Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health (ACCSH)
Minutes of December 6, 2001 Meeting

Marriott Hotel
1331 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington D.C.

The meeting of the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health (ACCSH) was called to order by the Chair, Robert Krul, at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 6, 2001. The following members were present for all or part of the meeting:

ACCSH members William Rhoten, and Owen Smith were unable to attend. Approximately 30 members of the public were in attendance at various times, as were a number of DOL/OSHA representatives, including Mr. Biersner (DOL Office of the Solicitor).

Robert Krul, the ACCSH Chair, welcomed all attendees, asked all present to introduce themselves, and requested that members of the public who wished to address ACCSH submit their names to the Chair.

Larry Edginton presented a report on the Subpart N - Cranes Work Group. He reported that the Work Group now encompasses a good cross section of the industry, including: crane manufacturers; attachment manufacturers; insurers; contractors; crane users; and related associations. Edginton pointed out that, although Subpart N actually includes a lot of equipment other than just cranes and derricks (e.g. side booms, conveyors, hoists, and helicopters), the work group maintained their focus on crane issues. In addition, he reported a fairly strong belief on the part of members that they should give consideration to the establishment of minimum qualifications for crane operators as a part of the regulatory process - it was felt that this would be a direct way to improve job site safety. Another issue the work group is struggling with is how to define exactly what lifting devices should be covered by the standard. He also stated that although the Work Group had recommended to ACCSH that negotiated rule making be considered, the Work Group desired to continue deliberations until OSHA makes a decision on this issue. Once the Notice of Intent to establish a negotiated Rulemaking Committee is formally published by the Agency, the work group intends to express to ACCSH that the interests represented in the workgroup should be interests that are represented on the negotiated rulemaking committee, as the starting place. In addition, Edginton reported that the work group felt that the work of this work group should become a starting point for the negotiated rulemaking committee. The work group developed a schedule for their next three meetings, with the next one currently scheduled for January 2002. The schedule will be posted on the ACCSH web site.

Jane Williams presented a final report on the OSHA Form 170 Work Group. She stated that the Form 170 workgroup has met over the last four years, and noted that the workgroup was charged by the agency to identify the cause of fatalities by review of the Fatality Form, which is referred to as Form 170. Williams also noted that the workgroup successfully drafted reference logic for the new form and was able to accommodate data input fields to make the information much more meaningful to the directorate when they were trying to target the cause of fatalities.

The workgroup has provided the Directorate all of their data including: the format; the re-tasking; and the flow charts. Williams stated that the Directorate is working with the Office of Management Data Systems on processing that information, and that the original task of the 170 work group is completed. She indicated that the 170 workgroup would be available if the Directorate requested it to be involved with its ongoing workgroup, which meets monthly, and that she would continue to work with Regulatory Analysis at their request.

Felipe Devora and Marie Haring Sweeney reported on the Multi-lingual Issues in Construction Work Group. Fatalities among Hispanic workers in 2000 increased sharply - they increased from 730 fatalities in 1999 to 815 in 2000. Devora stated that is was his understanding that in construction, the fatality statistics are even worse for Hispanic workers - apparently there is a 20 percent higher likelihood of an Hispanic worker experiencing a serious injury or fatality on a construction job site than a white or black worker. He stated that this recent alarming increase in Hispanic worker fatalities has caused them to focus the work group emphasis on Spanish speaking workers. The work group on Diversity in Construction is beginning a partnership with the Agency, which has assigned John Miles, the Region VI Director, to head up this effort. The work group has begun discussions and has begun identifying some of its objectives and goals. A primary goal is to review the training process and to see what works, and identify people that can help with this effort. The work group will then report back to the Agency on what works in helping reduce these numbers. In addition, the work group will seek to identify the occupational safety and health needs of the Hispanic workers, and their employers. In addition the work group will attempt to identify possible collaborators who could work with the Agency. They will also attempt to identify possible resources, including financial resources, personnel, training materials, existing programs (including training programs, as well as existing information in Spanish) that may be directed to the Spanish-speaking worker as well as the employer. They have developed a short-term action plan and a long-term action plan. Within a year, they intend to put a report out to the committee that makes recommendations on a variety of different topics. NIOSH has instituted a Spanish Web site. It doesn't have a lot of information on construction, but there will be links to things like ALCSH, and to various databases in Spanish. Interested parties can access the web site by going to on the Internet, and clicking on the "NIOSH en español" link on the left hand side of the page.

Stewart Burkhammer and Patricia Clarke (Region II of OSHA) gave a presentation on their experience at the World Trade Center. Burkhammer was the consulting ES&H director for the World Trade Center emergency site, working basically with several city and federal entities: the Department of Design and Construction, which had overall oversight for the clean-up of the site; City Health, which was responsible for the safety and health of the City of New York and the site; the Department of Environmental Conservation, which was responsible for the environmental aspects of the site; and certainly Pat Clark and her team and OSHA. OSHA and Bechtel formed a very unique teaming arrangement and partnership on this site. They toured the site in teams of two, and were able to correct a lot of problems. Basically, there were six people per shift, 18 a day. When Bechtel left the site, OSHA took over that function. OSHA entered into a partnership recently - two weeks ago, the Secretary came up and signed a partnership agreement with the two co-incident commanders. Basically, the commitment is to: continue to work together to support the environmental safety and health plan, which Bechtel was the primary author of; and continue to support that plan and to share information, both from the safety monitoring and also from the risk assessment. Jointly, they are getting the job done identifying the hazards and working on getting them abated immediately. Clark estimated that there were 41 people whose lives were saved by the Bechtel/OSHA team that toured the site, pulling people out of harm's way.

Assistant Secretary John L. Henshaw gave a presentation on OSHA and its plans and recent activities. He informed ACCSH that although he is not as familiar with the construction side as with the general industry side of safety and health, DOC is assisting him in quickly coming up to speed. The Assistant Secretary informed ACCSH that he has been in this business for over 26 years, and that he takes his responsibilities as a safety and health professional very seriously. His number-one goal is reducing injuries, illnesses and fatalities, and he has received a mandate from the President and Secretary Chao to accomplish that result. He further stated that the Agency has done a great job, and that the Agency is needed. He knows the value of strong, fair, and effective enforcement. The Assistant Secretary discussed the value of OSHA personnel experiencing an internship with the private sector and stated that he intends to show the value of education, outreach, training, and compliance assistance. The Assistant Secretary encouraged ACCSH to help decide what is the best way to achieve safe work environments, without automatically assuming that the only allowable path is the regulatory process.

Zigmas Sadauskas (a Director of the OSHA Training Institute) gave a presentation on Distance Learning and the OSHA Training Institute (OTI). He described many of the existing components that can be utilized in putting together a distance learning package, including: Satellite training; Compressed Digital Video (CDV) which allows OTI to communicate with Washington on a class-to-class basis (In the classrooms in the new OTI building, that capability will be available in all the classrooms); the OSHA web; and Electronic Compliance Assistance (e-tools). OTI has committed to making nine of their existing courses partially Web-based. Sadauskas also stated that all courses are in the process of being digitized. In the future, all the presentation materials will be available via Power Point. Eventually everything in the courses will be available on-line.

The Chair discussed several items of ACCSH business. First, the timing of the March 2002 ACCSH meeting was addressed. It was pointed out that ConExpo, which occurs every three years, and which is a major construction industry event, is scheduled for the third week of March. If ACCSH schedules its next meeting to run concurrently with ConExpo in Las Vegas, a large public turnout would be seemingly assured, because over 50,000 contractors attend that meeting. It was decided that Swanson would request the funding to hold the March 2002 ACCSH concurrently with ConExpo, in Las Vegas, the third week in March. If this timing is not approved by OSHA, the next ACCSH meeting will be held during the first week of March 2002 in Washington DC.

Bruce Swanson took an action item to attempt to arrange that special emphasis programs information, be presented to ACCSH members.

Matthew Gillen gave a presentation on NIOSH Research Programs in Construction. He presented a big-picture view of NIOSH research, and what NIOSH sees as some of the construction priorities for safety and health. Gillen pointed out that construction is one of our four high-hazard industries that NIOSH targets.

Kevin Beauregard gave a presentation updating ACCSH on North Carolina Initiatives in Tower Erection. He gave the background on why North Carolina decided to draft a standard on Communication Tower Erection, and described the progress to date in drafting the standard. In addition, he indicated that he would have latest version of the draft standard available at the next ACCSH meeting.

The Chair entertained a motion to vote on the draft minutes of the March 2001 ACCSH, and ACCSH voted unanimously to accept the draft minutes without changes.

Bruce Swanson gave a briefing on Directorate of Construction (DOC). He then introduced Noah Connell, who gave an update on Steel Erection. He indicated that OSHA is preparing a directive. new steel erection standard, which goes into effect on January 18, 2002, The draft of that directive is posted on the OSHA Web site. Connell pointed out that this is the first time that OSHA has sent out a draft directive and given the public an opportunity to send in informal suggestions. OTI is preparing a course for compliance officers, to be completed before the effective date of the standard.

Carl Sall gave a presentation on the Record Keeping and its Effects on Construction. He stated that there are not any real specific construction issues with the new recordkeeping standard. Sall added that for people who have questions on the standards, the best place to start is probably by doing a quick overview of the standard. The frequently asked questions section in the standard usually takes care of the majority of questions that come up. Failing that, the OSHA Web site has a page specifically addressing recordkeeping.

The public was given an opportunity to present issues and ideas to ACCSH. Three people from the public made short statements to ACCSH.

Nancy Ford gave a presentation on the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). In December 2000, the Federal Highway Administration came out with a Millennium Edition MUTCD. OSHA changed direct final rule to incorporate the Revision III of the 1998 edition. Employers may opt to comply with the Millennium Edition rather than Revision III. The regulatory analysis for the economic and technological impact is complete. Ford stated that before OSHA can publish the direct final rule, it must go through the Policy Planning Board. She estimated that it will become a rule by the end of January 2002.

Chairman Krul made the following additional Co-Chair appointments to the following Work Groups:

State Plans: John O'Connor

Sanitation: Robert Krul

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 4:22 p.m. on 6 December, 2001.