous waste kinds of activities. And there's, you know, a list of those things. And we train our managers and supervisors and volunteer coordinators accordingly. And Bureau of Land Management has been heavily involved in risk management in the last few years, and risk assessments are completed for these kinds of jobs. And so we do train our employees and our volunteers exactly the same way, but our volunteers do not do hazardous duty in accordance with our policy. And even the OPM definition of hazardous duty, they are not part of that. The one thing that is important to know is that the volunteers, they often don't have a regular schedule of work. There might be, you know, 100 volunteers for this trail building or this trail cleaning, so it's really hard to use a calculation. It's important, I think, to use the hours that they're actually working for us because of the way that we utilize them -- campground host for a month in one place. They might more over to a forest service campground in another area. MR. ROWE: The Park Service has a multitude of sites, 390 sites now, and we have a full range of exposures for our employees. And we don't prohibit volunteers from doing many of the jobs in the parks, but we do match the volunteer age, skill, experience, physical condition, mental condition, situation awareness to the job. Now I'm not handing a pistol to a volunteer and saying you're working a border patrol park now, and you'll be stopping drugs coming across. But that same volunteer might be getting into a helicopter to do part of an animal study with three scientists, the helicopter crashes, we lose four people. So we try not to put volunteers in hazardous situations, but as soon as you get off the road in a park like Yosemite in the wintertime, you may be in a situation that's hazardous even though we have hundreds of thousands, or in this case literally millions, of visitors that do the same thing. So we assess the hazards, Tom, but we are not always able to say we can't expose every volunteer to every hazard, because there could be a moose right next to the superintendent's office that is in rutting season and gores a volunteer that's walking in to deliver the mail, and those kinds of things happen. But we do assessment as much as possible, and we try to match the volunteer to the job. SECRETARY FOULKE: Okay. Thank you. Any other comments. MR. HALLMARK: I had just a quick comment. I assume the way the SHARE system works is that FICA claims are identified as volunteer and that OSHA withdraws them from the counts, so that you're injury rate is only figured on your actual government FTE. Obviously, I applaud, and we talked a little bit earlier about the question of inappropriate incentives, and I applaud the notion of making sure that volunteer injuries are being tracked and that safety activities are being directed in their way. And I know that as the Director of OWCP, from time-to-time, I'm made aware of new groups of volunteers that are added by one agency or another. Recently the Commerce Department -- I don't know if there's from anybody from there now here -- added a very large component of volunteers, boaters, who are involved in documenting situations with respect to water levels and so on. They're out there no in a federal worksite, presumably not frequently managed, not supervised. So that's a challenge that agencies have to make sure that, in fact, there is a program, that somebody's paying attention to it, and that when injuries occur, somebody takes care of them. SECRETARY FOULKE: Did you have a question? MR. DICKERSON: More sort of a comment. Yes. My name is Marvin Dickerson with FEMA, and because this kind gentlemen evoked our agency name, I thought it was appropriate -- the fact the volunteer issue is a national issue. It is an issue where you surely don't want to defeat a person's volunteerism, but at the same time, obviously there has to be some standards or some guidelines established for that. In FEMA, we have an agency called VOLAG in which we try to filter people through but is indicative of Hurricane Katrina -- there's a disaster that I just come back from New Orleans -- actually worked down in Louisiana for the last year -- the number of volunteers are overwhelming. And so I'm thinking that maybe perhaps at this forum, it might be an excellent place to talk about maybe OSHA or some other agency chairing a national -- to spearhead a national effort to start making sure that volunteers who do volunteer for various agencies understand that there are certain prerequisites that are needed for them in terms of safety equipment and safety protocol when they get into a disaster or get to an area like the Department of Interior. Because when people really want to volunteer to do something, they're doing it out of the goodness of their heart or out of patriotism or whatever, and you certainly don't want to stymie that. But I found out -- or at least I've learned down in the New Orleans during the initial phases of Hurricane Katrina -- that people were streaming in in droves, and they were determined to want to add value to the process, but they were not prone to want to hear or listen to any kind of guidelines talking about the safety equipment that you may need or the safety way in which you need to address certain issues. And so there were some people who were turned back and some people who were filtered to VOLAG. But I think that the country probably needs to make sure that whenever an event occurs or a disaster where volunteers are headed to, that the country, if it's an incident of national significance or a major incident, that somewhere we need to have some vehicle to let the volunteers know that we really appreciate them participating; however, there are some very important things that they have to do before they get there, whether it's a hurricane or whether it's volunteering to go into the national parks. I don't think that we have the national capability to look at volunteers without stymieing their interest at the same time helping them to understand that they're volunteers and could also add to injury to themselves. And we surely, in my organization, we couldn't go out and address the volunteers, those that were not going through VOLAG, but yet they were adding value to the process. And I think volunteerism in this country, especially during the last couple of years with the hurricanes in Florida and then this Katrina thing, was up very high. But yet you find people wanting to make the John Wayne entrance, if you will, and they're not concerned about the need for understanding the safety issues that may be prevalent there. And so then when you start looking at the record-keeping issue, it becomes another problem because if you're not going to get them to adhere to the principles or the tenets of what constitutes being in an area and being safe, then surely, you know, you start looking at how does that impact your Workers' Comp or how does that affect your program overall. I think my suggestion basically is that maybe perhaps there should be a national effort to talk about volunteerism in general and set some established guidelines on what volunteerism is, especially if it's in an area where they'll put themselves in harms way. SECRETARY FOULKE: I would note on that issue, we actually had some frustration as an agency, because we had a number of grants that were given, emergency grants, training grants that were given specifically to help train workers in Louisiana and in the Gulf region. And the grants are written such that it talked about training of employees. And basically, as I understand it, we actually have gotten a legal opinion on this thing and said, no, employees are employees, they're not volunteers, and, therefore, they were precluded from technically receiving that training. As I understand it, basically what we did was we would hold training courses for employees, and if some other people happened to walk in, we weren't going to throw them out. But that just shows you right there, once again, we were limited on -- because there were a lot of volunteers that wanted to receive safety and health training and how to handle -- to recognize the hazards that they were going to be placed in. So it is a problem and something we probably need to do, have a serious look at how we can address the whole across the board issue. What type of training do you do with your volunteers when they come up? Do you do safety and health training for them or? MR. MEREDITH: I think to a large degree, we probably provide much of the -- similar training that we provide our regular employees. Again, I might defer if you guys have any additional comments, but I think we provide them with a general orientation that we would provide any new employee. We would include them in any of our ongoing safety and health training we provide employees ranging from some, you know, training specific to an activity that they might be involved in to perhaps even being involved in the regular employee toolbox meetings, safety meetings, any orientation and training that's provided for any special activities that they might be involved in, including, you know, activity hazard analyses and things of that nature. So to my knowledge, we provide them much of the same, if not the same training that we provide our regular employees. MS. BRAYDEN: This is all the type of information that we knew that we need, and we recognized that particularly FEMA would have some very different volunteer issues than say the Smithsonian or the IRS that may have people assisting with people doing their taxes. So the type of volunteerism out there is far reaching and very much varied. And so that's why in the annual request for the agency annual reports, we want this kind of feedback so that we can understand more fully what the challenges are for the various agencies out there, and then find a way to work through this issue and work through it with you, so. Thank you very much. MR. MEREDITH: We certainly appreciate that. Like I said, it's an integral and a growing part of our work accomplishment and mission accomplishment, and we're looking forward to providing you input in the annual report and also to working with you to help better address this issue. Thank you very much. SECRETARY FOULKE: Thank you. MS. BRAYDEN: Thank you. SECRETARY FOULKE: Do you have some other comments? MS. BRAYDEN: While we're still on the area of record-keeping, I did want to also speak a moment about the issue of OSHA 300 data collection. This is an issue that definitely needs to be addressed and was not initially taken on when the record-keeping requirements were changed. The GAO, as I have noted, has already strongly and appropriately recommended that this data be used to identify hazardous worksites and to assure that these most hazardous worksites receive the proper attention and assistance from OSHA necessary to protect their employees. The GAO had recommended that we either request this data through the medium of the agency annual report or through special periodic surveys. As has already been pointed out, it's difficult to get that data with the annual report because of the timeframes. The annual report is done on a fiscal year basis. The OSHA 300 data is collected on a calendar year basis. So there is a bit of a disconnect there. I'm not certain that that will be a very effective way of getting timely data unless we back off nine months before -- you know, if we get it a year late. The periodic survey suggestion might be workable if we can find a cost effective and efficient way to do that. Other ideas have been put forward about developing a database that could be made available to the various agencies whereby we could collect -- they could manage their OSHA 300 data concurrent with their OWCP claims filing. There a number of such systems out there now. The Department of Labor has the SHIMS system that does this sort of thing, and some of the other major departments have also developed electronic systems for their own departments where they enter their injury data, it is also funneled into a system to do the OSHA 300 record keeping. We've had a number of parties approach us on this. Some are private entities that would like to have a contract to develop such a system. Some are existing systems. And then we've also ben approached by various internal organization such as NIOSH and BLS who believe that with some of the software that they already have in place and which they are using to manage this type of data for the private sector, that perhaps we could use this -- we'd have to do some additional development -- but use this to collect the federal data as well where we could come up with data that is establishment specific, with establishment being under the definition of OSHA's establishment which is different than sometimes how agencies report to OWCP. And we can get their injuries and their employment data together, understand where that establishment is and then actually use that in a way like we do for the SST program for the private sector. So that's something we're looking at. And in the request for the annual report, we're going to be asking you there also, what do you think of this; would such a system work for your agencies; do you have an opinion about that. And then with your feedback, we can take that into consideration as we move forward to try to figure out how it is we can move forward to collect the data that we absolutely need to have. And that's about all I have on record-keeping unless someone has a comment on the OSHA 300 data collection issue. SECRETARY FOULKE: Okay. Thank you, Diane and Jim. I appreciate your presentations. I see it's noontime. I think since we've been meeting for two hours, it would probably be a good time to take a break for lunch. Would 1:15 be enough time for everybody to do what the need to do and eat also and whatever. Well, we'll just stand adjourned -- recessed until 1:15 and return to here. Thank you. (Whereupon, off the record for a lunch recess.) SECRETARY FOULKE: I'm going to reconvene the FACOSH committee meeting. Our next report is on federal agency training. As some of you may know, or maybe all of you will know, each year the OSHA Training Institute sets aside a week of training dedicated exclusively for training federal agency personnel, and I've asked Diane to kind of give us an update about the federal agency training week. MS. BRAYDEN: Thank you, Ed. As reported, the GAO audit, many agencies admitted that they depend on safety officers with limited professional experience as a result of their limited resources. IN addition, there is a very wide use of collateral safety officers to support the safety programs overseen by the few full-time professional safety officers on staff. There seems to be a well-recognized need to enhance the skills of the personnel in the field that can make a real difference in our safety and health programs on a day to day basis. OSHA makes a Web based collateral duty course for other federal agencies, course number 6000, available to federal employees from all agencies free of charge. The duration of this course is 23 contact hours broken up into one hour segments on a wide variety of topics, some of which address discrete types of hazards and others which provide foundation and administrative safety topics such as the OSHA Act and Standards and how to conduct inspections and write inspection reports. It is essential that the collateral duty personnel complete this course to provide them with at least a limited background to pursue their collateral duty safety and health duties. However, for the use of the collateral duty safety officers to be truly effective, additional training is needed. As you probably know, OSHA has been setting aside the one week each year at the OSHA Training Institute specifically for training federal employees who are involved in safety and health activities. In the past, this event was held in June and afforded federal employees an opportunity to take one 3-day course on a single topic. These courses were fairly in depth and provided a good background on the topic area that the student was studying. However, this format may not have been ideally suited to the collateral duty officers who need training over a wide variety of topics rather than a very in depth study of a single topic area. In an effort to assist the agencies in preparing the collateral staff to be effective in their roles as on-site safety and health monitors, OSHA is offering training week this year from Tuesday, November the 16th through Thursday, November the 18th with what we believe will be a new and improved format. We will now be offering a menu of half-day courses over the three days providing students an opportunity to select up to six seminars of interest from a wide variety of safety topics. That's six topics per person. The seminars will be provided on 12 topics covering general industry safety, construction safety and industrial hygiene areas. The courses or seminars that we offer will include respirators, emergency response, general construction, demolition, scaffolding, electrical safety, fall protection, ergonomics, fire protection, lockout-tagout, safety and health management and introduction to industrial hygiene. Four seminars will be offered concurrently during each half-day period, and each topic will be offered twice during the week making it easy for the students to schedule a combination of courses best suited to their individual needs. The announcement for this training week opportunity will be coming out hopefully within the next few days, and the courses are offered free of charge, and course registration will be completed online making it very convenient. Again, there is no cost for these courses. The agencies would pay travel costs, but we think that by providing a wide variety of topic areas that the agencies may find this training to be more cost effective, because the collateral duty officer will get training for six topics during the week rather than just one. Are there any questions about that? MR. NELSON: Any costs? MS. BRAYDEN: There's no tuition fee. Only travel costs would be covered by the agencies. VICE CHAIR THOMPSON: Are the courses geared towards introductory type courses, or are they geared towards those that may have some experience in the fields or? MS. BRAYDEN: It would be expected that the student would have had the basic collateral duty course so that they would have a basic foundation. These are condensed versions of the full scope, the full size OSHA courses that are usually -- they'd condense them down into shorter periods. SECRETARY FOULKE: Yes. You might want to say your name again just so it will be on the record. MR. ROWE: Louis Rowe, National Park Service. Thank you so much. That sounds like a brilliant concept, and we would love to take advantage of that. How about we take that out to the ten regional offices over a year? We'll even chip in funding. SECRETARY FOULKE: Did you get that on the record? MR. ROWE: We are all over the nation, and it's hard to bring everybody together in one place like that, but if we could do that in ten regions over the course of a year, that would be extremely valuable. Just a thought. SECRETARY FOULKE: That's a good thought. We'll see if we can work on that. Okay. MR. GALASSI: Interesting, Louis, as you say that, we, I guess, you know, following up on the GAO report and to start looking at our offering of training, we are starting to explore, and it's just very exploratory, what opportunities there are to expand on collateral training and that kind of model. And I understand some of the agencies such as the VA have some ongoing laudable training for collateral duty, and actually it's sponsored by AFDE that they put on once a year. They train about 250 to 300 of their employees. And we participate formally every year. And I don't know if there are other agencies that do something like that, but it certainly is an area that I think all agencies need to focus on. And OSHA will provide assistance, you know, where we can. MR. ROWE: We've been using distance learning technology, satellite broadcast uplinks, that type of stuff. We reached about 5500 people last year with safety classes that range from two to six hours in length. There are sometimes technical difficulties with making a class like that last too long, but we would love to take advantage of OSHA resources, broadcast those everywhere, and those are digital signals. They can also be turned into analog signals, so that anybody that has a receiver can receive that type of signal at distance type events and worksites all over the nation, including places like Joe's Bar in Montana which we once used as a training site and sent a signal into so that BLM and Forest Service and Park Service could get training in that remote site. But we would love to maybe talk about collaborating where we could share resources like that, get some expertise, and the broadcast those. And we also turn those into DVDs so that sites that cannot get access to the training can still have a DVD and use that part of safety committee training or collateral duty offline-type training. Difficulties in controlling who participates, in keeping track of who used it, but there might be ways that all of the agencies could make better use of some of your people. SECRETARY FOULKE: I like that. Yes, that's a good idea. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? All right. The next report is on pandemic flu, and I'm sure you're all aware that we have a new national effort involving OSHA and its federal and state partners involving pandemic flu. Working through the leadership of the White House, the federal agencies are prepared for effective, coordinated response to a possible flu pandemic. For nearly a year, OSHA has been examining workplace safety and health concerns related to that. Committees of OSHA employees have developed a group of guidance documents that focus on recognizing and combating the hazards of a pandemic in the workplace. These documents, which will be published very soon, will suggest changes in the workplace in the private sector and government that can reduce the spread of influenza. These guidance documents will also recommend procedures that employers can put in place to continue to operate during a pandemic. Naturally, protection of federal employees and continuing federal government services is of paramount importance. We have with us today, I think, probably the two top experts at the Department, Suey Howe, from the Department of Labor's Office of Assistant Secretary for Policy and Jennifer Silk who is the Deputy Director of OSHA's Director of Standards and Guidance to speak on this topic. So do you want to take it away. MS. HOWE: Thank you Assistant Secretary Foulke. My name is Suey Howe, and I'm the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Labor. The Policy Office in Labor has been coordinating the Department's involvement in a coordinated, planning and response to address pandemic flu. We're working closely with the Homeland Security Council. We're also working closely with colleagues at HHS, CDC, the VA, Department of Education, DHS, USDA, Commerce, Treasury, you name it. It is truly a coordinated and government-wide effort. My comments will be brief. They're going to focus on some contacts, providing some contacts and also emphasizing the importance of planning to ensure that federal employees are protected and that continuity of operations continues in the event of a pandemic. First, as background, it's important to understand the different types of flu that can be discussed. Seasonal flu is an annual event. People get flu shots. About 36,000 Americans die each year from the seasonal flu. Avian flus are also normal events. However the H5N1 variety of the avian flu is of great concern, because it's very lethal and causing death in poultry populations and wild bird populations around the world. It has infected humans who have close contact or direct contact with infected birds. So there's great concern could that avian flu, the H5N1 mutate to become easily transmissible between humans and lead toward a pandemic. A pandemic is, of course, a global disease outbreak. It's an influenza, in the case of flu, that would cause more severe disease and spread widely across the globe. The critical aspects of a pandemic flu are that it's a new virus, the population has little or no immunity to it, which is why it spreads. There are so many people who are susceptible to it. There is no vaccine, and it causes serious illness and death. And because it's easily spread person-to-person, it can span the globe, cross the country in a short period of time. Now this slide shows a comparison. We've had three pandemics in this century. Not all pandemics are of equal severity. It could be a mild or moderate pandemic. In here using moderate disease transmission modeling and looking at past pandemics, there's an estimation that 30 percent of the population would be affected. And if it was a mild to moderate pandemic, like 1957, the potential deaths in the United States would be 200,000. However, if it's a severe pandemic along the lines of the 1918 pandemic, you could approach 2 million deaths. Most of the federal planning efforts are focusing on the severe pandemic, because not only would it cause a significant amount of illness and death, but significant disruptions to our economy and to our lives. Next slide please. And this again is another slide focusing on the severe pandemic. The CDL estimates that 4.75 percent reduction in the U.S. GDP could result from such a severe pandemic. Implications for a severe pandemic, I'm sure many of you have read about or are hopefully incorporating in your planning as departments are preparing, is the fact there would be extensive absenteeism. Forty percent is the number that's given. That's anticipating not only those who are sick themselves, but are home caring for sick members of their family or staying home due to fear and are afraid to go to work. Essential services may be disrupted, in part because of the absenteeism in their own work places. The healthcare system could be overwhelmed exceeding its surge capacity. Banks, stores, restaurants would all have to alter their operations to make sure that they're not providing opportunity for the disease to spread across their workforce and with their customers. And transportation and food deliver and other essential services could be disrupted. Social distancing is an important strategy that's being discussed. School closures would be likely for certain durations. Large gatherings, community meetings and gatherings would also be discouraged, all in an effort to tamp down the virus, to reduce the number of people who become ill, and also as a means of making sure we can sustain our economy and protect individuals during a pandemic. As I hope you're all aware, in response to the potential threat of a pandemic, the President released on November 1st, 2005 the national strategy. It was a general overarching document, but an implementation plan was released on May 3rd. That got into greater detail with over 300 actions specifically tasked to federal agencies and departments. As we'll discuss later, 24 of those actions the Department of Labor has a direct role in, 19 of which are being headed by OSHA. Also within the pandemic implementation plan, it flushes out the strategy. It talks about the development of departmental plans, and it assigns responsibilities for carrying out the actions within it. It also communicates expectations for all stakeholders at the state and local government level and the private sector for families. Critical infrastructure is a very important part of the preparation as well. Again, I'm focusing here on department and agency planning. Approximately 67 departments and agencies should be well on their way to developing plans, Chapter 9 in the implementation plan and Appendix A provide guidance and details to aid in that planning. Department plans are supposed to focus on four key objectives: protecting employees during a pandemic, sustaining essential functions during times of significant absenteeism, supporting the overall federal response, and also communicating to stakeholders during a pandemic, and also communications to stakeholders in advance of a pandemic to help with preparations. Now key planning assumptions, again, I mentioned the 40 percent earlier. It is anticipated up to 40 percent of absenteeism during the two peak weeks of a pandemic, lower levels on the weeks on either side. Each waive of a pandemic could be six to eight weeks. There could be multiple waves such that the disruption could span over a period of several months. For pandemic planning purposes within the federal government, we're assuming that essential services and functions are likely to be broader than what you would do during a 30-day or less COOP event. Now I wanted to point out some guidance that's been provided to federal agencies and departments. FEMA issued a -- excuse me -- there's a memo with guidance where it took the 11 COOP elements and mapped them to a pandemic scenario showing where you might flush things out differently or flush things out differently, and that was released in March 2006. Also, I mentioned Chapter 9 and Appendix A of the implementation plan also provide guidance to aid federal agencies and departments in their planning. And then FEMA issued a survey in July that had specific planning elements, and they asked each department to review their own plan and complete the survey to sort of benchmark how we were doing in our planning and also to encourage consistency across the government. Then FEMA in September had six exercises called determine accord. There are train the trainer courses. One hundred and eighty federal employees participated. Six courses were in the Washington or national capitol region. There since has been a course, I believe, in Philadelphia and New York, and it's also going to go to the West Coast, and that training is also going to be pushed out through CDs. The goal there is, again, train the trainer so that people go through the exercise and then can go back to their own departments and agencies and help use that exercise to review their plans, seeing how comprehensive they are, seeing if they've anticipated different contingencies that they need to be prepared for, and also it's a great opportunity for cross-pollenization, because you have people from different departments and agencies can come together and share how they've overcome different challenges. There's also a draft checklist that was in Clearance in September -- hopefully, it'll be released shortly -- which builds upon the earlier FEMA survey. It was an interagency effort developed with input from the Department of Labor, Office of Personnel Management, HHS, DHS, again, looking at the 11 elements of COOP planning and focusing on things like human capital, telework, personal protective equipment and those type of things where agencies had additional insights and guidance to bring to bear. It's a general document, but it does acknowledge where further guidance will be provided. Also, at the six month mark, six months from the issuance of the implementation plan, which would be November of 2006, that's when a number of the 300 actions come due. There's additional guidance that would be available to federal agencies and departments at that time. Here are some Web sites that I thought might be helpful: pandemicflu.gov, obviously is where we're all supposed to be focusing our efforts and our attentions making sure that stakeholders are aware of it, making sure all of our guidance documents are available there as well as in our own departmental sites. OPM provided human capital planning guidance. It's available through its Web site. Then there's also a guidance document that was developed after 9/11, I believe, the Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy was involved as well as EEOC and a number of, I think, 21 agencies focusing on emergency planning and attention to individuals with disabilities. And some of the lessons there are also applicable to how you deal with stakeholders who may have disabilities to make sure the guidance you're putting out is accessible to them as well. Then CDC and the State Department have Web sites if you have employees traveling or if you have employees overseas where you can look to see what their recommendations are along those lines. And then the other point to mention is with all the guidance that's been coming out and will continue to come out, planning is obviously an evolving process, but departments and agencies are to aim to have their plans pretty much nailed down by December. And then as additional guidance and more information becomes available, they will be fine tuned to address either more knowledge that may be acquired about the nature of the virus and/or more strategies that become available. I think I have one more slide. As I mentioned earlier, of the 300 actions and implementation plan, 24 involve the Department of Labor. The Institutions Chapter, which is Chapter 9, Protecting Personnel and Ensuring Continuity of Operations, that focuses on federal agency or institutional preparation including federal agencies. Five of those, Department of Labor is involved in two of them involving Office of Personnel Management, and the other three are primarily led by OSHA internally within the Department of Labor. And overall, of the 24 actions, OSHA has the lead on 19 and has been working closely with our counterparts. And now Jennifer Silk will speak to the specific activities going on within OSHA. MS. SILK: Thank you. As you might imagine, OSHA has a somewhat unique role in preparing for the pandemic, because not only do we have to be concerned about the safety and health of our own workers, we also have to be concerned about the safety and health of other workers and preparing other workplaces for the pandemic. This is a timeline just to give you an idea of when we started thinking about this that we actually issued guidance for protecting workers against avian flu in March of 2004 when we first started hearing about the avian flu and were concerned about it coming to the United States. Clearly, in terms of avian flu, the primary human population that is of concern would be workers who would be handling the infected birds and taking care of the bird carcasses. So we are concerned about that. In December of 2004, we issued additional guidance on avian influenza protecting poultry workers at risk, so we got into more specific guidance about those workers. Then in November of 2005, as was already mentioned, the President issued the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza. As a result of that, in February of this year, we created pandemic influenza working groups to address our concerns both internally and externally on this and started working with the Department on the DOL plan for dealing with the pandemic. In May of this year, of course, the President issued the implementation plan for the National Strategy that requires all the agencies to be working towards preparation. And as of this month, September, we have a number of guidance documents, which I'll talk to you about in a little more detail, that are currently in the clearance process. And I'd just like to note, you'll see a number of slides here that have "draft" as the watermark on them because those documents are still in clearance. I'm going to give you an idea of what's in them, but they could potentially change as a result of the clearance process. Just to give you an idea of what we have identified as OSHA's essential functions for the pandemic, first of all, we have responsibilities under the Worker Safety and Health Support Annex to the National Response Plan, so if there is a pandemic and an incident of national significance is declared, then OSHA will have certain responsibilities regarding protection of workers. We believe that we will have to continue enforcement activities and probably focus on fatalities, imminent dangers, complaints and accident investigations. We also have a role to provide safety and health specific guidance and assistance to employer -- employees in the federal response community which we'll get into in a little more detail. We think cooperative programs would continue. That would be our consultation programs, VPP, Voluntary Protection Programs and Compliance Assistance, and there still would be a role for developing and promulgating workplace health and safety standards in the event of a pandemic. The process that we established is to address our responsibilities. We have two different workgroups to identify issues and develop recommendations relative to the pandemic flu. The first is the Pandemic Flu Policy Group, and this has been divided into an internal subgroup to look at DOL and agency issues. And then we also have an external subgroup to look at employer and employee issues. In addition to that, we established a Respiratory Protection Group, because it became clear to us in the initial preparation phases that the issue of respiratory protection was going to be very key, and there were a lot of disagreements in the industry about how that might transpire. The workgroups are responsible for developing our policies and procedures, for protecting OSHA's employees during pandemic as well as to develop guidance to assist employers with protecting their employees and a respiratory protection policy. And these activities are all ongoing within the agency. Now just to get into a little more detail on what our current activities are. First of all, we have been petitioned under the Occupational Safety and Health Act to issue an emergency temporary standard on protecting workers from pandemic flu. This was received in December of last year from a number of unions. Under the Act, there's a provision that allows the Secretary of Labor to issue a standard when there is a grave danger that has a time factor associated with it, so it's a grave danger that's going to happen in a short period of time. And under that provision of the Act, we have been asked to issue a standard for those workers that are going to be performing essential functions or are at high risk of workplace exposures like emergency responders or have close contact with birds. We're currently in the process of reviewing and evaluating that petition to decide what the appropriate response is going to be, but concurrently, as I've already mentioned, we are moving forward to provide guidance on pandemic influenza preparedness. The documents that we currently have in development is first of all, the guidance that I mentioned to you that we issued in March of 2004, we are you updating that. This is a very significant update, because obviously we've learned a lot in the last two years about how to protect workers from avian flu, and that's in the final stages of clearance. We also are developing new guidance that is specifically targeted to the health care industry where workers will be on the front line in terms of dealing with patients who have pandemic flue, so that's really critical guidance in terms of protecting workers who will be at very high risk. And we are developing more general guidance on preparing workplaces for an influenza pandemic. Okay. The OSHA guidance update on protecting employees from avian flu that I mentioned, which is actually a substantive document on avian flu guidance, but it has a number of fact sheets and quick cards that go with it that are tied to specific industries. It provides general information about avian influenza. It also identifies key employee groups that might be affected so in addition to poultry workers, there are other people who might be affected by the avian flu. It provides guidance for protected those affected employee groups, so it has specific guidance for the different employee groups in terms of protection. And their basically, the fact sheet and the quick cards, are designed for layperson use, so those are tools that can be used by employers to help inform their employees. As already mentioned, it updates the 2004 guidance. It includes much more detailed guidance on what the workplace protections would be. It also talks in some detail about the avian influenza virus, the history of pandemics, the kinds of incidents that are already occurring in humans and other animals, much more information on signs and symptoms of infection, talking about how you protect people from viruses and how they behave in the workplace and other places, and it has a number of links to additional resources. So as I said, that's really in the final stages of clearance, and we hope to have that issued very soon. The healthcare guidance provides comprehensive information and guidance to the healthcare community specifically. We drew information from a number of different sources including our colleagues in HHS, including CDC and NIOSH, the World Health Organization, our own resources, and we did a literature review. This again is a very substantive guidance document. It provides a lot of detailed information for the healthcare industry. Next slide please. It includes the biological aspects of influenza, the general principles of infection control, what you can do to prepare healthcare workplaces for pandemic influenza, the standards that we currently have that would be of special importance in the event of a pandemic, and then it has a number of appendices with supplemental information and resource links. This is in the initial stages of clearance, and we expect to have that issued some time later this year. The third guidance document is the one that probably would be of most interest to most of you, and it's more general guidance on preparing workplaces for a pandemic. And this was developed by our external workgroup, and it addresses a number of different influenza types of exposure scenarios. It talks about a public health approach. We've already mentioned hygiene and social distancing. But it also addresses an industrial hygiene hierarchy of controls, of engineering controls, work practices, administrative controls, and personal protective equipment. And it's basically giving employers a general idea of how to assess the risk in their workplaces and then come to the appropriate controls. You might all appreciate the fact that in the case of the pandemic, there isn't anybody who has any experience in protecting people against a pandemic, so what we're doing here really is taking general industrial hygiene principles for occupational safety and health and trying to apply them to the situation that we think would occur in a pandemic. And what we've done is develop this hierarchy of potential exposures. It's a risk-based exposé to preparing workplaces for pandemic influenzas, so we're looking at the types of exposures that people have in the normal workplace situation, the kind of proximity they would have to potentially infected people, what kind of contact they have with the public, and then we looked to provide guidance on how you might assess risk in the workplace and provide risk-based control measures. So, basically, the people who are the higher risk are at the top of this pyramid, and the people at the lowest risk are at the bottom. But it's recognizing that different jobs have different levels of risk without actually being able to quantify the risk. This isn't a numerical quantification. It's more or less a subjective approach to determining what the potential for exposure to infected people is. Those who would be at very high risk, which would be the top of the pyramid, are those jobs that have potential exposures to high concentrations of the pandemic influenza virus. And the examples of this would be, for example, healthcare workers who are performing aerosol-generating procedures on known or suspected pandemic patients or those healthcare workers who are collecting or handling specimens from known or suspected pandemic patients. So these are the people who would clearly be at high risk of contracting pandemic influenza in their work. The kinds of control measures that you would use for the very high risk employees would be first of all, hygiene and social distancing. That's basically used for everybody in terms of influenza transmission. You might also be doing enhanced employee medical monitoring, so sort of proactively looking for symptoms and making sure that people are removed; be looking at ventilation which is isolation rooms; physical barriers like plexiglass shields to prevent people from breathing on each other; infection control isolation precautions; and then, of course, personal protective equipment. And here, we would talk about respirators, which would be N95 respirators or better, such as powered air purifying respirators or a supplied air respirator which are a higher level of protection; gloves; face shields; eye protection; and gowns. So these would be the employees who are at the highest risk. The next category is high risk which, again, these have a high potential but not as high as the ones we just talked about. It would mostly involve healthcare delivery and support staff exposed to known or suspected pandemic patients, so it might be people who are providing care or transporting known or suspected pandemic patients in enclosed vehicles, or handling or disposing of remains of known or suspected pandemic patients. So in the case of the high risk control measures, you would again have hygiene and social distancing, enhanced employee medical monitoring and physical barriers, infection control and isolation precautions, and then the personal protective equipment. And here we say the N95's are better, gloves, face shields, eye protection, and gowns. Then we have the medium risk, and these are jobs that require frequent or close proximity, which we've identified as between three and five feet exposures to the general public. It would be looking at high frequency contact with the general public as well as the close proximity to vulnerable populations which we believe will be identified by the Centers for Disease Control. And the examples that we have here are banking, for example, bank tellers, grocery clerks and retail stores, teachers in schools, so people who have a lot of contact with the public. For these medium risk jobs, we're looking again at control measures of hygiene and social distancing, some enhanced employee medical monitoring, physical barriers, enhanced local area ventilation where possible, strategies to minimize face-to-face contact, administrative controls, and personal protective equipment. And here we're saying gloves for employees who handle money or merchandise, then surgical masks or respirators, face shields, and eye protection. And then the last category on the bottom of the period would be the lower risk where you would have a caution or want to be cautious, but these jobs don't usually require contact with people known to be infected, and they don't have a lot of close contact with the pubic in terms of proximity or numbers of people, but employers would just want to be cautious and protect their employees from infection. And in the case of the lower risk, again, you would have the hygiene and social distancing. We're all going to have to get used to not shaking hands with people and things like that. And administrative controls like a sick leave policy, telecommuting. You would want to encourage your employees to telecommute and flexible schedules to limit contact that people have with people. In addition to those, there also might be some high impact employees. Employees that would be difficult to replace. You might have to do extensive training or that they provide some kind of essential services. Police, fire fighters, other kinds of emergency response people would certainly fall into this. Public utility employees, you want the power plants to keep operating. For these employees, while they might be at lower risk, employers might want to consider upgrading to a higher level of precaution from that lowest level just to help make sure that these employees are protected from being infected. So that's the general concept that we have in terms of guidance. And as I said, it's not that anybody has any special knowledge about how to deal with a pandemic, but it's just taking general industrial hygiene principles and trying to apply them along with the infection control principles that people are all knowledgeable about. And that's generally where we are. Thank you. SECRETARY FOULKE: Okay. Thank you. Do we have any questions or? Well we deeply -- oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. MS. RODRIGUEZ: Do you have any sense of where agencies are in terms of fulfilling some of this, like, you know, where in the process they might be? I know that you mentioned December as sort of the next point where people have to report in. MS. HOWE: I think -- generally, I think -- I mean it's hard to say. There are 67 departments or agencies. Thirty of those are sort of your more significant size. My sense is everyone has begun planning and is hopefully well on their way to planning. Certainly the agencies and departments I'm dealing with are pretty far having had draft plans in the works first for sort of a March deadline, then for a May deadline, and now looking as more guidance becomes available. You know, I'd be interested from all of you who are representing various departments and agencies if in your capacities you've been engaged, if you're aware of the planning. I think what we've tried to encourage is -- there's a little bit of attention, whether this is a COOP activity and your emergency management people handle this, or is this an HR activity and then your Office of Assistant Secretary for Management Administration or something, HR-oriented handles it. I think what we've tried to encourage is that those two groups work together, granted we won't have to evacuate of your buildings necessarily, but it is a continuity of operations. And we've also encouraged that the leadership of the agency and department needs to be involved. If this is simply being pushed up by emergency management personnel and not being pushed down by the leadership, it won't be truly a part of the agency and department's culture, and you won't have the decisions made in advance that you need to have made. MS. RODRIGUEZ: Yes. I actually just had a briefing yesterday at OPM on their portion of what you just described, and that was one of the points that we were very concerned about, making sure that while there are different plans going on dealing with specific issues of a potential pandemic that both sides need to be working together and talking. And I know that in parallel points you have been, but, you know, there has to be that coming together as you just mentioned. MS. HOWE: And the other point to mention is that both the COOP and emergency personnel but also the policy personnel need to reach out to the emergency managers, because a lot of the people involved in policy know what's in the pipeline to be developed as guidance. And that certainly would be helpful for their emergency managers or their pandemic planners to know what do you need to worry about; what do you need to just wait and see what guidance you're given, and deal with what you can in the meantime. SECRETARY FOULKE: Yes. MR. MEREDITH: Hi. Jim Meredith, Interior Department again. We're in something of a little bit of a unique situation, though not entirely to us, because of our wildlife management responsibilities. We have employees that are, as we speak, working with identification as part of their regular work activities in working with wildlife, migratory birds specifically. That's something that they're concerned about, and also with the efforts to try to identify the possibility of the virus coming in through the migratory birds. So as a result, we have developed a plan specifically focused for those employees, and it has been coordinated very closely with CDC, OSHA, other agencies. I know we just had a second federal review. OMB sent it out. We did an internal professional-type review of that. And then OMB just recently had it out to federal agencies again for further comment. So even though it's not been finalized yet; however, we have essentially implemented it for our employees. So it has been a very interesting effort that's underway. And it sort of puts us in a very unique environment with that respect. But even on top of that and on the broader scale, because of our public interaction through the Park Service and Bureau of Land Management and so forth, you know, we're very concerned as well with the, you know, the public contact and particularly our emergency management. At that level, our emergency management folks are working on development of a departmental plan there. So just kind of a different take there that I thought I might share with you. SECRETARY FOULKE: Thank you. Any other comments or questions for our panelists? Okay. Jennifer, Suey, we thank you so much. I appreciate that. I know there's a lot going on, because I get to see a lot of it. I'm glad I'm not writing all of it, but I don't know how they keep up with it to tell you the truth. We're going to kind of a have a little bit of a rearrangement on our Agenda here. But first of all, I did want to introduce my new Deputy here, Brian Little. Brian, you want to stand up. Brian Little is my new Deputy Assistant Secretary for OSHA, and I'm glad to have him on board. So you'll probably be seeing him at these meetings also. Now we're going to go to motor vehicle safety. Executive Order 13043 requires all federal employees are to use seatbelts when traveling on official business. And this is whether they are driving, riding as a passenger or catching a taxicab. My predecessor, former Assistant Secretary Hinshal, began an effort to re-energize the effort to obtain 100 percent compliance with the Order by reminding federal employees of their obligation to comply, but more importantly, he wanted to let them know how much seatbelt use reduces the risk of deaths and serious injuries. And I know that in 2004, the National Safety Congress in New Orleans, OSHA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration called a joint seminar for federal employees on traffic and motor vehicle safety. And in conjunction with that seminar, OSHA launched the Every Belt, Every Ride campaign to encourage increased seatbelt use among federal employees. OSHA established a motor vehicle safety workgroup to coordinate the campaign activities. One of the goals of the workgroup was to develop a model motor vehicle safety program. The group has received a number of examples of best practices, policy statements and guidelines that address motor vehicle safety. And right now we have Larry Liberatore from OSHA's Coordinator for Motor Vehicle Safety Campaign who is going to provide us an update, I believe, on the workgroup's progress to date. So, Larry, why don't you go ahead and tell us what you got. Are you belted? Are you locked in there? MR. LIBERATORE: Thank you for that introduction, and I want to thank the Committee, for those that worked on this product before and this project, Milly and DoD, Lou Gynan (phonetic) from the Fraternal Order. So we've had some people who have had experience here, and I want to thank you for that past participation. As Ed said, we launched a campaign, an awareness program in 2004 for motor vehicle safety. The major focus of that was seatbelt safety in the federal sector. We had other advisory committees that, you know, we liaisoned with, an actual advisory committee and other groups. But our primary effort was the federal sector and seatbelts. As an outgrowth of that, we formed a workgroup in FACOSH to help develop a model program. We did not want to reinvent the wheel. We were not trying to develop a very detailed fleet management safety program. Our intent was let's help federal agencies where they do not have fleets, like the post office may have a fleet, but we were looking for the rest of the federal government that didn't and that what we could them with was to supplement their safety and health programs and develop a very brief pamphlet or chapter or module that addressed motor vehicle safety. We completed that product, so this is really old business. When we completed it, the full committee never met again, so we have a product here that we're going to hand over to the committee for further deliberation and further consideration. Some key points about the program. I think you all have a copy of the draft in your booklets or they were provided to you earlier. It adopts many best practices, common best practices that are out there, both in the private sector and the federal sector, procedures and policies on seatbelt safety, seatbelt use, alcohol, drug use, fatigue, distracted driving, vehicle inspection, testing, things that you very commonly see in those programs. Again, it's not a fleet program. There are a few notable items in the draft that I'd ask you to pay some special attention to. You know, again, these are best practices, but some of these things are some practices that not all of us do, particularly there will probably be some discussion about pre-screening of drivers' records, where most of your progressive companies have a procedure here, and they do that. I don't think that's something that's not routinely done right now by many agencies. It also provides some guidance and discussion of cell phone use, and there are different opinions on this, about driving with and without a hands-on use, so that would certainly be another area that would have to be discussed. There are various views in the federal government right now on this. From a GSA perspective has one policy. NIOSH is approaching from a completely, not completely different but different perspective. But in closing, I want to present this to the committee. I'll be glad to answer any questions, and again, I want to thank the past committee members for their support in providing input to this. SECRETARY FOULKE: Any questions. Yes. Go ahead. MR. WILLIAMS: Just out of curiosity, with regard to handheld cell phones, what's the difference? Is there any data that would indicate any kind of a difference between being distracted by talking to somebody else physically in the car versus talking on a hands free cell phone? MR. LIBERATORE: Yes. NIOSH has quite a bit, and they're position is it's just as hazardous to be talking hands free as if you are holding it. MR. WILLIAMS: But I'm talking about having a person in the car with you. In other words, two people, three people in the car and they're talking. Does that constitute a distraction, and do accident rates go up versus people driving in their car by themselves? Is there any comparative data? Has anybody even looked at that to the best of your knowledge? MR. LIBERATORE: The only research that I'm aware of is in the context of teenage drivers where they view it as a distraction, and it's certainly addressed in graduated licensing programs. But from a worker standpoint or beyond teenage driving research, I'm not aware of any. MR. NELSON: Did the committee look at GPS systems and whether those reduce accidents or increase them. As those are going cheaper, I can see a lot of the federal drivers using those to make their way around inspection sites. MR. LIBERATORE: No, we did not. I mean the only consideration on the vehicles was that you should have a vehicle inspection and maintenance program. That's the extent of how it's addressed here. MR. NELSON: Okay. GPS system, you know what I'm talking about? MR. LIBERATORE: Yes. MR. NELSON: Yes. Okay. MR. LIBERATORE: We didn't get anywhere near -- MR. WILLIAMS: That's an excellent question though, because some of those -- all of those systems are highly interactive, and it takes a great deal of cognitive energy, if you will, to program them to try to let them know where you want to go, and a lot of people do that en route as opposed to pulling off and doing it on the side of the road. That's a superb question. MR. LIBERATORE: There is research being conducted, but it's mainly with the trucking industry and being carried out by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. SECRETARY FOULKE: Any other questions? Yes. Go ahead. MR. GALASSI: Larry, in skimming your document, I noticed it's silent airbags. Is that -- MR. LIBERATORE: Yes. MR. GALASSI: Do most of the vehicles in the federal government have airbags? MR. LIBERATORE: Yes, they do. MR. GALASSI: Okay. So there isn't -- there is a presumption -- MR. LIBERATORE: There's no controversy. There's an assumption that they're there. You know, they treat them in the same way they do seatbelts. SECRETARY FOULKE: I know how important this. I moved up here from South Carolina, and South Carolina just instituted a mandatory seatbelt law for the citizens, and before it was kind of a secondary stop, but now the police can stop you. And I understand that the statistics -- I had not looked at this until they were going in this, when the legislation was pending. And the fact that if the state can get up to like 90, 95 percent seatbelt usage, they could cut the number of fatalities by almost 50 percent, which is just a huge number. And, of course, with respect to workplace fatalities, if you look at the overall number of workplace fatalities, I mean we're talking about 5700, I think, is where we are, a large portion of that is automobile fatalities. So if we can get up to the 95 percent seatbelt usage, we can have a very tremendous impact on the number of fatalities that occur in this country, so. So clearly, this is a very important area that we're going to be looking at doing more work in, so. Anything else? Yes. Go ahead. MR. BOWLING: Larry, did you look at the type of vehicles like, for example, 15-passenger vans are kind of a unique government vehicle that has caused some problems over the years or some special emphasis. MR. LIBERATORE: We looked at it. The focus here is in general guidelines. You know, there were certainly some side discussions about 15-passenger vans. There was a discussion about selection of vehicles, that smaller vehicles are 50 percent higher to have accidents. But this draft doesn't get into that detail. NTSA is doing a lot. They're doing a lot of studies on the 15-passenger van. There's quite a bit on their Web site. SECRETARY FOULKE: Okay. Anything else? Okay. Thank you, Larry. MR. LIBERATORE: Thank you. SECRETARY FOULKE: I much appreciate that presentation. We're going to -- I guess we still have -- Cathy Oliver, I think, has not gotten here yet and Laura Seeman. I'm sure they're at their desks just working so hard that they didn't realize what time it was and time was just flying, so. Let's move on to New Business and when they get here, we'll go back to their segment there. We have one scheduled item of new business, and at this time, I'd like to invite David Marciniak. This is Dave -- David. MR. MARCINIAK: Thanks. SECRETARY FOULKE: Do you go by Dave or David? MR. MARCINIAK: David. It doesn't matter. SECRETARY FOULKE: And he's the Safety and Health Manager for the GSA, and he's requested some time to speak about the facility design for safety and health. So, David, thank you so much for being here. MR. MARCINIAK: Thank you, Secretary Foulke, Ms. Brayden and the Council for giving GSA the opportunity to just spend a few minutes on, I guess, something that I think comes at OSHA from somewhat of a different approach. Essentially, what we'd like to propose -- I'll just get right to the point -- is that the Council perhaps -- or Council consider possibly putting together a sub group which could address facility design or actually health and safety in facility design. Fundamentally, by designing out hazards early in the life cycle, it has been shown pretty much by DoD, NASA, those types of agencies, DOE, who use these types of -- use systems safety techniques, that you can affect safety much more effectively and also at much lower cost. That's my roots basically from DoD. And that's pretty much where this design safety or facility systems safety, in those types of agencies that have these very complex type systems for which there generally weren't many codified requirements that you could go by. But what we've seen happen -- I've seen it when I was with the DoD in a facilities area and with GSA is that when you get into what I'll call -- I hate to call it more common buildings -- but more common buildings, office buildings as such, commercial type buildings, is there is a paradigm out there that well, building codes and quote unquote "OSHA Regulations" are going to cover everything. Okay? And for the most part, they do. You know, you get a reasonably safe building by following those codes, but we'll submit to you that anomalies do creep in, hazards do get designed into these buildings that just aren't covered by these codes and safety regulations. And for the most part, I mean I don't have to tell this group, OSHA has some fairly specific facility-related requirements when you get to say railings and stairs and things of that sort. But when you get into the other areas, I mean it's really an employer/employee. And just as you need to protect the, you know, employee and it doesn't get into specifics on how to design. Compounding factors besides the field of system safety or design safety not being well known in what I'll call the real estate industry, the compounding factor in that is, from our experience, when you do try to introduce it, it's looked at as overkill -- that's the stuff that NASA uses for those complicated; you know, you're going kill -- you're going to put too much cost on our program. The other thing is limited budgets. You know, many times, by the time a project manager gets his or her budget approved, you know, things are tight, and they're looking to cut things out of the budget. So you get into this confrontation, the safety people with the design or with the project manager -- show me where it is -- show me where it is in the regulation. You know? So it gets a little tough there. Some agencies like ourselves, though, we do have a design guide that comes below the regulations. We don't rewrite the regulations, but we have a design guide that the A and E's, architect and engineering firms are required to use. And I'll mention just a few of the things that we put into our design guides; say, hey, these are good practices, we are adopting them, okay, regardless of whether it's in a code or not. So really what we're proposing -- and there is some of this out there, but it's just a smattering of it out there -- I've done quite a bit of research, and I can't find anything dealing with facility design safety all in one place say for something that I'm going to mention at the end, the whole building design guide -- there's smatterings of it out there -- what GSA would like to do is kind of pull that all together, since we have this design guide already which is a best practice, pull together all the, you know, you start with the laws, the Executive Orders and the Codes and Regulations, and then you just come on down to the consensus standards and the trade practices and then all those things that just aren't there but they are good practices, and try to draw all that together into something which might be a joint services, if you will, or a joint agency design guide for safety and health in facilities. Before I mention just a few of the things that have got us really excited about doing this, before I get into that, one of the things we in the safety business in GSA have come to realize is we can't align our priorities or our topics by what we know, you know, fault protection or whatever it may be. We have to align it by what our internal customers, these A&E designers work by, and they work by landscaping, structure, mechanical, you know, those type of things, so kind of just transpose it into their language. I just want to run through before I get to the end, but just kind of give you a smattering of some of the things that have come up in our experience that we wish -- you know, some of these are in our design guides, and some of these are going to go in our design guide, because it just came -- we revise it about every two years, and I'm on -- they got safety and health on the committee to review the revision. I mean things like -- let's go to rooftops. Well, first of all, let me backtrack again. The differentiation between workers, you know, federal workers, contractor workers, we really don't make that differentiation, because we can say, well, we contract out most of our maintenance and so forth, we don't have to worry about that. Well, we do have to worry about that. We go on the roofs, too. Our GSA people go on the roofs, too. Your people go on the roofs. You deal with the antennas. You deal with other things like that. And we really should be thinking holistically. We can't draw that line and say, well, that's the contractor's responsibility, let him worry about how to protect himself. So that's one thing, you know, I want to set straight. Even though this is FACOSH, we don't want to try to differentiate between us and the private sector. I don't think I mentioned, though, at the beginning even though GSA is a small agency, 12,700 or so, we house a little over one million federal workers, so half of those are housed in buildings we own. The other half are housed in leased locations. And we can still affect lessors. You know, we have -- we're dealing the money, so we can tell them how we want things done. So we have 1,700 owned buildings and 6300 leased locations. So, you know, we have quite a bit of exposure out there. Maybe we don't have the very, very high hazards in these office buildings that, you know, you might have with the Park Service, DOI or DoD, but in the aggregate, we certainly have a lot, you know, one million occupants. So I forgot to mention that. But anyway, things that you've probably heard of. You know, if you can't get parapets on the roof, move the equipment inboard if you can so it's not near the edge. If you can't move it inboard, well, think about it. Can you turn it so that the access panel is not near the edge, it's on this side? You know, simple things like that. Integrated skylight protection -- is there a way we can build it in rather than figure it out later, things of that sort. We're seeing antennas all over our roofs, and it's a hazard with cables and so forth. Can't we put conduits in in anticipation of these cables? A big thing that, you know, GSA is looking with the -- they're going to, I guess, put 1910 subpart D out again next year for public comment, the fault protection standard. There is this big push by the window washers -- what is it, International Window Washers Association -- I'm not quite sure, but there's an ANSI 14.1 standard on window washer safety, and it affects more than just them. But the installation of anchor points. You know no one's -- you know, we need to figure out in our design guides, well, we know we want to put them in, but how -- you know, we know that they have to be 5,000 pounds, but where do we put them, how do we locate them, how do we test them, things like that. It's not required as of yet. Walking working surfaces. There's a new ANSI standard out that talks to slip resistance and actually gives a number and how to test for it. Why are we not specing that when we design buildings for the surfacing materials? It shall have at least 0.5, you know, resistance or greater. You know, we just don't do that. It's not required anywhere. There have been some lesser things we found. We like to clean the water for the tenants. We put charcoal filtration in in public water systems. We put them on chiller loops, and we've come to find out, oh, geez, the charcoal takes the chlorine out on these loops, and we start developing bacteria. You know? So we're like it's just design practice. So what we're doing is going back to the buildings operations people saying, you know, as far as your risk goes, leave it the way it is. It may be able to get some odors or so forth, but at least it'll stay chlorinated, and we won't have health concerns. We had a building we built with a railing -- it's a rather new building -- it has a 10-story open atrium, and the railings are substantial, and they're horizontal. And because of the way the architect did the paint schemes, everything's all white, people didn't realize that not only was it a place to put things, but you couldn't see that there was a sheer drop behind it. So people were putting books, sodas, children -- public building -- on these railings right behind which was a 90 foot drop. So we had to go and modify this later by putting a little stop plate up there. But just things like that. For the longest time -- well, not for the longest time, probably last two revisions of our design guide -- we prohibited the installation insulation inside of ducts. We just know that's bad having that on the inside. You can't clean. It harbors microbials and things of that sort. It's not a requirement anywhere in the Codes. Fomite -- fomites are essentially surfaces that can transmit disease. You know, we talked about pandemic flu here. How many times have you gone, you know, you've gone somewhere, you've washed your hands real well in the restroom, then you go to leave, and, oh, you got to pull a door handle. You know? Think about these things. What do we do? We design them so you can just push your way out so you don't have to grab a tissue and get out. Or look at your airports and public places, there's no doors. They designed it so you can just walk around. So things like that. Pressurizing our buildings. Can we design in controls so that if we need to, during shelter in place or safe harbor or whatever it may be, we can control the pressurization and perhaps filter the air and stay in that building. We don't design for that now. We design for HVAC. And finally, just one last thing that just came up in one of our buildings here at White Oak, which was on an old -- well, it's a radon -- medium radon, I believe, but it's also a Brownfield sub-slab depressurization. You know, we think of that in the residential market. Well, if you're going to build where there's radon, you should put ths gravel in anyway. It's very inexpensive when you build. New Jersey has recommended, in public buildings, especially if you're going to be near any Brownfields, regardless of whether there's radon or not, put this in, this sub-slab depressurization. Then later if you get pesticides or VOCs or whatever may be, you know, you've got the job half tackled. So just things like that. So what we'd like to recommend, GSA is going to get back on the whole building design guide effort. It's a wonderful resource if you're an agency that's into designing buildings. It's just www.wbdg.org and it goes in there and it gives best practices. I you drill down, the Council has copies, and I made a few copies of a sort of a paper I wrote up on what I'm talking about here -- if you drill down, there's a design guidance and there's a design objectives. Then there's a session called secure safe, and then there's a subsection called ensure occupant safety and health. And there is a reasonable effort in there on what I'm talking about, but it hasn't been updated in a while. The main players, unfortunately, are GSA, NAVFAC, Army Corps of Engineers and, to some extent, the Air Force, but GSA -- I just came over to this position about a year ago, so we're going to be now putting more effort back into this, how should I say, design guide for safety and health. And what I'll leave you with is, you know, if the FACOSH Council would consider a subgroup that ties into this whole building design guide, that would be something GSA would offer to coordinate. So that's really the gist of what I'm at here. SECRETARY FOULKE: Any questions of David? What I think we can do, you know, before our next meeting, maybe we could put together some type of what this subgroup would look at as to when and what their mission could be charged for, and we can talk about it at the next meeting so we know. MS. RODRIGUEZ: And also a timeframe of when things would be happening and when the product that you expect to come out of it, you know, what kind of time are you working with. I think that would be helpful to the Council members. SECRETARY FOULKE: Go ahead. MR. MARTIN: Can I ask you a question? Do you have some of these practices for safety purpose and others are for preventive purposes, because it seems like the cost would get real high with a lot of the things you mentioned. But some of them -- do you have them like categorized where some might save a life and other things are just things that may happened. You know, it might be something to look at? MR. MARCINIAK: Well, no, I think they all -- I think everything -- nothing gets into our design guide unless it's -- let's put it this way, the architects and engineers have to buy in on it. If they think it's unreasonable -- if they don't think there's a reasonable risk, it's not going to go in. So oftentimes what we'll do in the safety and health profession is I'll parlay it off something else. The anchors on the roof aren't just for, you know, they're not just for the safety of the window washers. You know, I'll sell it in the fact that if you have to wrap a cable around a penthouse and rig up that, it's going to cost you more than if you can anchor off, and you're not just using it for that, you're using it for facade inspections, there's other things they do. So I'm not quite sure if I answered your question, but a lot of times, these things are wrapped up into maintenance issues, too, maintainability. And that's the way -- you know, maybe it's cheating, but that's how I get safety sold sometimes. SECRETARY FOULKE: Does GSA also have some guidelines on, like, equipment and machinery that you might -- that would be -- I notice probably all these buildings -- like at the Department of Labor, we have some large trash compactors and stuff like that. Does GSA also have guidelines on proper guarding and stuff like that of that type of equipment do you know? MR. MARCINIAK: It's in the MEP, the Mechanical Electrical Plumbing section, but they have not been that -- it hasn't been that detailed in both maintainability and safety. Unfortunately, I guess the whole government is that way. They try to go towards performance work statements. But that's one of the things we're specifically looking at in this rewrite. For instance, it's not just going to be rooftop tie-offs. We look at elevated equipment, cooling towers, try to put platforms there if we can, things of that sort. But, yes, that's all going to be looked at. It's spotty. I must admit it's spotty as far as the requirements. SECRETARY FOULKE: All right. Yes. Go ahead, Curtis. MR. BOWLING: Is there a federal facilities group that looks at construction and maintenance activities across the various federal agencies that's in existence now? MR. MARCINIAK: That I don't know. That I don't know. The closest thing we can find -- it's not federal, but they play -- is the whole building design guide, yes. MR. BATHURST: There is, under the Offices of the National Research Council, the Federal Facilities Board -- I can't remember the exact title of it -- National Research Council does -- MR. BOWLING: That's the one I'm thinking of. MR. BATHURST: -- sponsor a forum for federal construction agencies to coordinate such things. MR. BOWLING: And of course NIST does a lot of that research, too, right? SECRETARY FOULKE: Yes. Tom. MR. GALASSI: AS you probably know, OSHA's regulations in this are have been revised and they are somewhat performance oriented. And in our regulations, we reference the Life Safety Code 2000. There's a compliance approach. And the Life Safety Code is a quite ponderous document, and it's broken down by occupancy. How would your proposed document relate to the Life Safety Code guidance that is out there? MR. MARCINIAK: It probably wouldn't, at least from GSA's standpoint, because we adopt it, so I mean it's already codified on -- MR. GALASSI: I guess it gives a lot of guidance, so you're proposing a solution that would go beyond that and would give specifics, best practices, lessons learned, recommendations to specific issues. MR. MARCINIAK: We're looking for those anomalies that just don't get caught. It's not exactly Life Safety, but it's fire, testing the fire pumps in high rises. You're supposed to do them under load with water. Okay? I don't believe the Fire Protection Code tells you that, gee, you have to pipe the exit somewhere where you can run the water. They just leave it in a basement somewhere and, you know, things like that that aren't -- that's really what -- that's really our intent. We think that, at least speaking for GSA's design guide, they don't want me rewriting what's in the codes, just refer to it, but just give guidance to areas that either aren't clear or are just missed. Did I answer that? MR. GALASSI: Yes. SECRETARY FOULKE: Any other questions or comments from anybody? Yes. MR. GREULICH: Owen Greulich with NASA. I remember reading recently an article in the Wall Street Journal about a hospital that was designed for safety, and there has been a lot of resistance to this whole concept, because it's going to cost so much more and this particular hospital -- it was a small one -- I think it was a 70-bed or a 100-bed -- but I recall reading that they came in no more expensive and, I think, actually saved money from the original planned budget but also were able to incorporate all kinds of safety features that you don't find in every hospital and things that -- some of them actually saved them money, because they standardized locations of the oxygen in the hospital rooms and things like that so that everybody knew exactly where to reach for something. I think this is the kind of thing you're looking for. You're looking for designing things smart so that you not only can accomplish what you're trying to accomplish but save some money at it besides. And you can say it's well worth doing. I say this as a former design engineer that, you know, a lot of times if you stop and think about it, you save a lot more by thinking up front than by going and trying to implement something after. Certainly that railing problem for example. It was probably a real cool design when they started out. MR. MARCINIAK: Oh, it looked beautiful. MR. GREULICH: Thank you. MR. MARCINIAK: Just real quick. SECRETARY FOULKE: Yes, sir. MR. MARCINIAK: One of the other things -- -- I'll speak again for GSA -- that's being emphasized or I should say strengthened in our rewrite of our design guide is life cycle cost, so you have to do exactly what this gentleman says. You have to look at that whole cost route. MR. DICKERSON: Just briefly. It just sort of sounds somewhat like retrofitting and mitigation in terms of from one perspective to a safety perspective, and I think one of the bigger issues is about the cost, because if you do that -- first of all, all this has to be brought up in the design phase for the construction of new construction, but then the bigger question becomes what happens to those existing facilities, and how do you retrofit those to bring those up to meet the same new safety codes or new retrofitting efforts that you have for new buildings. Obviously, in the design phase of all new buildings, you can almost incorporate those things in the very offset. But the federal government is not building a whole lot of new buildings per se. Most of the cases, they're acquiring buildings that are currently existing. The question then is how do you retrofit or how do you mitigate those types of things in an existing building. And then it comes back to the question somebody mentioned earlier about dollars. It becomes a dollar issue, so. I think it's an excellent concept, but I think that getting it done is going to probably face some hurdles, and I don't know if champions of a cause such as that, when you look at the dollars versus having to retrofit all of the different government buildings that the federal government occupies that are older -- they're not -- like I said, they're not building any new ones per structural elements -- and so with the new ones, you have a chance of addressing those concerns for new construction, but what about the ambiguity that exists when you got existing buildings and the same safety concepts that you're trying to impose for the newer facilities, you still have federal workers there, so then we have this bigger -- big chasms. Just a comment. MR. MARCINIAK: Usually, in GSA it's called prospectus level projects. Anything over I think it's $2.3 dollars, our design guy says if you do anything of those, you incorporate those new designs, so I mean -- MR. DICKERSON: I absolutely agree. MR. MARCINIAK: So If I'm going to change the MEP in this whole building, I'm going to have to put in -- you know, the right filtration -- you know -- MR. DICKERSON: You know, on the construction side, it's one thing. I think one of the key issues, if everybody in her has some connotations to safety, is that normally if the engineers -- I hope there are none in here -- but if the engineers would allow us to sit down and talk with them as they're going through their design phase, we'd probably catch a lot of those things in terms of the HVAC systems and the railings and things of that nature, but in most cases, they go off willy nilly and get the construction project going, and then they're gone. And most safety professionals normally end up having to address those things after the building has been constructed. That seems to be pervasive in what's my entire professional life in the field of safety, about 35 years. It just seems that most of the time if we could get there early, we could address those concerns. But the bigger question that I was just wanting to raise, what about the pre-existing buildings, and obviously, in my genre, we're dealing with building that we just have to sort of -- you know, we work with you guys all the time, but what happens when we're in a disaster, we have to get a building? Now we got a building that we're just trying to make it livable and doable. And then if we're talking about having to bring it up to a level of -- that people can inhabit it with some of those nuances you mentioned, then there comes a cost factor. So I'm just -- just for dialogue. SECRETARY FOULKE: Okay. Thank you. Any other comments or questions for Dave? Okay. Thank you, David. I appreciate it. And you're going to get with our people and talk a little about -- that's great -- that'd be good. Okay. Do you want to take a ten minute break, or do you want to continue. Any thoughts? Is that a continuance? Just want to make sure I have my signs right, you know. MR. ROWE: A ten minute break or a five minute break would be great. SECRETARY FOULKE: Okay. We'll split the difference. We'll go to a quarter of, so we'll be just recessed for about eight, nine minutes. (Whereupon, off the record for a brief recess.) SECRETARY FOULKE: All right. We'll go back into session. And we're going to go back to program updates and on the report dealing with cooperative programs. OSHA offers several cooperative programs to assist employers in improving their safety and health programs. And we talked a little bit about this earlier. Among these programs are the Voluntary Protection Program, VPP, Strategic Partnerships and Alliances. While there are a few federal agencies participating in these programs, federal agencies remain under represented compare to the private sector, although we do have a fair number of VPP sites represented here today. We have had several people who I've mentioned earlier. And as I indicated before, I'd like encourage the agencies to participate and expand their participation in these cooperative approaches for improving federal workplace safety and health and to assist their agencies in meeting their SHARE goals. We have Cathy Oliver, Director of OSHA's Office of Partnership and Recognition and Laura Seeman and her staff to update you on the federal agencies cooperative programs. So I'll let you-all go at it. MS. OLIVER: Okay. Great. Well, Laura and I are delighted to be here this afternoon to give you an update on what's been going on with federal agencies and our cooperative programs. I think that we've really taken some strides in the growth of participation of federal agencies in our cooperative programs over the passed few years. We have about seven agencies right now with 83 VPP sites, for example. And as you can see up there, there's some representation in our cooperative programs by several agencies across the departments, and through these cooperative programs, they focus on safety and health management systems. And what we've found through these programs is we are achieving some results in terms of reduced injuries and illnesses and reduced workers' compensation and also improved relations between labor management and government. As Mr. Foulke just mentioned, we have three primary cooperative programs in OSHA, one is our VPP, which is our premier recognition program, and we have over 800,000 employees covered by this program in both the federal and the private sector and over 50,000 employees of those 800,000 are covered in VPP for federal agencies. Our Strategic Partnership program, which Laura will tell you a little bit about in just a few minutes, is basically a program where we set goals and measures to reduce injuries and illnesses. It can either be focused on safety and health management systems or a specific type of hazard in the workplace such as ergonomics. And we have over 6,000 employees covered in those programs, and I'm delighted to say there are about 12 federal partnerships covered by the Strategic Partnership program. And then finally, the Alliance program which Laura will also talk about. We have over 435 agreements, and some of these agreements are with federal agencies including EPA, MSHA, the Department of Labor and NIOSH and the IRS. VPP, again, is all about an effective safety and health management system, and those of you in federal agencies have the 1960 standard so you're very familiar with that. We found, though, that the model for VPP is a little bit stronger than 1960, and we found that the model does work for federal agencies, both large federal agencies and small federal agencies and at union sites as well. And I'm hoping to demonstrate that in mst a few minutes. Some of the processes in terms of getting into the VPP hasn't changed. The program has been in place since 1982 and has continually demonstrated that you have reduced injuries and illnesses over the years. Over that span of years, those sites that are in VPP experience injuries and illnesses more than 50 percent below the industry average. And so we think that speaks very well for this model. In terms of the process in case some of you in the room have not ever gone through the VPP process, it is an application process. It is not easy, but in terms of putting together your application, we're not looking for volumes of paper, but actually an overview of how your safety and health management system keeps employees safe in the workplace. There is some program criteria to be in VPP. Generally, to get star level, which is the highest level of recognition, you would have to have injuries and illnesses rates below the BLS injury average for the work that you do at you are worksite. Your safety and health management system must meet the VPP requirements and be in place for one year, and we're looking that you've done at least one annual evaluation before you apply for the program. One of the key elements of VPP, of course, is to have union buy in if it is a unionized site. We do want an assurance that the unions have bought in to having VPP at their worksites. Once you've applied, you do go through an onsite evaluation. There's a team of safety and health professionals that do this evaluation. It does, in general, last about three to four days, and we're doing document reviews and interviews with employees and walking through the workplace. And, again, what we're trying to determine is whether or not the management system that you described in your application is effectively implemented at the workplace. If you get in, we normally have a ceremony, and people invite dignitaries from their particular regions. Also, sometimes national office participation. And of course, once in VPP, I think a really important point about this model is we like to say it's not a flavor of the month model, because once you are in the program, we do come back and do re-evaluations to determine whether or not you still meet the VPP requirements. So I believe most of you in this room are probably familiar with the site-based VPP, but what I'd like to just mention briefly are some of the things that we are doing that we think are very exciting in terms of meeting the demand for VPP. And this means that we want to get more efficient and more effective while maintaining the integrity of the programs. And so three ways we are doing this is through a VPP corporate pilot, our OSHA Challenge pilot, and also we have some Mobile Workforce Demonstration that we're just launching at the first part of October, which is for the construction industry. And I'm not going to talk a lot about that today. But what I'd like to say is if you do have construction subcontractors in your federal agencies, and they're looking for a program to improve their safety and health management systems which, of course, would in the long run benefit you, then you may want to contact us and get some more information about the Mobile Workforce Demonstration. But what I'm going to really concentrate on right now is the VPP Corporate and the OSHA Challenge program. In our OSHA Corporate, the whole idea about corporate is if you have an organization that's going to make a strong overall commitment to workplace safety and health through VPP, and if that company, or in this case a federal agency, has a comprehensive safety and health program that covers all of your worksites, rather than us getting applications that continually repeats how your safety and health management system meets the VPP requirements, you only have to put that application together once. So I think that's really exciting for those organization that want to bring in a lot of sites but want to ensure that they're able to do it effectively with as few resources as possible. One of the federal agencies that's made this corporate commitment is the United States Postal Service. So for example, when they applied to VPP, we went and did an overall evaluation of their safety and health management system, and once we determined that that system met the VPP core requirements, then we can streamline the paperwork that comes in from each one of those sites, those U.S. Postal Service sites, and then when we go onsite, we can streamline our onsite evaluation. And one key difference between this and the standard VPP or traditional VPP is that those corporations would have a process in place whereby they would look at the applications before we receive them at OSHA and determine that they are complete and also that they would make sure that their worksite is ready for us to come out and do our onsite review. And this has been very, very effective in terms of reducing the amount of resources OSHA has to expend as well as, in my example, the United States Postal Service. We're looking to expand this program in 2007 and add at least four to six companies to that or federal agencies to the program. And here's just a result of the participation so far for the companies and the U.S. postal service that are in this program. When they compared their sites that were in VPP with their sites that were not in VPP, and they looked at what the cost savings was in each of these cases, you can see, for example, International Paper said they reduced their workers' comp and other related costs by $1.5 million dollars, and Georgia Pacific $2 million, and the U.S. Postal Service $5 million, so we really believe that this program is having a major impact on these companies and the postal service. Another new pilot that I think might be of interest to you is our OSHA Challenge pilot, and what we tried to do with Challenge is break down the elements of VPP into three stages. And for each one of those states, we identified what actions needed to be taken, what documentation is expected, and what outcomes are expected. And then at each one of the stages, when a site goes through the OSHA Challenge process, they get some OSHA recognition. So if you're applying for VPP, sometimes it might take three or four years to get into the program, but through Challenge, you're kind of getting some incremental recognition from OSHA along the way. And we think that is very exciting. The one unique aspect of this program is that it's done through Challenge administrators, so an administrator kind of adopts worksites to go through the challenge process and share information with OSHA from the time they start the challenge process to the time they get through the third stage. And the DLA is one of the agencies that is one of our Challenge administrators, and they're not only working to get their sites into VPP, but they've also adopted other worksites as some of their Challenge participants. So that's, again, another way of leveraging and sharing resources. Right now our Challenge program has over 31,000 employees and 74 participants, and some of our Challenge applicants have actually graduated to VPP. So we're learning a lot through this process. It's been really good for the agency in terms of getting data at the start of the VPP process, and we think that's going to be really valuable for the agency to be able to demonstrate that an effective safety and health management system, once you make the commitment to implement it, that you will reduce injuries and illnesses and your costs in the workplace. We're delighted that the Department of Defense, and I know we have representation here from the Defense Department, has selected the VPP as the process of choice for tackling reducing injuries and illnesses in the workplace. And they've actually - and maybe it was talked about earlier -- I apologize we weren't here earlier -- but they've actually -- and I know there are some gentlemen in the room that are with the VPP Center of Excellence -- they've actually pulled their resources together to establish this center of Excellence so that those people in the Department of Defense, those worksites that are going through the VPP process can have access to tools that will help them through that process. And we think that's going to be really effective bringing them in. This all came about when Secretary Rumsfeld actually made a challenge for them to reduce their injuries and illnesses by 75 percent. I'm going to go very quickly through these, but I just wanted to give you an idea of the type of participation we have. For example, in the Army, right now we only have one actual VPP site, but we have signed a partnership, which Laura will mention in just a few minutes. And they've got 21 installations actively working on getting into VPP. In terms of the Navy, we've gotten in three shipyards recently, and we have three more naval stations who are getting ready to apply for VPP, so the Navy is very active. And we are also negotiating a partnership agreement, again, for them to facilitate getting their sites into the program. The Department of Air Force is also negotiating a partnership with OSHA. I'm going to go through these really quickly, Louis, if I could. Here are some other organization in the Department of Defense, the NSA and also the Defense Logistics Agency, and I can't thank them enough for the work that they've done in OSHA Challenge. I think we're really going to have some exciting data. They've got six sites participating now. They've got four more sites expected to come on, and we'll be tracking their reductions over the course of their participation in this Challenge program. Here are just a couple of the results from two of their sites. In the first six months, they reported a 45 percent reduction in lost time rates at their depot in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania and a 60 percent reduction in lost time rates at their distribution depot in California. The attribute some of this not only as part of their VPP process, they've implemented this 3-D training program, which sounds really exciting, and it's something we really want to go over and take a look at, but it kind of puts visual and sound together in one type of training program, and they say that it's been very effective in getting the results that they're looking for. In terms of NASA, you can see the sites there that are participating in the program. One of the things I'd like to mention -- in the Kennedy Space Center, we did something a little bit different for them with the standard VPP. What we did was we brought their contractors in at the Kennedy Space Center first and then NASA came in at the end, and that was a demonstration program. But it worked very effectively, and now the entire Kennedy Space Center is a VPP site. At the Department of Interior, we have several sites. We've been working closely with the Park Service over the years, and I think that they found that VPP, and I'll defer to Louis back that, has had some impact on their injuries and illnesses, and we hope to continue working more with them in the future. And as far as the U.S. Postal Service, that's who has the most participation now in our VPP program, if you talk to them and you talk to us, there's a different number of sites always being reported, because we report them after their approved by our Assistant Secretary, and the postal service kind of counts them after the onsite team leaves and says you're recommended for star, so I'm not really sure what that means. But essentially, they have quite a number of sites in the program, over 116 active sites by our count, and certainly have made a commitment to bring in at least 100 more next fiscal year. So they are gradually going to be -- well, not gradually -- they're going to quickly become the participant and VPP with the most worksites. So that's going to be very exciting, I think, as a statement for federal agencies and their commitment to workplace safety and health. Here are some of the results of their participation in VPP. They've reported a 50 percent reduction in their workers' comp costs since 2003 and, again, a $5 million dollar savings based on their DART rates. And here's just one of their worksites. This is a process and distribution center and in 2001, their overall rate was 11.38, and in 2004, they reported a rate of 5. We looked to get their 2005 rate, and it was not available yet, so hopefully we'll have an update that will show even more of a decrease. NIOSH is interesting. And I like this quote by John Howard. I mean what he basically says, if they're the federal agency that conducts research on safety and health, then they need to walk the talk, and so -- or I guess he said -- that's right -- walk the walk -- apologize. Anyway, what he -- you know, he wanted to make sure that he had a site in the program, and I believe we will be getting more participation in NIOSH in the future. And one of the best success stories is the U.S. Mint for VPP. And as you can see from here, they had one of the highest injury rates in the federal government, and they had 81 violations in 2002. And they said that if they'd been a private company when we did those onsite reviews, they would have had fines up to $250,000.00. So they had a stand down. And the results, I think, are very, very dramatic. I mean in 2000, they had an 88 percent decrease in their TCIR rates from 2000 to 2004 and a 94 percent decrease in their DART rates from 2000 to 2004, also a reduction in their first aid cases as well as an 85 percent decrease in their injuries and illnesses cases. So I think that right there tells the story of what bringing the VPP model can do to a workplace. This is my favorite part -- being able to say that now OSHA has stepped up to the plate and again shown that VPP can work in even federal work facilities that have compliance officers that go out and make inspections in the workplace. Our Region V has been ver active in bring sites into the VPP. And, again, they've shown decreases in their injuries and illnesses rates, and while they had to work through some specifics in terms of their health monitoring program as well as their job hazard analysis, since our COSHOs are going out to workplaces every day, they were able to work through those issues and demonstrate that they could still do that and meet all of the VPP requirements. So that's been very successful, and we're really working in OSHA to share their safety and health management system with the other area offices in the hope that some of our other regions will also begin brining sites into the workplace. So I think overall what we're trying to say is the VPP model works. We've seen, again, reductions in injuries, reductions in workers' compensations costs. That improved labor management and government working together is really an important point of this program. I think DLA reported to us that at the beginning, they couldn't get the union to buy into this program. They worked slowly with them, and after 15 months, now the union has bought in, and they're going full force for VPP. So I think, you know, any time you're having some -- if you do have some labor-management issues or you're not communicating, well, VPP is one of those models that can maybe break down some of those walls and help with that. In the federal worksites, we ran the numbers for the federal participants in VPP, and their TCIR rates were 53 percent below the industry average, and their DART rates were, on average, 44 percent below. So almost consistent with the overall but a little bit less for the DART rates. We're excited that we have the Postmaster General of the Postal Service talking about the VPP and what it's brought to his organization. Here's a quote from John Potter, and he's a terrific speaker, and whenever he goes out, he really makes a point to talk about the VPP -- I hope Corey will nod his head as I'm saying that but -- and talk about the value that it's brought to the U.S. Postal Service. I just want to mention that one of the benefits of being in the VPP is our special government employee program, and what that does is it allows participants in VPP sites to actually take participants, we train them for a week, and then they join us on onsite evaluations. And we found the feedback of that is really terrific in the sense that safety and health people from one agency then go to another federal agency or even the private sector, they evaluate the safety and health management systems, and they bring back with the some new ideas about how to have an effective safety and health management system, and it's a terrific exchange program. And right now we have 52 SGEs from federal agencies that are helping us with those agencies that are listed up there on the slide And, of course, for OSHA it's a true benefit. It's the only way we've been able to grow this program, because we only have so many resources. And it gives us an avenue to continue to bring new people in plus re-evaluate people that are in the program. So that's kind of VPP and federal agencies, and if there aren't any questions on that, or are there any questions on that, or I can turn it over to Laura. SECRETARY FOULKE: Okay. Any questions on the VPP. We did have some discussion earlier. Laura, why don't you go ahead. MS. SEEMAN: Sure. Good afternoon, and as Cathy said, I'm Laura Seeman. I'm the Team Leader for the Strategic Partnership Program. Formalized in 1998, the OSHA Strategic Partnership Program allows OSHA to work with groups of employers, employees, labor representatives and other organization to reduce illnesses, injuries and fatalities at multiple worksites. One of the most important characteristics about Partnerships is their flexibility, which enables OSHA to address either specific industry hazards or issues or work on overall safety and health management. Partnerships are written signed agreements usually lasting between three to five years. They have measurable goals and must include language that addresses things like who will be partnering, how partnerships will be verified, and what type of benefits partners will receive -- participants will receive. At a minimum, partners provide OSHA with illness, injury and fatality data. However, other measures may be included and may be captured as well, for instance, training performed, technical assistance provided or self-inspections conducted. Each partnership is evaluated annually and partnerships are often managed jointly by a team of OSHA and its representatives from OSHA and it's partners. Partnerships are developed and run at the national, regional and/or local level. We have currently 157 active partnerships with 9 managed at the national level, and we have signed over 420 partnerships since the program started. We currently impact approximately 6,000 and a half a million employees. Since the partnership program started, more than 22,000 employers and a million employees have participated in the program. So as you can see by these numbers, we and our partners are leveraging our resources very well to impact a large group of participants at a number of worksites. Let's talk a little bit now about who's partnering with OSHA. The majority of our partnerships, over 80 percent, are in the construction industry, but partnerships have been a very effective tool for OSHA to work with other federal agencies outside of the enforcement arena. We've had a total of 29 partnerships with other federal agencies, 12 of which are active today. On a national level, we're partnering with the United States Postal Service, which I'll talk more about in a minute, and the Department of the Army, as Cathy mentioned. We have done kick-off visits at, I believe, four sites now at the Army, so we're looking forward to stepping that pace up and doing additional visits before the end of the calendar year. We're also working closely with the Air Force and the Navy to develop national partnerships and we expect to see those launched within the next few months. We have several local or regional partnerships, several with the Park Service, and we're also working with agencies like the Federal Corrections Institute at Three Rivers in Region VI and the Department of Interior's Indian Health Services at the Crow Norther Cheyenne Hospital in Region VIII. The information we received from partnerships, both quantitative and anecdotal, tell us that partnerships work. A wonderful example, and I realize now that we're really saying really good things about the Post Office today, but they truly have been an example of a good partnership. We have this partnership with the Postal Service, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the American Postal Workers Union, so OSHA is working with labor and management to make this work. This partnership was originally signed in 2003 and just recently renewed and aims to implement an ongoing process to identify musculoskeletal diseases and control the risk factors that lead to those exposures before employees can be exposed. To date, there are 116 sites in the partnership. As I just said, we've renewed, and we're going to be launching several more kick-off phases over the next three years, so we expect to see that number increase substantially. The most recent annual evaluation for this partnership showed a 15 percent reduction over the previous year for the musculoskeletal -- can I say MSDs -- MSDs and, on average, the sites that are participating in the partnership have rates that are about 33 percent below the non-participating partnerships or non-participating post office sites. So clearly, the impact can be related back to the partnership. Two recent onsite verifications that were held highlighted the actual cost savings that these reductions represent. The South Suburban Processing and Distribution Center in Bedford Park, Illinois decreased their MSD compensation costs from $880,000.00 down to $45,000.00 in four years, which was a 95 percent drop, very impressive. During that same timeframe, the Mid-Island Processing and Distribution Center in Melville, New York dropped their MSD compensation costs 66 percent, from about $400,000.00 to $137,000.00. Now one of our local success that is taking place is with the National Park Service's Glacial National Park. The Park employs about 130 employees full time. They have an additional 350 employees that come in on a seasonal basis. They also have another 480 volunteers working at this park, so we're talking about a very large and diverse work group. They've been working with OSHA's Billings Area Office to reduce their total case rate, and it has gone from 13.1 to 7.3 in just two years, which is a 47 percent drop. The days away, restricted and transferred rate went from 6.3 to 5.1, about 20 percent drop. Within the last year, the Park has also written and implemented various safety and health programs including chainsaw safety, motor vehicle safety, and accident reporting and investigation. Together, OSHA and the Park Service have provided more than 12,000 hours of training to more than 300 employees. So clearly, we're working together to make an impact there. We're going to talk briefly about the Alliance Program. As, I think, Cathy mentioned and you saw on a slide in the beginning, there are 435 Alliances right now, and there are several Alliances with federal agencies including EPA and MSHA, NIOSH and, I believe, IRS as well. The Alliance Program is OSHA's newest cooperative program. It was launched in 2002. And Alliances are also managed by the Directorate of Cooperative and State Programs in the Office of Outreach Services and Alliances. Alliances are similar to partnerships in that they are written signed agreements with a limited term. However, Alliances are not worksite-based nor do they have an enforcement or data collection component. Instead Alliances offer an opportunity for associations and groups to work with OSHA on a broad scope, and generally there are three main areas that they focus on -- training and education, outreach and communication, and promoting the national dialogue on workplace safety and health. And as you can see, there are several examples there of the benefits that are realized not only by our allies but by OSHA as well. And this program has been highly successful, especially in the area of developing various tools that are used not only by the association but are available to everybody on OSHA's worksite. We've got a number of wonderfully produced e-tools that are available and are used very extensively. Louis, can you go ahead and skip that slide, please, and I will go ahead and turn it back over to Cathy. MS. OLIVER: Okay. Are there any specific questions that you have on any of the three programs that we described? And we just have one or two little short wrap-up slides here now. MS. RODRIGUEZ: You know, even some of -- I'm sure you've heard before the unions have had a lot of problems with the VPP program, and mostly because, I guess, our experience within the private sector has been the fact -- the concern that once an employer goes through the VPP process that OSHA is not there anymore, and then things can go back to the way they used to be, you know, that all the great things that were done to get there are no longer there. Can you talk a little bit about that for those of us aren't -- you know, who haven't been through the process and to see how that would work, what your involvement continues to be? MS. OLIVER: Sure. I think the most important point is employees don't give up any rights when you participate in the VPP program. I mean if there's a complaint or an accident or a referral at the worksite, I mean the same enforcement policies and procedures kick in. OSHA will be there if that's the policy or procedure that they should be there. The only thing VPP does in terms of OSHA is just eliminate a programmed inspection, so in the case of federal agencies which, you know -- so I think that the key here is that employees are still fully protected under VPP. MS. RODRIGUEZ: Okay. MS. SEEMAN: I would just like add one of the important parts of a VPP onsite visit are the interviews that are done with employees and supervisors, but during the employee interviews, one of the things that's really stressed is the comfort level of employees. Do you feel comfortable going to your management with safety and health concerns. Do you understand your rights. Do you know that you can still call OSHA. So we're looking for a very clear picture that those rights are in place, that they're going to continue to be in place and that the comfort level is there from the employee's perceptive. MS. RODRIGUEZ: Yes, and I think I talked with Corey in the past about this very issue, so I think that may be just a misconception from comments of other people, you know, who have been through the process maybe in companies where they've worked in the past and not necessarily how the process actually works. So that's -- yes, that's interesting. Thank you. MS. OLIVER: Yes. And one of the things we suggested to the DOA when they had sort of some union concern was we put them in touch with contacts from other unions who had been through the process and let them ask those questions just like you're asking to Corey now, and it's better to hear it from them. MS. RODRIGUEZ: Oh, sure. And we represent the DLA folks, so I sort of went through the process -- MS. OLIVER: Oh, good. MS. RODRIGUEZ: -- of that with them, so. Thank you for addressing that. SECRETARY FOULKE: Any other questions or comments. MS. OLIVER: Then just quickly, we think that these cooperative programs obviously can bring some value and benefits. We would look forward to working with any of your organizations or through this organization to try to get more federal agency involvement in VPP and Partnerships and Alliances. I hope that the data that we provided you today demonstrated that we think these programs -- I mean these programs really work. We not only think they work, we know they work. And also, through the process of being involved in them, you can get more assistance form OSHA. You have access to tools. We can also set up with mentors at your worksite so you -- everyone who gets involved in the VPP or a Partnership program, they're really interested in sharing their knowledge. And we've had some of our private sector, for example, take their own private time, vacation time, at their own cost and go spend a week at a federal agency to try to help them improve their safety and health management system, and that's a true story. So I mean it's a really great thing to get involved in this. And, of course, it can help you meet the SHARE goals which I'm sure everybody is trying to do. And the last slide, please, Louis? So we also want to ask you if you could help us. Are there any venues where you have newsletters and we can put articles in to promote these cooperative programs and demonstrate results. We certainly have a lot of information that we love to share, and if you're willing to help us do that or if you're interested in the Challenge program, to contact us for that or the SGE program, that would be great. There is one last slide that just gives you our names and phone numbers should you have any interest in getting more information, and we just so much appreciate your time. SECRETARY FOULKE: All right. Any other questions or comments from anybody? Well, thank you. We appreciate your time, Cathy and Laura. MS. OLIVER: Thank you. SECRETARY FOULKE: Thank you so much. I guess going back to new business, I guess the only thing that's left on the Agenda is to, I guess, go around the table and indicate any additional items of new business that any of the members or their alternates would like to discuss. And, you know, anything in particular? Yes. MR. BATHURST: Just as a follow-on to the new reporting requirements, we thought it might be good for us to really look at it. The issue on the 1904 reporting requirements appears to be a potential data-cull hog on some of us who have kind of worked off the 1960 requirements and now are looking to shift to have to collect, you know, possibly a lot of manual records. I think it might be good for future consideration, especially if you're looking at this next reporting cycle to collect kind of, you know, the experience, and what might fit is if we could work together, and just as OSHA did the SHIM system, to possibly expand that. It may already have some expanded capability that we could cascade that out so that there's a single system, department-wide consistent format without everybody having to build their own and absorb that overhead. SECRETARY FOULKE: Okay. I think we talked about it a little bet at the break, and I think we'd like to try to do something on that, so. Okay? Anything else on this side of the room? Corey, anything? Richard? MR. MARTIN: Have we accepted the seatbelt report, or is that necessary, or is that just -- as far as a presentation? I'm just curious. SECRETARY FOULKE: I don't know. How would we -- the committee had completed its work and issued the report. Had it been received before or? MR. LIBERATORE: No. The workgroup finished it. The workgroup that was formed by the previous committee completed the work but never vetted it to the full committee, so this is the first opportunity to vet it to the committee and take it up for further consideration or whatever. SECRETARY FOULKE: Okay. MR. MARTIN: So we call for the vote? SECRETARY FOULKE: Yes. That's right. I'm assuming you're making a motion then to -- MR. MARTIN: Yes, to call for the vote to accept the report. SECRETARY FOULKE: Okay. Is there a second? MR. WILLIAMS: Second. SECRETARY FOULKE: Any other discussion? All in favor, say aye. (Chorus of ayes.) SECRETARY FOULKE: All opposed, nay. (No response.) SECRETARY FOULKE: The ayes have it. It will be accepted into the record, and I guess we'll maybe have some discussion on it at the next meeting and provide it to all the committee members. Anything else on this side of the -- anything that you'd like to discuss before the next -- okay. Good. Then the only other thing I'd say is the date of the next FACOSH meeting -- I think we're looking for a Thursday afternoon meeting in either March or April, and I guess we can just poll everybody. What I'll do is have our staff contact you all with the dates, and we'll just see where we could get, if not most, hopefully all, the members. Does everybody have their calendar with you so we can go ahead and try that? All right. (Whereupon, reviewing calendars.) SECRETARY FOULKE: Right now I'm looking at the Thursdays in March. I think because of the other committees, we try to kind of schedule the things. Thursday, March 1st? Does anybody have any conflicts there? Are there any of those Thursdays in March, the 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, or 29th that anyone has a more stronger preference for? If not, I propose that we meet March 1st. I kind of like moving things along to tell you the truth. So, any objections to that? Well, let's tentatively schedule it for Thursday, March 1st, 2007 starting at 10 o'clock, and that meeting will be held at the Department of Labor building. MS. BRAYDEN: Is there some reason we wanted an afternoon meeting? SECRETARY FOULKE: I don't know. Is there any -- they were talking about possibly having an afternoon meeting -- morning, afternoon? I kind of like to start at -- is 10 -- I mean that way we have the whole day, and that way we don't have to carry over anything or anything else like that. Let's do that. Ten o'clock on Thursday, March 1st. And we'll be sending out -- Is there any other discussions or anything else that anybody else wants to bring up? If not, I would entertain a motion to adjourn then. MR. MARTIN: Second. SECRETARY FOULKE: All in favor of that motion, please signify by saying aye. (Chorus of ayes.) SECRETARY FOULKE: All opposed, nay. (No response.) SECRETARY FOULKE: The committee stands adjourned until Thursday, March 1st, 2007. (Whereupon, at 3:40 p.m. the forgoing meeting was adjourned.) Back to Top www.osha.gov www.dol.gov Contact Us | Freedom of Information Act | Customer Survey Privacy and Security Statement | Disclaimers Occupational Safety & Health Administration 200 Constitution Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20210