U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON
CONSTRUCTION SAFETY AND HEALTH (ACCSH)

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Frances Perkins Building
200 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
10:00 a.m.

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Reported by: Christine Allen,
Capital Reporting Company

APPEARANCES

COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:

EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATIVES:

Sarah M. Coyne
Executive Assistant Director
International Union of Painters and Allied
Trades/Finishing Trades Institute

Roger Erickson (telephonic)
International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron
Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers & Helpers
AFL-CIO, MOST Administrator

Walter A. Jones
Associate Director, Occupational S&H
Laborers' Health and Safety Fund of North America

Laurie A. Shadrick
S&H National Coordinator
United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters

EMPLOYER REPRESENTATIVES:

Kristi Barber (telephonic)
President, Glenn C. Barber & Associates

Kevin R. Cannon
Director of Safety and Health Services, Associated
General Contractors of America

Thomas Marrero, Jr.
National Safety Director, Tradesman International

Jerry Rivera
National Director of Safety, National Electrical
Contractors Association

STATE REPRESENTATIVES (Cont'd):

Charles Stribling
OSH Federal-State Coordinator, Kentucky Labor
Cabinet, Department of Workplace Standards

Steven D. Hawkins (telephonic)
Administrator, Tennessee Occupational Safety and
Health Administration

PUBLIC REPRESENTATIVES:

Jeremy Bethancourt (telephonic)
Co-Owner and Program Director, Arizona Construction
Training Alliance

FEDERAL REPRESENTATIVES:

Matt Gillen
Deputy Director, Office of Construction Safety
& Health, CDC/NIOSH, Office of the Director

DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIALS:

Dean McKenzie (Acting Chairman)
Office of Construction Services, Directorate of
Construction

COMMITTEE CONTACTS:

Damon Bonneau, ACCSH Coordinator, Office of
Construction Services, Directorate of Construction

COMMITTEE COUNSEL:

Sarah Shortall
ACCSH Counsel, Office of the Solicitor, DOL

OSHA:

Jim Boone, Directorate of Construction, OSHA

OSHA (Cont'd):

Chuck Harvey, OSHA

Eric Kampert, OSHA

Jim Maddux, OSHA

Ashkea McAllister, OSHA

Courtney Murray, OSHA

Lucero Ortiz, OSHA

Michael Payne, Directorate of Construction, OSHA

Kim Robinson, Solicitor's Office

David Ward, Directorate of Construction, OSHA

ALSO PRESENT:

Troy Armstead, Air Force Safety

Charlie Bird, Balfour Beatty Construction

Christine Branche, NIOSH

Graham Brent, National Commission for the
Certification of Crane Operators

Chris Cole, Inside OSHA

Una Connolly, American Road and Transportation
Builders Association

Matthew Eckstine, National Commission for the
Certification of Crane Operators

Don Head, Balfour Beatty Construction

Myron Laible, Outdoor Advertising Association

Lisa London, University of Texas at Arlington, OSHA
Training Institute Education Center

Howard Marks, National Asphalt Pavement Association

Rob Matuga, National Association of Home Builders

Mike McCullion, Sheet metal Contractors Association

Thad Nosal, Insurance Services Office

Marcus Odorizzi, City of Rockville, Maryland

Travis Rhoden, J.J. Keller and Associates

Bruce Rolfsen, BNA Occupational Safety and Health
Reporter

Scott Schneider with the Laborers Health and Safety
Fund, North America

Jim Tomaseski, International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers

Steven Todd, Specialized Carriers and Rigging
Association

Tom Trauger, Winchester Homes

Chris Williams, Associated Builders and Contractors

Lauren Williams, Associated Builders and
Contractors

AGENDA

1. Opening Remarks/Agenda Overview Acting Chairman Dean McKenzie
2. Assistant Secretary's Agency Update and Remarks Dr. David Michaels
3. NIOSH Update Dr. Christine Branche, Principal Associate Director, NIOSH
4. DOC Regulatory Update Jim Maddux, Director, Directorate of Construction
5. Break
6. OSHA's Temporary Worker Initiative Mary Lynn, Directorate of Enforcement Programs
7. Discussion of the 2-hour introduction to the OSHA 10-hour and 30-hour training courses
8. Chair Remarks/Public Comments
9. Adjourn

(10:00 a.m.)

ACTING CHAIR McKENZIE: Good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome everyone and open the meeting. Welcome to Committee members, especially as soon as we get them online there.

Our regular Chairman, Pete Stafford, had a family emergency dealing with his ailing father and was not able to join us, so he's off in Kentucky this week. So, therefore, I'll be the official Acting Chair of record, opening the meeting, closing the meeting, and then certifying the minutes for the official minutes of the meeting.

Graciously, Walter has agreed to assist us and help out. He'll moderate the meeting for us. We really appreciate your assistance, Walter.

MR. JONES: Welcome, everyone. Again, we're waiting on Vanita (phonetic) to come up with the password so we can bring online the folks who are on the phone, but in the meantime I want to keep it moving because we're going to lose Dr. Michaels in about 15, 20 minutes.

So I'd like to start until they can bring us online with going around the table, everyone introducing theirselves and the new members, starting with Chuck.

MR. STRIBLING: Good morning. My name is Chuck Stribling with Kentucky Labor Cabinet representing State governments.

MR. RIVERA: Jerry Rivera, Employer Rep.

MR. CANNON: Kevin Cannon, Employer Rep.

MS. SHADRICK: Laurie Shadrick, Employee Rep.

MS. SHORTALL: Sarah Shortall, ACCSH Council.

DR. MICHAELS: David Michaels, Assistant Secretary, OSHA.

MR. JONES: Walter Jones, Employee Rep.

ACTING CHAIR McKENZIE: Dean McKenzie, Designated Federal Official.

MS. COYNE: Sarah Coyne, Employee Rep.

MR. GILLEN: Matt Gillen, NIOSH Rep.

MR. MARRERO: Tom Marrero, Employer Rep.

MR. JONES: If I could start right here.

ACTING CHAIR McKENZIE: You have a microphone? Who's got the wireless?

COURT REPORTER: And please sign in at the desk and write legibly.

MR. MARKS: Howard Marks with National Asphalt Pavement Association.

MS. CONNOLLY: Una Connolly, American Road and Transportation Builders Association.

MR. SCHNEIDER: Scott Schneider with the Laborers Health and Safety Fund, North America.

MR. TODD: Steven Todd, Specialized Carriers and Rigging Association.

MR. ARMSTEAD: Troy Armstead, Air Force Safety.

MR. BIRD: Charlie Bird, Balfour Beatty Construction.

MR. HEAD: Don Head, Balfour Beatty Construction.

MR. COLE: Chris Cole, Inside OSHA.

MR. TRAUGER: Tom Trauger, Winchester Homes.

MR. ODORIZZI: Marcus Odorizzi, City of Rockville, Maryland.

MS. McALLISTER: Ashkea McAllister, OSHA.

MR. LAIBLE: Myron Laible, Outdoor Advertising Association.

MR. RHODEN: Travis Rhoden, J.J. Keller and Associates.

MR. ECKSTINE: Matthew Eckstine, National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators.

MR. BRENT: Good morning. Graham Brent, also with NCCCO.

MR. TOMASESKI: Jim Tomaseski, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

MS. WILLIAMS: Lauren Williams, Associated Builders and Contractors.

MR. WILLIAMS: Chris Williams, also with ABC.

MR. BOONE: Jim Boone, Directorate of Construction, OSHA.

MS. ROBINSON: Kim Robinson with the Solicitor's Office.

MS. LONDON: Lisa London with the University of Texas at Arlington, OSHA Training Institute Education Center.

MS. ORTIZ: Good morning, everybody. Lucero Ortiz with OSHA.

MR. COTCHEN: Don Cotchen, Industrial Info Resources.

MR. PAYNE: Michael Payne, Directorate of Construction, OSHA.

MR. KAMPERT: Eric Kampert, OSHA.

MR. HARVEY: I'm Chuck Harvey with OSHA.

MR. MURRAY: Courtney Murray with OSHA.

MR. NOSAL: Thad Nosal with the Insurance Services Office.

MR. MADDUX: Jim Maddux with OSHA.

MR. ROLFSEN: Bruce Rolfsen with BNA Occupational Safety and Health Reporter.

DR. BRANCHE: Christine Branche, NIOSH.

MR. WARD: David Ward, OSHA's Directorate of Construction.

MR. JONES: All right, I want to thank you. While we're waiting for the online folks to-- for us to get a password to get the online folks, I'm instructed by Sarah that we do have a quorum and since that is the case, I'd like to introduce Dr. Michaels and have him give his update.

As you heard, unfortunately, Pete Stafford is not able to join us as originally planned. His father fell ill and he was called away to care for him. So, let's all keep Pete and his family in our thoughts and prayers and thank Dean and Walter for stepping up to the plate here and I'm sure this meeting will run very smoothly.

I also wanted to acknowledge the fine work of the work groups that have been getting together in between the full member committee meetings. And I that it's in these work group meetings that the most detailed work gets done. I very much appreciate the time, the care, and the expertise that all of you bring to these work groups.

You know, summer is traditionally a slow time for initiating programs or moving forward on projects, but that is not the case at OSHA. We've been moving ahead with a number of activities and initiatives, and I'd like to fill you in on some of them.

I think as you've all heard by now one of the issues that we're very concerned about is the protection of temporary workers. And I appreciate the work the Subcommittee is doing to address this issue here and I look forward to your recommendations. We've been hard at work on this initiative and later today Mary Lynn from our Directors of Enforcement Programs will be briefing you on our perspective and on other activities related to protecting temporary workers. I'm very glad to see ACCSH has formed a work group to give advice on this important topic.

Earlier this summer we held a webinar with the American Staffing Association focused on protecting temporary workers. It had many hundreds of people listening from across the country. That webinar is on our website and we will be creating a new web page that gathers all the materials on protecting temporary workers to make it easier for the public to access this information. And one of the things that we are collecting is best practices. We want to disseminate those best practices--
(Interruption.)

DR. MICHAELS: Hey.

MR. JONES: I thought he was here.

DR. MICHAELS: Sorry. Who knew? In any case, I think obviously that's an area that we're looking to, the employer community around the country, both staffing associations and the client employers who bring on temporary workers, to look at best practices and to disseminate those best practices.

We're also monitoring a very alarming trend that's occurring among workers involved in communication towers. In the past year there have been 13 fatal incidents at communication tower worksites with a total of 14 fatalities. Eight of these events have occurred in the past 12 weeks alone. That's a significant spike in incidents and fatalities compared to previous years' data. We're currently investigating the causes of these fatalities. We'd like to know what's going on. We'll be reaching out to the tower construction and maintenance industry as well as to the major cellular network carriers to develop some solutions that better protect workers engaged in this very dangerous work. And I think a number of people in their room have some experience in this area. And obviously, you know, this is a valued advisory committee. Any advice that you want to give us on that we would gratefully receive from you.

OSHA's moving forward with a fourth phase of rulemaking in our Standards Improvements, or SIPs, Project. And you will be reviewing a number of proposed standard changes tomorrow. We're hopeful this will wrap up the ACCSH review process for what we call SIP IV, and we'll continue to work on that proposed rule. As you know, you have a statutory role in this and we're pleased that you're here to review these suggested changes.

Now, since it's after 10:00, I can tell you that the Bureau of Labor Statistics just released its preliminary data on fatal occupational injuries that occurred in 2012. In general, the data show that together, all of us--employers, unions, health and safety professionals, trade associations, and OSHA-- are making a significant difference. In the period of increased economic activity, one in which we might expect to see increased injury rates, the national work-related fatal injury rate dropped from 3.5 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers to 3.2. That's a significant drop and one about which we should be pleased. Now, these are preliminary numbers and they will go up slightly, but a drop that size is clearly significant and won't be overcome by the final numbers that are going to come out six months or so.

But still, we have far to go. There are still more than 4,000 workers who have lost their lives last year on the job. But these data do show progress. However, there are two areas in which there was a notable lack of progress, and one is the construction industry, where the rate of fatal injuries increased from 9.1 in 2011 to 9.5, and may go up slightly more because, again, these are preliminary numbers and the 9.1 were final numbers.

Now, perhaps this is not unexpected in a period of growth. There was more work being done, more hours spent on construction work last year. And while this is a rate based on number of hours, we know when more work occurs, when new workers are brought on. When many new workers are hired there's increased risk of injury and fatality and so we might expect this increase. But clearly we can and we must do better, and we look to this Committee to help us do that.

The second area of concern is the category that includes oil and gas drilling. Fatal injuries, the number of fatal injuries in oil and gas extraction rose 23 percent. OSHA's very much focused on this area as well. And as many of you know, a national voluntary stand-down of U.S.

onshore exploration and production is planned for November 14th of this year. That's really a stand- down for the whole U.S. onshore oil and gas drilling and extraction industry to promote safety and health awareness. The event is co-sponsored by the National STEPS Network, which is an alliance that OSHA has with a large number of oil and gas- extracting employers. I see Lisa London in the back from the University of Texas, which also plays a very key role and is having a national meeting in December.

MS. LONDON: Correct.

DR. MICHAELS: In Dallas, which I think is already probably overbooked, but if you're interested in oil and gas safety and health, that's the meeting to go to.

But this national stand-down where across the country workers will stop work and review safety and health procedures. It's a partnership of the National STEPS Network, which is the OSHA Alliance, OSHA, NIOSH, and a number of different industry associations. We think this is of vital importance because we see the increase in fatalities that is occurring in this industry.

Now, today, I'm pleased to announced that OSHA has launched a new web page focused on the needs of women working in the construction industry. When you go on to that web page, which is live today, I'd like to point out that former ACCSH member Liza Arioto, who championed--as you remember, had championed women in construction during her term here, her picture is there. She's one of the photographs of women in construction and she really was very instrumental in moving this forward.

The new web page focuses on two safety and health issues of particular concern to women:

sanitation hazards and proper-fitting personal protective equipment. And it has links to other resources. Having this website up is a longstanding recommendation from ACCSH. We're glad we've made some progress in this area. Just yesterday, on behalf of OSHA, I signed an alliance with the National Association of Women in Construction to develop training resources that will help protect women in the construction industry.

All across the country, OSHA is partnering with unions, worker centers, employers, trade associations, and civic groups to conduct outreach and education, and to stage safety stand-downs to promote ways of preventing fatalities and injuries from falls, which, as you know, is the leading cause of death in the construction industry. And I highly recommend you take a look at the BLS statistics. For the second year they have statistics on the height involved in fatal falls among workers. And, again, there were a sizeable number of workers who died from falls at very high elevations, above 20 or 30 feet, but also a very substantial number of falls that occurred below 20 feet and even below 10 feet. And it points us in some very significant directions to go in terms of instituting protections for those workers.

So since the start of this year's construction season we've held voluntary stand- downs across the country covering thousands of construction employers and tens of thousands of workers. And we have more stand-downs planned in Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. In Dallas, Texas, we'll be advertising the Preventing Falls campaign on the public bus system this month through late September. And we've collaborated to place posters in mass transit systems in Maryland and Massachusetts as well. And I understand that Jeremy Bethancourt is working on a similar effort in Phoenix, Arizona.

Have we been able to get the folks on the phone on the line yet?

MR. JONES: We have not.

DR. MICHAELS: Well, when you speak to Jeremy later, you'll tell him I expressed my thanks to him.

We've also been making aggressive use of social media and the results, I think, are impressive and encouraging. We send out daily Stop Falls Tweets, which in July alone prompted more than 3,000 people to visit our Stop Falls web page.

We've also continued updating the fall prevention resources on the Stop Falls page, including two of our newest resources: a bilingual, that's English-Spanish, booklet on ladder safety and a training guide with three Fall Prevention Toolbox talks. I really want to thank NIOSH for their great work on this. This has been a terrific collaboration. And I want to thank Dr. Branche, who's sitting in the front row, who I know you'll be hearing from as well.

All these materials are available--these materials I just mentioned are available in traditional and cell phone or mobile-friendly formats, so work crews can access safety and health information in real time, both on and off the job site. If anyone here would like multiple copies in print of the Fall Prevention Training Guide, please get in touch with our Office of Communications and we can provide them.

You know, this summer we again partnered with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service in our national awareness campaign to prevent heat illness in outdoor workers. And for the third consecutive year we promoted our Water-Rest-Shade message through safety stand-downs, bilingual training resources, radio interviews, social media, and our heat smartphone app. I'm particularly proud to report today that more than 100,000 have downloaded our Smartphone Heat Safety Tool since we launched that app two years ago. In fact, we broke our own record last month when more than 18,000 people downloaded it, more than any other single month. So that app really has turned out to be a very useful tool for workers, for employers, for others across the country.

So while we're in the final weeks of summer there's still many hot days ahead of us. We can't let our guard down, and thank you all for your work on this.

Multiple generations have embraced this new world of social media with remarkable speed and enthusiasm. And avenues such as Twitter present us with new and, I think, quite effective ways to communicate rapidly with millions of people. So I'm hoping that members of ACCSH encourage employers and workers in the construction industry to follow the Department of Labor on Twitter and to friend us on Facebook. You know, it's a Department of Labor Twitter feed and Facebook site. And by doing that you can get all of OSHA's newest resources and stay current on trending topics on safety and health.

So that's, in brief, the update from OSHA. I think I have about five minutes before I have to leave to get to my next meeting, so I think I can take a couple of questions if people have them. I'm told you have to identify before you speak your name for the sake of the folks who are transcribing this.

MR. JONES: Well, I have one quick question. Last year you talked about setting up a website to show the OSHA PELs and then compared them with NIOSH's RELs and then ACGIH's TLVs. And we're wondering where are we at on that? Are you still thinking--

DR. MICHAELS: Yes, actually we've made great progress on that and we expect to see a number of different web-based products coming out soon focusing on chemical hazards.

We recognize that the PEL modernization process is broken. The vast majority of our permissible exposure limits date back to the 1960s and some of them were outdated then. But for those of you who don't know the history, when the OSHA Act was passed was passed in 1971, we were allowed to essentially adopt existing consensus standards and government regulations. And so the under the Walsh-Healey Act the government had essentially adopted the 1968/1969 ACGIH PELs List. And so we took all of those and they became the OSHA PELs, and that was about 500 different chemical exposure levels.

Since then, OSHA has up-dated about 30 and so 450, 470 have been unchanged since the late 1960s, and they're clearly out of date. NIOSH has done some terrific work for many years issuing recommended exposure limits. And they're slightly than PELs. They don't take economic or technological feasibilities into account. They're health-based standards. The State of California has its own standards in process as do some other states and they've issued occupational exposure limits. The ACGIH continues to modernize and improve theirs. And so we've put together quite a few materials that we will soon be making public to allow people to compare those.

In addition, though, we are preparing a Request for Information, laying all this information out. We expect to publish it within a few months, where we ask our stakeholders, the safety and health community, technical experts, academics, employers, unions, trade associations to weigh in on what we should do. Given current law and various court decisions, what should we do to increase worker protection from chemical exposure hazards? And we hope when we put that out we really get some thoughtful input from all of you.

Maybe I'll take one more question if anyone has one. If not--okay. Well, I'm going to thank you all very much. Thank you for coming. Thank you for those on the phone if you get to hear me. But if not, other people will thank them. And I look forward to hearing the results of this very important meeting that you're having.

MR. JONES: Thanks, David.

DR. MICHAELS: Thank you, Walter.

ACTING CHAIR McKENZIE: Thank you.

MR. JONES: Okay. Before we move on, I want to check the situation of our on-phone members.

MR. BETHANCOURT: This is Jeremy. We finally got to hear Dr. Michaels say goodbye.

MR. JONES: And we can still barely hear you. Jeremy, could you go ahead and introduce yourself and then after Jeremy, anyone else that's online introduce yourselves, please?

MR. BETHANCOURT: Jeremy Bethancourt, member, Public Representative.

MR. ERICKSON: Roger Erickson, MoST programs, International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, representing the employees.

MR. HAWKINS: Steve Hawkins, Tennessee OSHA, representing State Plan states.

MS. BARBER: Kristi Barber, Employer Representative.

MR. JONES: I think that's everyone, thank you. And I apologize for just bringing you online now.

Next up we have Dr. Christine Branche giving us the NIOSH update, and you get the nice comfy chair.

MS. SHORTALL: When Ms. Branche comes up here I would like to enter into the record this Exhibit No. 1, the agenda for the August 22-23 ACCSH meeting.

MR. JONES: Thank you.

I'm on Slide 2. I'm going to skip the part about describing our office and get right to answering some questions that arose around ABLES. I'm going to talk about some new construction research developments, say something briefly about the Falls Prevention campaign, and then close out with talking about an update on green construction and building information modeling. That means I'm skipping Slide Numbers 3, 4, and 5.

It's my understanding that ACCSH had questions about our ABLES Program, our Adult Blood Lead Epidemiology and Surveillance Program. And the question that I understand that was raised was the justification for the decision that NIOSH made in discontinuing our funding for that program.

The ABLES Program is a state-based surveillance program of laboratory reported adult blood lead levels. The program objectives is to build state capacity to initiate, expand, or improve adult blood lead surveillance programs so that they can accurately measure trends and adult blood lead levels--say that three times fast--and which can effectively intervene to prevent lead overexposures. NIOSH has funded state ABLES programs to submit those blood lead data for adults back to NIOSH. And NIOSH has encouraged developing local capacity to conduct the exposure surveillance.

Some states have performed well beyond the ABLES funding requirements. Many states have submitted data about lower levels than required. And the level required is a blood lead level exceeding 25 micrograms per deciliter. The states are also conducting occupational health interventions.

For example, in 2011, data submitted by 13 states contained information on lead exposures for 80 percent or more of their cases with blood lead levels ranging from 10 to 24 micrograms per deciliter. Twenty-three of the states have state- based occupational surveillance cooperative agreements-- sorry, occupational health surveillance cooperative agreements. In eight of the states, the same principal investigator that oversees ABLES also oversees the state-based surveillance cooperative agreement.

The next slide. I'm on Slide 7. The ABLES Program does have some construction components, so I'll give you some highlights there. Manufacturing has had the greatest number of elevated blood lead levels, again over 25 micrograms per deciliter, in 2009: 72 percent manufacturing, 14 percent for construction.

However, construction had the greatest proportion of individuals with blood lead levels of 40 micrograms per deciliter of all industries. And in order the trades that showed the highest elevations were: painting and paperhanging at 27.1 percent; bridge, tunnel, and elevated highway construction at 25.2 percent; special trade contractors at 26.3 percent; and heavy construction at 20.4 percent.

I'm on Slide 8. Now, in accordance with the Budget Control Act of 2011, which is a series of spending cuts also known as sequestration, NIOSH cancelled all contracts to fund State ABLES programs that use Fiscal Year 2013 funds. Now, it's our understanding that sequestration cuts are permanent. We hope that states will consider ways in which they can continue building on program structures and systems created under ABLES, but we recognize that many states may not have that capacity.

For the 23 ABLES states that also participate in the NIOSH state-based surveillance program, occupational lead surveillance is one of the health indicators for which they are expected to collect--sorry, contracted with to collect data. We'd like to see continued surveillance information collected into the future within funded programs and we're working with our staff to be able to examine those opportunities. We also plan to engage with our stakeholders on this issue to see how we can continue data collection and/or intervention activities in the future. And the NIOSH ABLES team will continue supporting the state ABLES program through technical assistance and the website will remain on the website.

I'm on Slide 9. Now, we've made progress in protecting workers from the deleterious effects of lead exposure and we have provided the occupational safety and health community with essential information for setting priorities for research and intervention, and we've conducted intervention ourselves. We feel that workers in the United States and abroad are healthier because of our work in this area and our achievements are a result of the strategic partnerships in this area.

Despite our accomplishments, lead exposures remain a national occupational health problem and it's unfortunate that we've had to stop funding this program. Are there any questions before I continue?

(No response.)

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Just real quick, I think it's self-evident, but--

DR. BRANCHE: We'd ask that you wait for the microphone.

MR. MARKS: Howard Marks, National Asphalt Pavement Association.

COURT REPORTER: Wait, you need a microphone, sir.

MR. MARKS: Howard Marks, National Asphalt Pavement Association. I think it's probably self-evident, but our membership also represents the road construction industry. I'm assuming that the lead exposure is a result of the abraded lead-based paint.

Is that correct?

DR. BRANCHE: It's all lead exposure wherever their occupational source. It's not any particular one. It's not any one particular source.

MR. MARKS: So has there been identification of some of the sources? That I guess is my question.

DR. BRANCHE: That information is available on the website and the answer is yes. Apparently I'm out of order for asking for questions, but I knew that this was a particular question that ACCSH asked and I wanted to must sort of dispense with something that really is a part of my area of expertise.

So I'm now on Slide 10. The month of June was a banner month for construction at NIOSH. There were several products that we released and outcomes that we were able to provide. The first of them was Straight Talk About Nail Gun Safety. Jim Albers in our Division of Applied Research and Technology was the main developer of a comic format to illustrate the potential risks of traumatic injury using nail guns and how these risks can be reduced. If you've not had an opportunity to download or if you've not received information about this particular publication, the web address is listed here on the slide. Real-life examples from residential building construction are used to explain nail gun traumatic injury risks related to two different nail gun triggering systems and a variety of residential framing nailing risks.

The information in the publication is based on focus group discussions that NIOSH convened with residential building subcontractors, safety specialists, and workers, as well as NIOSH- sponsored research, and the nail gun guy that we published with great fanfare in collaboration with OSHA in 2011. The publication is in the public domain. It can be freely copied or reprinted and is available in English and Spanish.

Our next publication also released in June is Simple Solutions for Home-Building Workers, also developed by Jim Albers. It also is available in the public domain and is available in English and Spanish. This publication was written especially for young and less-experienced home-building workers. Original drawings and non-technical language are used to describe manual material handling injury risks and how these risks can be reduced or eliminated.

Next in June, our much-anticipated Ladder Safety smartphone app was released. Dr. Peter, I won't pretend to pronounce his last name, in our Division of Safety Research was the main author of this particular app. It has a number of tools for measuring, inspection, the proper use of ladders, as well as accessories. It was quite anticipated and it's been well received.

And then finally in June, we had an invitational safety workshop on safety culture and safety climate in June that was co-sponsored with CPWR and the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. It was stimulated by a national occupational research goal and the construction track participants included contractors, researchers, labor and trade associations, consultants, as well as the insurance industry. There were presentations and small group discussions that covered a number of questions from what do the terms "safety culture" and "safety climate" mean and what factors influence them? A report is soon to follow, but materials from the presentation are posted on the website listed.

There were several ACCSH participants: Pete Stafford, Kevin Cannon, Walter Jones, Jeremy Bethancourt, and Jim Maddux was in attendance as well.

A couple of other things that I wanted to update you on. There was a 2010 National Health Interview Survey. The Health Interview Survey is something that's implemented on a periodic basis. And in 2010, NIOSH funded an occupational health supplement.

There are over 17,000 current and recent U.S. workers supply information on their industry, occupation, and workplace health conditions and exposures related to work organization, psychosocial issues, exposures and conditions. The results allow useful prevalence estimates for the construction sector. This particular supplement and the survey were the subject of a NIOSH science blog that was posted on June 24th of this year, and our posts continue to be available. There was a construction component to the report and the link is also available through the blog.

Information from the occupational health supplement as it concerns construction is on Slide

15. A few of the examples are: skin exposure to chemicals. The question to which the respondents were replying was, during the past 12 months, did you regularly handle or were you in skin contact with chemical products or substances at work twice a week or more? The results estimate that 31 percent of all construction workers have exposure to potential skin hazards at work. This compares to 20 percent of U.S. workers. The top two--trades and construction--were painters at 58 percent and then pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters at 44 percent.

Another examples is inhalation exposures.

The question was for the job that you held the longest were you regularly exposed to vapors, dust, gas, or fumes at work twice a week or more? 50.8 percent of construction workers have exposures to such--inhalation exposures, and this compares to 25 percent of all U.S. workers. The top two construction trades were: pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters at 72 percent; and painters at 69 percent.

I'm going to skip Slides 16 and 17. And I know that Jim Maddux is going to provide an update about the Construction Falls Prevention campaign. All I wanted to say is that we now have available an additional image that's available electronically only and you would need to get in touch with me if you'd like to use that. It's available for you to be able to add your own logo and your information to it just like has been done for the main campaign poster. This is simply an alternative.

Also available through our NIOSH Flickr are photographs of good construction practices that we were able to take with cooperation from Jeremy Bethancourt. If you need access to those, if you can't find them immediately through our NIOSH Flickr site, then please get in touch with me.

Turning to our green construction activity, I'm on Slide 19, our NORA Construction Sector Council has been interested for some time in integrating safety and health into green construction. And we've been able to develop a relationship with the U.S. Green Building Council and been trying to have influence or at least be able to bring some information to bear for the leadership and energy and environmental design, the LEED rating system.

Moving to Slide 20, our interest here and the way we think that the integration of occupational safety and health can best be accomplished is looking at life cycle safety. And when you look at design construction operations and maintenance renovation and then the deconstruction of a building, there's an opportunity for design certainly, but also an opportunity to integrate worker safety and health into all of those stages. What we've been trying to promote is to think about operations and maintenance work throughout the design. If you design for worker safety and health, having that particular element in mind, then you probably are designing well for all phases of the construction, from construction through deconstruction, properly.

We've been able to--I'm sorry. So life cycle safety is something that we know appeals to facility owners. And what we've done is we've submitted a draft pilot credit for a safe roof plan to the U.S. Green Building Council for their review.

So with the Falls Prevention campaign as well as our work with the U.S. Green Building Council, and in green construction generally, I'm on Slide 22, many of our efforts are aimed towards preventing falls from roofs. And we know that fall hazards are amenable to prevention by both design and planning. So many of the interventions that we seek are things like installing parapet walls, guardrails, fall- restraint systems, and then using fall-arrest systems, and encouraging equipment location that's set back from the edge of the roof.

I just did Slide 23. I'm on Slide 24. A Green Building Safety Curriculum is now available from the Construction Center of Excellence, which developed the curriculum. They are located at Renton Technical College and worked with a number of partners from across the state of Washington to develop it. It's available at the website listed on the slide. And if you have any questions we ask that you appeal to the director, Shana I think it's Peschek, but I can't say that I know how to pronounce her last name. I apologize if I've missed it.

The Construction Center of Excellence is a resource for industry, education, and labor in the construction industry. And the website is intended to assist you in finding agencies, training programs, and opportunities and information about the construction industry that will provide connections for you to gain knowledge and resources to fit your needs.

Two more items. Also stimulated by a NORA goal is our exploration in building information modeling. And we were able with the AGC of

America, the BIM Forum which is also part of AGC, and CPWR to host an invitational workshop, building information modeling to eliminate construction site hazards. That meeting took place earlier this month and we were able to host a number of individuals from diverse groups that are related to this topic: construction contractors, researchers, labor, architects, as well as engineers. The ACCSH participants for this were Kevin Cannon, who was a co- host, Walter Jones, and Matt Gillen.

I'm on Slide 26. The format here, again, using life cycle safety--sorry, like the stages of life cycle safety to examine where BIM could be used to integrate worker safety and health. And while not an exhaustive list, some of the questions that we explored were what can research tell us about the potential for BIM to improve construction safety and health? And how can BIM features be used to improve prevention through design efforts, including pre-job planning, communication, and training? And we will be posting that information with AGC and the BIM Forum and we'll let you know when the presentations are available for you to review them.

And then lastly, the NIOSH Prevention

Through Design Program earlier this month released four education modules. Those modules are:

architectural design and construction education, reinforced concrete design, structural steel design education, and mechanical/electrical systems education. Each of the modules outlines the motivations for prevention through design, encourages including Occupational Safety and Health considerations early in the design process, and identifies hazards associated with each of the topics. Each also includes an instructor's manual and a slide deck.

MR. JONES: Thank you, Christine. Do I have any questions from ACCSH members, including those on the phone?

(No response.)

MR. JONES: Is there any questions in the audience?

(No response.)

MR. JONES: Well, I have one. Christine, I attended the BIM conference. I thought it was fantastic. I'm not clear on where we go next. It seemed like it's a private industry-driven product where you're 3D modeling projects, whether it's building information modeling in this case, but eventually we're looking at civil engineering as well. Where do we go next with this in terms of inserting safety and health, rule-checking software into Navistar, some of these other projects, so that the CLASH technology would take over and find these problems during the designing stage and handle them before, you know, we get to the project stage?

DR. BRANCHE: Excellent question. It turns out that the BIM Forum--again, which is part of AGC-- had a meeting shortly after our workshop and the contractors apparently were very enthusiastic about this and would like to continue some of the discussions as an adjunct of the BIM Forum. So now we're working out some of the mechanics, but I think the first step is that the BIM Forum has stated that they're willing to host on their website all of the presentations from the meeting.

MR. JONES: Oh, fantastic.

DR. BRANCHE: So there'll be an opportunity to not only have any of you be able to download that information, but we're looking for ways through which we can continue the discussion. So I'm very enthusiastic about that.

(Discussion off the record.)

MR. TRAUGER: Tom Trauger, Winchester Homes.

A question about the nail gun materials and the home building and the ladder safety. I know they just came out in June, but what is NIOSH's process to find out how effective these materials are and how well they're received or if they're really being used in the field by workers? I'm assuming that you have some kind of process or you do an evaluation maybe six months, a year, or whatever. I'd just like to know how effective they are or they will be because it's pretty--or in August since they just came out in June.

DR. BRANCHE: Excellent question. To be honest, I don't know about the evaluation plan that may be underway for the materials handling document or the newer nail gun comic. But I do know that it's a valid criticism that we certainly do put a lot of information out and don't necessarily have a plan in place for knowing how effective they are or what feedback we can get. But we've done that, we've tried to put in place, and are still designing some evaluation efforts for the Falls Prevention campaign.

As it concerns the ladder app, because it's an app that I believe--I have to remember what Peter told us about that. I believe they're trying to work with the phone companies to see how many downloads they have for that because it is free. Purchasing it would certainly be an easy way to be able to know how many people are using it. But I believe that there is an opportunity for them to know how many downloads there have been for the-- ore requests. I'm sorry, I'm not particularly phone app savvy.

But those are excellent questions and I can take those back to the researchers and ask them what they know. Not unless you know something different, Matt.

MR. GILLEN: No, I was just going to add a couple things. That evaluation is a wonderful thing, but, you know, one, it does cost money; and two, you can't really ask more than nine people any questions without getting OMB review and that takes a long time. And so, you know, some of the more informal review we do like how many downloads things get, we check in with people about how they used it, trade associations and folks about their feedback that they're getting, and things like that. So we do try to do as much informal as we can.

DR. BRANCHE: Right, the website data can be very helpful.

MR. GILLEN: And just to follow, to be I did
5 participate in the latter review application, so--

DR. BRANCHE: Thank you

MR. GILLEN: --that's what kind of triggered the question. Since I participated and Jeremy participated, and others participated, I was curious, what's going on with the other products?

DR. BRANCHE: Again, I can get that information and feed that back to the Committee.

MR. JONES: Sure, thank you. Thank you, Chris. Oh, Cole, excuse me, I'm sorry. Jerry?

MR. RIVERA: Not a question. Not a question, but mainly--

MR. JONES: Jerry, introduce yourself, please.

MR. RIVERA: Jerry Rivera, Employer Rep. And to the NIOSH staff, thank you very much for the efforts in leading innovation and safety. I mean, the app, the feedback that I've heard so far has been very useful. It's another tool in the toolbox, so I'd like to commend that NIOSH staff for their efforts in creating innovation and safety for the construction industry. So thank you.

DR. BRANCHE: I'll make sure the staff--I will convey that to the staff. Thank you.

MR. JONES: All right, thank you, Christine. While we wait for Jim Maddux to come up and make his update, I'd like to inform the member of the public this is an open meeting and then you can address the Committee. There's a sign-up sheet in the back of the room, I trust, that you can sign up to. And we will give you an audience with the committee at the end of today, at the end of the meeting, and tomorrow as well. If there isn't a list back there inform me, so I can get one running.

MS. SHORTALL: Mr. Jones, before Mr. Maddux begins his presentation, I just want to enter into the record an exhibit NIOSH Construction Activities, Presentation by Dr. Branche.

And just to follow up on what Mr. Gillen was saying, all of the federal agencies, if they want to conduct information-gathering activities they must get permission from the Office of Management and Budget if they want to conduct information-gathering from more than nine people, so that's what Mr. Gillen was talking about. That doesn't prohibit trade organizations or others from conducting their own information gathering activity unsolicited by the government. And provided that information, but the agencies are limited in how much information they're permitted to gather from the public.

MR. BETHANCOURT: Excuse me, Sarah, this is Jeremy Bethancourt. Along that that thought process I guess I do have one comment or a question perhaps. Be that as it is where they're not specifically able to do it, one of the things that I was thinking is how I wonder we in the industry can assist in trying to get some feedback to them. Is there a format--and I guess I should have asked this before Dr. Branche steps down, but is there a format that we can get from NIOSH perhaps that will assist them, that's within some sort of a guideline that they have for asking questions or having feedback on such things.

MS. SHORTALL: I think you would need to contact NIOSH. But you have to be careful it doesn't look like government fingerprints are what- -and on whatever information we want to collect because then it will appear as though the government is asking for that information. It's not that the government cannot ask for information from where the nine parties, it's simply that we have to get permission from OMB to do it, and that's a strenuous process. That includes publishing of the Federal Register, asking for comment, whether we should be conducting that type of information-gathering. And as Mr. Gillen was saying, it does cost money.

MR. BETHANCOURT: So it isn't necessarily prohibitive to do basically, you know, offline, to just say I would like to help you and provide some feedback unsolicited. Are there guidelines? And I could just contact NIOSH. Is that what you're saying?

MS. SHORTALL: I would contact NIOSH, so they can tell you what would be appropriate within the guidelines of the Paperwork Reduction Act requirements.

MR. BETHANCOURT: Very good, thank you.

MR. JONES: Matt?

MR. GILLEN: Nope.

MR. JONES: All right, thank you. Jim, please, welcome to the Committee and--

MR. MADDUX: Thank you, Walter.

MR. JONES: --we appreciate your update and any information you have to give us.

MR. JONES: No worries.

MR. MADDUX: But it looks like we've got some work to do yet.

MR. JONES: No worries. No worries.

MR. MADDUX: So we'll stay on that.

On the personnel front, I did want to note, of course, Ben Bare retired after the last meeting that you guys had. And so Dean is our Acting Deputy now in the Directorate of Construction. And Eric Kampert, who's in the audience, is the Acting Director of our Office of Construction Services. So we're going through the process of advertising for a deputy position and working through that and these guys are filling in, in the meantime.

I did want to really thank the committee for working through these sort of budget troubled times that we have, that have made it impossible to have a full face-to-face meeting. I think that the remote system, we're still working through the bugs and trying to get it to work as smoothly as we can. But what we have been able to do by using this technology is that this will be our fourth meeting this year and it's been many, many, many years since ACCSH has been able to have a full four meetings, which is the maximum that we've listed under the charter. So I think that we have been successful at making things work, and I thank you for your patience in working through all of those issues.

We've gotten some work done on the cranes Cranes, on SIPs IV, on the training issues, and on the temp worker issues with the work groups. So I'm really very pleased with that work.

Also, on kind of the Committee business front, probably before our next meeting we'll be putting out a notice asking for nominations to the Committee. We have a number of positions that will be open, I think, 5:00 or 6:00, so we'll be going through that process again.

We've also been continuing to have work group meetings in between the full meetings, which Dr. Michaels mentioned. And those have just been small meetings with ACCSH members talking about their individual issues and trying to work through kind of the details of those issues. Certainly when we get our next full, live meeting with all the members here, we'll have work group meetings using our traditional format, doing a couple of hours per work group and making them open to the public and having presentations and so forth. I am actually really hopeful that we can do that soon. We have, I think, about three or four presenters for different work groups that are lined up that we felt that it would be a little bit clumsy to try and do in this format, that we would really anticipating our next live meeting.

So some updates, new web pages. We've managed to get some good work done on the Internet.

One of the really interesting pages that we put up since the last meeting has to do with structural incidents and the reports. So these are the reports that our Office of Engineering Services does on structural collapses and so forth. And so we've been able to post those reports on the Internet on this structural report site. We started out with a dozen. We've been adding to that. We're up to about 30, so we're getting more and more of them all the time. When we get to where we have, you know, where we kind of have all of them up there, we want to try and have a little bit of an outreach effort, try and get out to the design schools and the engineering educational institutions, and encourage them to use these reports of things that went poorly as part of the training for their young engineering students.

A special thanks to Mohammed and to his folks, Gopal, who have been working tirelessly to get these on the Internet.

We also put up a nail gun page. This has been very helpful. As you know, we had our nail gun guidance document that we did with NIOSH, and we had that in English and Spanish. Then our folks in Communications went to the effort to turn those documents into e-publications, so that you can get them on the various e-readers, on tablets, and so forth. Then NIOSH came out with the comic book product. And so we had enough material to create a whole nail gun page so that all that stuff is in one little repository where people can't get to it. So we've got all of our OSHA products, the NIOSH products, and some links to the various research institutions, especially to Duke that have done a lot of work in this area, so I think that's a good, helpful piece.

Dr. Michaels mentioned the women in construction page. There will be a press release later today talking about that and the new alliances in that area. So we're really looking forward, maybe at the next meeting, the Committee could give us some feedback on that page and how we dealt with their recommendations and give us some additional, okay, here's some fine-tuning or some things that could be done better on that page. I'm pretty happy with it. It has taken several turns to kind of get it to be, you know, where we want it, but it's looking pretty good.

On the standards area, we're continuing to work on our Confined Spaces for Construction Rule. We're still hoping to get that at least into OMB by the end of the year.

We also have a number of crane issues that we're dealing with, the crane certification issues and some crane amendments to try and make some small changes to the crane standard.

And we're continuing to do research on the backover issue and on rebar. I will make a plug as I did at the last meeting for the backover web page. Megan Smith on our staff has done a great job of keeping that page up and so it's current to all of the current research and technology and so forth on backovers.

We're also continuing to work on the residential construction issues. We still have a lot of outreach going on, putting together more outreach products for workers and employers in the residential area. And we've been working with the various states that have different requirements for residential fall protection to make sure that their requirements are at least as effective as the federal requirements, which is kind of a term of art, as Chuck and Steve know, to try and make sure that we're solid there.

The fall campaign, as Dr. Michaels said, a lot of activity in the fields, different kinds of outreach efforts. The stand-downs have been particularly popular this year. I think the one in Region 2 was thousands and thousands of employers. And so those have been a really big success and a new addition to kind of our outreach catalogue that we've done this year.

We also put out the ladder safety document, which was a document that we adapted from a Singapore document that's been very popular, and that was OSHA's first electronic publication. And it's really particularly nice on the cell phone because it goes kind of one little page at a time, through one safety tip after another.

Of course, Dr. Michaels mentioned the BLS data that just came out. It is sort of discouraging that the construction incidents are up this much. They've gone from approximately 720 to over 775. What that means, since these are preliminary numbers, when those numbers get adjusted in 6 months, we're probably back over 800.

Now, there has been a big increase in construction in 2012, and so we've got more workers, we've got more exposure to construction hazards that I'm sure are a big contributor to that. But we do have to remember that, you know, it hasn't been that many years ago that we were running at 1,200 fatalities a year. And so I am really concerned that as the industry returns to health and we see more construction, that we do not get back to those numbers that we've seen in the past. So I continue to kind of make the challenge to the construction sector, you know, this is the moment of truth for us, you know, as construction returns, to make sure that we stay with the same or improve safety and reduce these horrible fatalities.

And I would just end with the cell towers that Dr. Michaels also mentioned. There was a Wall Street Journal article this morning on cell tower safety. We are investigating a very large number of incidents in the field and trying to figure out what the various problems are. There have been a number of falls where people simply weren't tied off, one incident where there was an aerial lift that tipped over. And so, it's really been a horrible rash of fatal incidents in the cell tower industry and we're, you know, trying to do something to figure out how to reach out to the industry and how to keep this from continuing.

So those are my remarks this morning. I'd be happy to take any questions.

MR. JONES: Thank you, Jim. Do we have any questions from anyone on the phone? Any questions from the table here? Chuck?

MR. STRIBLING: Thank you.

MR. JONES: Introduce yourself.

MR. STRIBLING: Chuck Stribling, State Representative. A couple things.

With regard to the apps, they're obviously very popular and becoming more and more popular. And I believe currently the apps are set up for Apple and Android platforms. And I would ask the agency maybe to take a look at developing those apps also for Windows. Windows is now in the smartphone market and if that app could be developed over there, I think you might also get some more hits, some more downloads.

And then the other thing is with regard to the stand-downs, which have been very popular. Region 4 has had a couple that we've participated in. Has OSHA given any thought or Directorate of Construction given any thought to maybe having a national stand- down day in the construction industry?

I mean, it's good to hear about the upcoming stand-down day in the gas and oil-drilling industry, if I got that right. We know it's in November, so maybe if we could--you know, if the agency wanted to establish a day somewhere in the future that it's publicized ahead of time and gives all the states a chance to get onboard to state plans and maybe, you know, information can be pushed out through the network that you have.

The regional stand-downs are good, but, quite frankly, you know, the advance notice and the preparation time for us to be involved is kind of short, so I'm just sort of thinking every region's doing it now, so what about maybe a national day? Just an idea.

MR. MADDUX: Yeah. No, it's a very good idea. Thank you.

MR. GILLEN: Matt Gillen here. It sort of goes together with this just recent announcement about the increase in fatalities and the increase in the fatality rate just to sort of make the industry aware. She said the moment of truth. You know, the fact that there are new workers, need training, and other things, the two might go together. It's good timing maybe.

MR. MADDUX: Yeah, yeah. I think what we'll probably do, certainly we have several more regions that have stand-downs planned, so I think that we'll, you know, not get in their way of continuing to have these stand-downs that they're having. But once they've gone through their cycle, you know, I think that would be worth really thinking about doing.

MR. JONES: Jerry.

MR. RIVERA: Jerry Rivera, Employee Rep. Jim, thank you for the report and thanks for OSHA making these meetings available virtually to the stakeholders. I think it's just another way to reach out to the general public and engage more folks.

One question is I know the intent is to move to the face-to-face meetings on the work groups. Is there any consideration being considered at this point for work groups' virtual meetings to occur as well moving forward until that face-to-face actually happens?

MR. MADDUX: Yeah, we've been giving that some thought and that may be--you know, depending on how the budget stuff goes here at the end of the fiscal year, that may be the only option that we have, you know. I'm sort of advocating for sort of an every-other-meeting approach. You know, maybe we could do one full meeting live, then a virtual meeting, full meeting live, and set up sort of a rotation like that, that that might work well and also be sort of, you know, fiscally responsible. But, you know, it's just hard to tell how all of this budget stuff will turn out.

MR. RIVERA: Thank you.

MR. JONES: I have a question. David mentioned the increase in fatalities associated with oil and gas extraction. I'm not clear where that falls in terms of DOC. But do you have an idea of what type of fatalities we're looking at?

MR. MADDUX: I haven't done much work on that, so I would hate to conjecture. I think that there's actually maybe some of the BLS data that's coming out today that may talk a little bit about that. And we could probably get some more information for you, but I don't have it at my fingertips.

MR. JONES: Okay, thank you. Any questions from the audience?

MR. SCHNEIDER: Scott Schneider with Laborers. I was going to ask about public participation in the work group meetings that are being done by phone. Because I guess at the last ACCSH meeting I thought, you know, people go to work at meetings, they sign up on a list of people that are interested in that work group, and it seems like the public participation is very important, so I'm wondering how that--what the plans are for that or why that wasn't included in the last set of work group phone conference calls.

MR. MADDUX: Right. Well, we meet with our solicitors, with Sarah and some of the other folks in the Solicitor's Office, and, you're right, we've had a long tradition of having public work group meetings. But really, almost all of the work group meetings that ACCSH has had, have been the ones that are associated with the full sit-down meeting in the two days prior. And certainly the public participation in those has been a very important component of having a good, robust discussion.

We felt like with the work groups especially, you know, with the difficulty of announcing meetings, you know, putting out press releases and all that, that we would experiment with just doing some smaller work group meetings that are allowed under the FACA and that are used by all of our other OSHA Advisory Committees, you know. So I think that, at least in my view, I think that that's been a big success in terms of the work groups carrying on their work kind of in between meetings and not having a totally, you know, kind of downtime in between the full meetings, and that that's been helpful.

But we're still looking at--you know, especially if we're not able to do full sit-down meetings and we want to have presenters, you know, then maybe we'll go to something like this where we can do something, people can log in on the Internet and attend and see slideshows and see the presenters and hear their views, so that we can open them up to a broader group. So we're still experimenting our way through this, but overall, you know, I've been pleased with the work groups and the way that they've functioned.

MR. MADDUX: Yes, Graham.

MR. BRENT: Thank you, Jim. Good morning. Thanks for your report. My name is Graham Brent, National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators.

You mentioned the two crane issues that you're working on and it's almost exactly 3 months to the day that you announced at this meeting or the day before this meeting that OSHA was proposing to extend the deadline for the crane operator certification requirements in order to possibly reopen the rule. I know you didn't bring your crystal ball with you today, but can you give any sense at all when we might see a publication with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking? There's a tremendous expectation in the industry about this matter, as you might imagine.

MR. MADDUX: Right, yeah. No crystal ball, but maybe I can do the Carnac thing from Johnny Carson.

I really do hate to make a prediction. We have a document that--a Federal Register notice that we've drafted. We're kind of in the process of working out the exact words in that document with our Solicitor's Office, and that process is going very well. So, you know, I'm hoping maybe October or November we'll be able to publish that.

MR. BRENT: Thank you.

MR. JONES: Okay. If there aren't any more questions, we're going to take a short break and we'll convene again at 11:30.

MR. JONES: All right, I'd like to reconvene the ACCSH Committee meeting here. And I'd like to remind the members of the public that there's a sign- up sheet in the back for you to address the committee as soon as we finish with committee business and the sign up list in the back, everyone is welcome to sign up.

We'd like to start by hearing a presentation or testimony from Mary Lynn from the Directorate of Enforcement Program on OSHA's Temporary Worker Initiative. Thank you for joining us, Mary.

I am in the Directorate of Enforcement Programs and the Director of the Office of Chemical Process, Safety, and Enforcement Initiatives and this initiative actually is being worked on in the Directorate of Enforcement Programs but is certainly a joint effort in OSHA with the other directorates here in the national office as well as the very important field work that's going on.

We appreciate your interest in this very important topic of protecting the safety and health of temporary workers and this morning I'm going to be presenting information that OSHA has been developing in regard to safety and health protections for the temporary workers.

I'm going to include information on the Temporary Worker Initiative, some recommended practices for protecting Temporary Workers, and talk a little bit about the shared responsibility of staffing agencies and host employers in protecting temporary workers.

OSHA has launched this Temporary Worker Initiative that includes ensuring that staffing agencies and host employers understand their safety and health responsibilities under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Temporary workers are entitled to the same protections as direct hire employees.

We believe that it's well recognized that temporary staffing agencies and host employers share control over the employee and therefore share responsibility for their safety and health, and it is essential that both employers comply with all of the relevant safety and health requirements.

In recent months, we have had many reports of temporary workers suffering fatal injuries and often during their first day on the job. There have been fatal injuries where workers have been exposed to dangerous heat stress, exposure to chemical and fall hazards without appropriate fall protection, and exposure to hazardous energy requiring lockout/tag out devices.

In one of these cases, a 21-year-old temporary worker was crushed to death his first day on the job. Incidents such as these involving temporary workers with recognized hazards that can be prevented and they must be prevented, and I will say that if you go to our website at osha.gov there are some press releases that discuss some of these cases involving the temporary worker fatalities.

I'd like to now talk to you a little bit about our initiative and what our initiative involves.

OSHA launched the Temporary Worker Initiative on April 29th 2013, this year, and this was our first action where we sent a memorandum to our field highlighting the importance of protecting temporary workers. The memo instructs our compliance officers to ensure that safety and health protections are in place including training.

We understand that we have a need for better enforcement data, and this initiative will help provide us more information on the hazards that temporary workers are exposed to, therefore our inspectors are going to be using--are using--a code to put on their inspection information files so that we will be able to pull--rapidly pull data that will help us see what hazards temporary workers are being exposed to and what types of situations that they're involved in out in the field.

Inspectors will also assess whether temporary workers have received the required training related to the safety and health hazards that they're exposed to, and very importantly, in a language and vocabulary that they understand.

In regard to who is covered under this initiative, temporary workers are those that are supplied by a host employer and paid by a staffing agency. We'll talk a little bit more about that relationship in a little bit.

In this Temporary Worker Initiative, we're also reaching out to stakeholders. We want to have a better understanding of the nature of this very much growing industry and we also want to help in increasing the awareness of safety and health responsibilities shared by the staffing agencies and the host employers.

The stakeholders that we have been reaching out to include national safety and health associations such as the American Society of Safety Engineers, the American Staffing Association, OSHA state plans, training organizations, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and individual staffing agencies have also approached us.

In the initiative, we've also been promoting compliance assistance nationally. For example, we held a webinar just this past July with the American Staffing Association and it was attended by more than 500 people including both staffing agencies as well as their host employers. We provided them information very similar to what I'm providing you today.

We also plan to develop some other outreach materials such as FAQ sheets.

We're working with our stakeholders, those that I just mentioned, to identify and develop best practices, some guidance that we hope to plan to publish very soon, and we are working with NACOSH on this effort as well.

We've met with our two national advisory committees, including ACCSH, and we appreciate both you and NACOSH focusing on this very important issue.

I'll present to you now some data that we have collected on this current initiative and as a result of the April 29th instruction, 385 inspections have been or are being conducted, which have identified temporary workers exposed to safety and health violations. And approximately 20 percent of these inspections are in the construction industry. Thus far, 483 violations have been cited at workplaces where temporary workers are present.

This data is maturing in terms of the number of violations. Out of these 379 inspections, many of them are still open and citations may not have been issued yet, so this number may rise.

The top violations at worksites with temporary employers include those related to the use of powered industrial trucks, electrical hazards, as I mentioned before, lockout/tag out, not providing devices to lockout/tag out hazardous machinery, fall protection in construction, machine guarding, and hazard communication. A few of these hazards were identified in those recent cases that I mentioned earlier.

What I'd like to do now is share with you some of the recommended safety and health practices that we have actually been in the process of gathering through interviews with our stakeholders. These are recommended practices and if there are specific standards in general industry or construction that are applicable to these types of employment arrangements, employers must follow those requirements.

So, the first recommended practice I'd like to discuss is the--a written safety and health program, both the staffing agency and the employers should have a safety and health program and ensure that the temporary workers are addressed by these programs.

A safety and health program should help employers both identify hazards and develop the protective measures for the temporary workers, and we know that these programs have been effective in reducing injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.

A safety and health program should include management commitment, and very important, employee involvement, worksite analysis and hazard assessments, hazard prevention and control, and safety and health training.

Next, both employers should perform a hazard assessment of the worksite. Typically, we expect that the host employer would have already actually conducted a hazard assessment of the workplace, but before sending workers to the site, the staffing agencies need to also be aware of the hazards that exist. They need not become experts on specific workplace hazards, but they should determine what conditions exist at the worksite that they are sending workers to and how to best ensure protection for those workers.

They really need to know what these workers are going to be doing, that is key to this whole process.

The staffing agencies can accomplish this particular hazard assessment by visiting the workplace, perhaps performing their own assessment requesting and reviewing both the host employers hazard assessment and maybe their log of recordable injuries and illnesses.

There's one key point that I want to make and I'll repeat it a few times this morning, and that is that each employer should consider the hazards, that it is in the best position to prevent and correct, and to comply with the appropriate safety and health standards.

Another practice, and this is no new thing, particularly in the construction industry, is to define the scope of work in the contract. This will discourage tasking the worker to perform duties that are--they're unqualified or untrained to perform and may carry a high risk of injury.

Another benefit of the specific contractual language is that there is a clear understanding of each employer's role in protecting the worker.

Now we'll move into the recommended practice, of course, of training, very important. Conducting new project orientation as well as specific safety and health training, and the host and the temporary staffing agency should work together to ensure that workers who come to new projects are given an orientation before they start the work or whenever work may change and that the applicable safety and health general topics are covered as well as the site- specific training, and again, as Dr. Michaels has so much stressed, in a language and vocabulary that they can understand.

A last best practice that I'll talk about, and very important, is maintaining communication. This is critical for both the staffing agency, the host employer, and the workers. This will help ensure that injuries and illnesses are being properly recorded and reviewed and that underlying hazards are corrected, and it's also a very effective way to identify injury and illness trends.

By keeping in touch with the workers, the staffing agency can bring concerns to the host employer early, before injuries occur. Workers can alert the staffing agency if they are being assigned work that is outside of the scope of what they are trained and qualified to do.

And the staffing agency can also verify that the appropriate training has been conducted. The bottom line is that the staffing agency and the host employer need to communicate how they will address the safety and health provisions for the temporary workers.

Moving on, I'd like to just spend a few minutes on this employment structure that we're talking about. It's basically a triangular employment structure. Where you have the host employer, the staffing agency, and the temporary worker, and the shared responsibility is by both the staffing agency and the host employer.

OSHA has concern that some of the employers may use temporary workers as a way to avoid meeting all of their compliance obligations. The temporary workers might get placed in a variety of jobs including the most hazardous jobs, and that they are more vulnerable to workplace safety and health hazards and retaliation than workers in traditional relationships.

The temporary workers are often not given adequate training or explanations of their duties by either the temporary staffing agency or the host employer, so therefore it's essential that both employers comply with the OSHA requirements.

As we've been stressing, again, both employers, the host and the staffing agency, have roles in complying with the Workplace Safety and Health requirements, and they share responsibility. And again, a key concept that I would like to drive home is that each employer should consider the hazards that they are in the best position to prevent and correct and in the better position to comply with the regulations.

For example, staffing agencies might provide general safety and health training where the host employer might then in turn training the temporary worker on the equipment specific, personal protective equipment specific information that they're going to need to perform that job safely. The key is the communication between all parties. The staffing agencies have a duty to inquire into the conditions of the worker's assigned duties and ensure that they're sending their workers to a safe workplace. Ignorance is not--ignorance of the hazards is not an excuse.

The staffing agency has the duty to inquire and verify that the host has fulfilled its responsibilities for a safe workplace. And just as important, the host employers must treat the temporary workers like any other worker.

So, I just want to summarize with two main points, that staffing agencies have a legal obligation not only to comply with the requirements that are under their exclusive control, but also to monitor the working conditions of the employees at clients' worksites, and host employers must treat the temporary workers like any other workers in terms of training and safety procedures.

There are a few questions that we will pose to ACCSH and welcome your input, first of all in regarding the gathering of best practices. As I said, we are putting together some recommended best practices and we welcome input on these practices, what's being identified out in the workplace that will help us share this information.

Also, any additional outreach or compliance assistance efforts that OSHA can undertake and possibly some additional groups or stakeholders that we may talk to in regard to this initiative. And any input on additional enforcement strategies for addressing safety and health issues.

I'll close with just a little bit of information on some enforcement guidance that actually has been put out by OSHA in terms of the use of temporary workers. At www.osha.gov, and you'll see in your handouts, there are three letters of interpretation that may be helpful in addressing issues with temporary workers.

I'd like to thank you for your commitment to addressing this important issue of protecting temporary workers and we'll have a few minutes for questions.

MR. JONES: Thank you, Mary. Is there anyone on the phone that has an ACCSH member on the phone that has a question for Mary? Okay, anyone at the table here? I'm sorry, who's that, Jeremy?

MR. BETHANCOURT: I'm sorry one of the things that we discussed at one of our workgroup meetings--

MR. JONES: Jeremy, I need you to kick it up a little bit. We can barely hear you.

MR. BETHANCOURT: I'm sorry, one of the things that--is that better?

MR. JONES: Yeah, it's better.

MR. BETHANCOURT: I'll just sit closer. How's that?

MR. JONES: Thank you.

MR. BETHANCOURT: One of the things that we discussed during the workgroup meeting is the fact that simply adhering to only staffing agencies doesn't necessarily encompass the entire issue with regard to the classification in practice or in name of what a temporary worker is, especially in the construction industry.

Is there any thought to broadening the approach to also include what are referred to as piece workers or labor type of things in the industry where it's not just necessarily because they fit a certain code that they are focused on? Does that make any sense?

MR. JONES: Yeah, but before you answer that question, that kind of covers where I was going to go next. How do you define a temporary worker?

MS. LYNN: There are many definitions of workers in these various categories, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been a great source for us for some of these definitions, and kind of umbrella categories of these various temporary workers, but for the purposes right now of this initiative, we have chosen to look at the issue of, as I mentioned before, where we have workers that are working at a host employer's worksite and paid by a temporary staffing agency.

That's not to say that we're not concerned about these other employment relationships at all, and we will certainly deal with those as they come up and, as I said, you know, this is sort of a-- we're at the beginning stages of this initiative and, you know, seeking this input is very important to us in recognizing, you know, all of these different employment relationships that are out there and for our consideration in the future.

MR. JONES: Jeremy?

MR. BETHANCOURT: I guess that's it.

MS. COYNE: I have a question.

MR. JONES: Sarah, please.

MS. COYNE: Sarah Coyne, employee representative. Without knowing in great detail how a staffing agency becomes a staffing agency, when you referred to responsibilities of both entities--the staffing agency and the host employer--and I wholeheartedly agree with you. My question is, is how will you monitor or--will you pursue a licensure agreement or something that will be tangible to hold the staffing agency responsible for acquiring the knowledge and understanding of what a hazard assessment is? Will they be required to have trained professionals to provide the specific--site-specific training that Temporary Worker A will need?

And then my other question would be, I believe towards the end of your presentation, which, by the way, I thought was very thorough, you had stated that the host employer could check-- excuse me that the staff agency could check on the employer. Will the employer be able to also check on the staffing agency and their credentialing and their documentations of not only who's providing the training but what their qualifications are?

Yeah, that wasn't just a simple question, but I think you understand what I'm getting at is the licensing of the staffing agency. Who are they? What do they bring to the table? What makes them qualified to do a hazardous assessment, and who do they have on staff that's qualified to provide the site-specific health and safety training so that it's a dual partnership not only from the contractor, but the agency, to work together to hopefully someday avoid a first day fatality or any fatality for the temporary workers.

MS. LYNN: Sure. You know these are very good points and, you know, as I mentioned, you know, we don't expect that the temporary staffing agency is going to--has to become an expert in safety and health, but has the duty to inquire and verify and a best practice might be the staffing agency--and many do, apparently, that we have been talking to have safety and health professionals on staff that can help provide more in depth training or may be able to go to the worksite and maybe conduct an onsite hazard assessment.

But as far as the licensure of the staffing agencies in order to be competent in these duties, OSHA typically does not--none that I have ever known of, actually, gotten involved in that type of situation.

But, again, a best practice would be having staff that is competent and capable of doing that or, you know, at least asking for an employer's hazard assessment and reviewing that and becoming very familiar with what's--I think one of the most important things is that the staffing agency know what those workers are going to be doing. That is the first step to really understand how protections can be afforded.

But, again, a lot of these are recommended practices that we're definitely working toward, and the other point you brought up was also a great point too, the host employer's responsibility to verify with the staffing agency, what have you done and what have you provided so that I, as the host, know what I need to do to augment this--you know, this protection for the worker.

MS. COYNE: Thank you.

MR. JONES: Tom, you and Jeremy run our workgroup on this. Do you have any comments?

MR. MARRERO: Yeah, I have a couple comments. With the hazard assessment of worksites and, you know, just so everybody's familiar, I'm the National Safety Director with Tradesman International. We are a temporary labor provider of construction workers, so--performing a hazard assessment on worksites isn't always going to be feasible because of regulations of how do you get on the worksite, you have to have a background check, some of our clients might take our employees out of state, out of the country, and so forth.

So, I completely agree that we should be doing hazard assessments and that's something that we do preach to our sales reps and so forth as well as walking our employees out to the jobsite, getting them familiar with the client, and so forth.

And you made a comment, Sarah, about how does the host employer verify our qualifications? Well, a majority of our clients require us to do a prequalification form where we have to present a lot of our information to them prior to even setting foot on their job.

I do have one other comment to Mary Lynn. Your presentation was beautiful. I love everything that's in here, but I do have to disagree that our employees that I have seen are not subjected to any more hazards than anybody else on the jobsite. Construction is a dangerous business as it is, so-- but our employees--I have not seen, in my tenure with my company now, any scenario where our employees are subjected to anything more dangerous or more hazardous than their own employees.

MR. JONES: One second. Jeremy, do you have any comment on workgroup activities?

MR. BETHANCOURT: I do, to the point that was just made, I mean, I guess it just reinforces why I believe that we really--and I hope that--I understand that this is new and we're moving forward, but we really need to broaden the thought process with the other dynamic relationships that are in the construction industry relating to workers, whether they're classified through a temporary agency or not.

I just want to reiterate that because in a lot of cases, in the construction industry and in my area of the country, those workers who are considered a temp worker or approached as a temp worker, whether they're from a temp agency or not, they actually are exposed to the higher risk, they put those folks on the roof, I mean, that's where-- at least in my industry, that's where a lot of the risk is. Those are the guys that go up on the roof.

So, that's really what I have to say. I hope it continues to get broadened and that OSHA will come back to us and ask us for some assistance with perhaps ways that the industry has been able to successfully mitigate and train those types of workers, because I know that there's no doubt going to be a lot of folks who really are trying to make sure that their temporary workers are--

MR. JONES: Or Jeremy, what we--go ahead, Matt.

MR. GILLEN: I was just going to clarify.

So, Jeremy, are you referring to what sometimes are called independent contractors?

MR. BETHANCOURT: Yes, yes. Is that Matt?

MR. GILLEN: Yes.

MR. BETHANCOURT: Yes, and I know that that is another area in the construction industry that's an issue, is that you'll get workers--and we've seen this because we, I guess, call them on it for lack of a better way of saying it, when we have different interactions in different organizations, where the workers come in and they're improperly classified as independent contractors, which I didn't get to hear Dr. Michaels' comments, but I'm guessing he probably addressed some of that as well where they're not classified correctly.

And so, although they're not truly independent contractors, they're treated as such and thereby then not provided training, and I really think that's where we need to broaden this.

MR. JONES: Hey, Jeremy--

MR. BETHANCOURT: --if I'm on track with what was being asked.

MR. JONES: Jeremy, can you, for tomorrow's meeting, draft us up some language that would speak to the issue you're speaking of then we could make a formal request of OSHA to broaden it in a way that you and Thomas and maybe Jerry and Kevin and others feel may be appropriate?

MR. BETHANCOURT: I would love to that, and so I guess one of the things that we could do, Walter, if the other folks would like to join, maybe we can set up some sort of a call amongst ourselves, because I'd like to contribute, or even email back and forth for a few hours tonight.

MR. JONES: I like the email idea.

MR. BETHANCOURT: I like that idea.

MR. MARRERO: Tommy and Jeremy.

MR. BETHANCOURT: Tom, just you and I working on it, I think we could do pretty well, not to exclude anybody, but we could probably put something together, I think, Tom.

MR. MARRERO: Yeah, I'll give you a call later on then today.

MR. BETHANCOURT: Perfect, sir. I'll be waiting for you. Keep in mind I'm three hours behind so I've got a little bit more time to work than you do.

MR. JONES: Jerry, did you have a comment?

MR. RIVERA: No.

MR. JONES: Kevin?

MR. CANNON: You reported that 20 percent of the inspections under this initiative have been in construction?

MS. LYNN: Correct.

MR. CANNON: And, you know, you provided the definition of temporary worker currently being just someone that's being supplied by a staffing agency. Is that what you're finding in these 20 percent--I mean, what was the employment relationship in these 20 percent of the cases?

MS. LYNN: Good question. The employment relationship--the direction to our field was to code those inspections where there was a temporary worker supplied by a staffing agency to a host employer, and that temporary worker was exposed to a volative condition, so that's what would bring an inspection into that fold of the 20 percent in construction.

MR. CANNON: So, you're not saying like contractor/subcontractor relationships?

MS. LYNN: No.

MR. JONES: Jerry, did you have a comment?

MR. RIVERA: Yes, Jerry Rivera, employee rep. It's basically a comment. First of all, thank you for the presentation and for some of the recommended practices. It definitely is a start. However, you know, there are some things, some challenges that I see in looking at some of the outlines, you know, for example, have we written a safety health program between, you know, the host and the staffing agency, you know, the first question comes to mind, which one will they follow? Will you guys consider moving forward at least an inter- reaction or a written record that the exchange of information occurred and maybe what information was exchanged?

For example, again, I'll capitalize on the safety and health program, which one will the employee follow, the staffing agencies or the employer? And it seems pretty cut and dried, you say, well, of course, the host employer will be the one we'll follow, but that's not clear cut all the time.

The other gaps that I see is in training, you know, will the training that the staffing agency provides, either through a third party or through a staffing agency be recognized? The reason why I mention that is, often, as an employer, you put out a request to a staffing agency, I need a forklift operator, and I know there's mechanisms that we have to do as employers to verify that that is valid, but, you know, sometimes you get to a scenario where they have a credential and then you get a cold shoe on the ground that says, no, you had to do it, not the staffing agency, so these are challenges that I see and I like to hear input in how you're planning to address some of these, but definitely you're going- - the best thing that you're doing is to inquire, and I commend you for that.

MS. LYNN: Thank you. And I agree with you, there are many challenges in this type of relationship and in the training and the equipment being used and et cetera, and I think that, you know, one of the things that might be of help is to take a look at a few of these letters that we have put out already, but I will say that, you know, we are working with our field and providing enforcement guidance and I think that in so many of these cases, it's going to be on a case-by-case basis as far as, you know, who would have been in that best position to control and correct the hazard and provide the training.

And I do understand, particularly in the area of the powered industrial vehicles, the forklifts, et cetera, you know, there's a lot of training that's out there and that you can request employees that have been specifically trained to use certain equipment.

And, again, I don't have a cut and dried answer for you, but we will look at it on a case- by- case basis and try to determine who had that best balance to be able to ensure that those employees were protected appropriately.

MR. RIVERA: And just one last comment, you mentioned who is in the best position, you know, moving forward. Consider this, defining that very clearly because I think it would be a disservice to the employee at the end of the day for the staffing agency and the host employer to kind of not really know where they stand on it, so it's kind of an error provocative environment, no, it's your responsibility, it's mine, I know there's contracts that are signed to a certain degree, but these things can turn into a slippery slope, but that's all I've got to say about that one.

MS. LYNN: Thank you.

MR. GILLEN: Matt Gillen, you mentioned performing--is this okay?

MR. JONES: Please.

MR. GILLEN: You mentioned performing a hazard assessment of the worksite, which sounds a little vague. I was wondering if any of your discussions the idea of the job hazard analysis comes up? Because that seems like a real useful term because it involves the job and tasks and people evaluating that, and it's usually simple, but it talks about the forms and talks about the controls and seems like it would be a useful thing to encourage people to do for this.

MS. LYNN: That's a great comment. And that term, job hazard analysis, yes--

MR. GILLEN: Great.

ML: --we have used it and it's a good recommendation, actually.

MR. JONES: Do I have any more comments for you folks on the phone?

(No response.)

MR. JONES: All right, Boom?

MR. BOONE: Jim Boone, OSHA.

MR. JONES: Do you want to come up to the microphone--

MR. BOONE: --I think what Jerry maybe was talking about on the independent contractors are like day laborers, which is huge in construction, and where it's kind of the underground economy and probably the most exposed employees out there that don't get the training.

MR. JONES: Thank you.

MR. BETHANCOURT: That is one aspect, yes. That would be correct. I think we have a big opportunity here.

MR. ODORIZZI: Marcus Odorizzi with the City of Rockville. I had kind of a two-part question, just piggy backing on what Kevin was asking. There were close to 500 violations issued. Were they issued to the temporary staffing agency or to the host employer? And second part question, I think in construction the term host employer is too vague because the host employer could be the project owner, constructor, could be the general contractor; it could be the subcontractor hiring the day laborer or temporary worker. So, could you kind of expand on, you know, if citations were issued to the host employer, who was that host employer in construction?

MS. LYNN: Good point. I don't have that data right now. We don't have it broken down in that manner yet, but we hope to in the future as this initiative continues.

I will say that when we do find a situation where the temporary workers are not protected, both employers, the staffing as well as the host employer, could be subject to citation and there have been cases where we have cited both the host as well as the staffing agency.

I just don't have the specific breakdown at this point, but we hope to have that in the future.

In regard to--I've just got to go back to-- oh, the different situations involving host employers where you might have, you know, especially in construction, that's a good point and maybe we can get more input from the ACCSH advisory committee on that.

MR. JONES: I have two questions in the audience. I believe over here in the corner. Sir.

MR. DWYER: Thank you, Steven Dwyer with the American Staffing Association. Really appreciated your presentation and we continue to appreciate the relationship we have with OSHA and we think we've done good things so far and look forward to doing more good things, webinars and whatnot.

One comment and two questions if I may. I would reiterate the gentleman to your right's comment about trying to be more specific giving some examples, and I know it's difficult because there are so many permutations so you're not going to cover them all, but I know that our members, our staffing firm members, and clients, really are looking for that kind of example in terms of who really is responsible for what in these types of circumstances. They're looking for guidance. They're willing participants to be educated and we have an opportunity to do that and I'd hate to squander that opportunity.

The questions I had, though, really two- fold, one, you said that the staffing firms will have an obligation to verify with clients, with the host employers, that the training has been done, and I'm wondering how they need to go about that verification process? And the second question is, in the citations, the violations that you've found where temporary workers have been exposed to hazardous conditions, whether the host employer, the client's employees, also have been exposed to those conditions or is it just a matter of the clients not training the temporary workers? Or are they neglecting their duties for their own internal workers as well?

MS. LYNN: Great questions. Thank you. And I think in regard to the citations and--we don't have it broken down in regard to, say, a particular violation, is it just the temporary workers exposed or is it the host employers' employees as well, and I would venture to say that very oftentimes, it's probably both, but in some instances it may have just been the temporary worker depending on the type of company it is, et cetera.

So, again, hopefully in our data collection, we might be able to do some breakdown like that, but I will take note of that, that that would be something interesting to see.

In regard to how to verify that the training has been done, the staffing agency verifying that, I mean, again, it's a recommended practice where it might be cone in a variety of ways, asking for some sort of documentation, maintaining communication, as we discussed, with the employees and asking them, have you been trained, how thorough was the training, you know, those types of situations. But, you know, and I know that we'll probably see a wide gamut of what has been done to inquire and verify, but what we're looking for is that it at least is being done.

MR. SCHNEIDER: Scott Schneider with Laborers'. You were asking for best practices, and I think what Thomas mentioned might be something you should look at and it comes from the subcontracting arena which is prequalification where basically the host employer will say to the staffing agency, I need some verification from you or I'm going to prequalify the staffing agency that they're going to send me people that have adequate training and qualifications to do the job properly and I think, you know, that could be considered a best practice, and maybe Thomas can give us more information about what you guys encounter from some of your clients in terms of pre- qualifications.

MR. MARRERO: It varies, you know, with numerous different contractors. Some contractors might just ask for guys that have forklift certifications or--it all varies on the type of job that we do, and there's so many different variations because we cover every aspect of construction, and staffing in general covers everything from bakers to oil pipeline and construction.

So, one of the things that we do is we provide to all of our employees within OSHA, so as a minimum guideline as well as a safety orientation and so forth--as a general training for them.

MR. JONES: Thank you, Thomas. Do we have any more questions?

MS. SHORTALL: I just would like to go over a logistics point about what Thomas and Jeremy will be doing for tomorrow in terms of developing some recommendations since we will be doing this by WebX and teleconference again. I'm going to request that as soon as you're done with your written product, you send it to every member on the advisory committee, including the DFO and myself, and also Mr. Bonneau so he would be able to make up some copies tomorrow morning.

MR. MARRERO: Okay.

MR. BETHANCOURT: Yes, ma'am.

MR. JONES: That was easy. I thought you were going to put a kibosh to this idea.

MS. SHORTALL: No, no. Just want to make sure everyone will be aware of it.

MR. JONES: All right. And moving right along, thank you, Mary, great presentation.

MS. LYNN: Thank you.

MS. SHORTALL: And well since I was not putting a kibosh, can I do one more thing?

MR. JONES: Please.

MS. SHORTALL: I would like to enter into the record as Exhibit 3 at this time, "Protecting the Safety and Health of Temporary Workers" presentation by Mary Lynn.

MS. LYNN: Thank you.

MR. JONES: Up next we're going to do a discussion of the OSHA-10, OSHA-30 training courses. Our OTI workgroup--I guess I shouldn't call it OTI-- but our ACCSH training and outreach workgroup, and I didn't attend the last meeting so I'm not totally clear on what you guys were doing and where we're going, so I'm going to turn this over to the two of you.

I believe Hank Payne is on the phone?

MR. PAYNE: Yes, I am.

MR. CANNON: All right, I'm going to kick it off and just go for a little background and then Jerry's going to go to the more detailed review as to where we are at this point.

But, you know, one of the first projects that the training and outreach workgroup kind of dove into was to review the OSHA introduction. You know, currently it's a two-hour mandatory session and we think that amongst, you know, the ACCSH members as well as those who were participating from the public during that initial meeting that all thought that that timeframe was a little much, unnecessary, could be reduced, and so we put forward a recommendation, maybe two meetings ago, that OSHA consider removing the two- hour requirement and allowing the instructor to spend at a minimum of 60 minutes, one-hour, on it.

So, since that recommendation was made, the workgroups have been meeting via WebX, conference call, and you know you make the broad recommendation to reduce the timeframe, but in theory you have to also look at some of the content to see what could be eliminated, either because it was, you know, repetitive or covered in other areas or just did not lend itself to advancing the safety and health knowledge of the worker who was sitting through the course.

So, that's where we are at this point. You know, we've met, we've had--the last call was a couple weeks ago, I do believe. OSHA folks have been participating and so that's where I'll turn it over to Jerry and let him go through the slides that are currently in place and I'm not sure if, you know, copies were made for folks in the gallery to follow along.

MR. JONES: I believe they were.

MR. CANNON: Okay, so what, I think, Jerry's going to do is just focus on the slides that we--

MR. JONES: So, what we have are the slides here and what we're going to walk through are your recommendations of keepers and tossers?

MR. CANNON: Yes.

MR. RIVERA: Jerry Rivera, employee rep. First let me start out by saying that these are recommended adjustments to the actual modules. We're actually presenting this with the hope that we can gather feedback from the general public and some of the ACCSH members here today.

MR. JONES: So this won't be a workgroup recommendation or is that what you're saying? I'm lost.

MR. RIVERA: The work that we've performed so far is a recommendation of what adjustments we believe should be made.

MR. JONES: Okay.

MR. RIVERA: However, we're seeking the input of the attendees on the call today to make sure that--

MR. JONES: Us or the attendees?

MR. CANNON: Everybody.

MR. RIVERA: Both.

MR. JONES: Okay.

MR. RIVERA: So, just going through these, those who have the copies, I'm not going to go through every single one of the power points that we have suggested or recommended for deletion or consolidation, but I'll explain in broad terms.

You know, as we're going through, if you look at page number two, we have a strikethrough on one of the slides and the approach that the workgroup took with input from some of the building trades, some of the stakeholders which we represent, and folks that have been able to reach out to us, is we tried to look at the curriculum and the information that--made available to the employees to make sure that they can effectively identify the hazards, we came to a conclusion on this one that maybe on this particular slide, which says "Topic One", on page number two, to be consolidated with the slide on page number three.

Now, again, this is in general conceptually the recommendation was made based on the input that we received that both those two topics could be consolidated into one, even though one talks about the importance of OSHA to the worker and the other one talks about the history, instructor input was, look, we can effectively tackle this in one consolidated approach.

And that's just one example of what we took through, but if we also look at some of the broad based terms, there was also reference in the original module for two hours that made awareness on the marine standard, the construction standard, and general industry. The recommendation in reviewing this in talking with some of the instructors was that marine and general industry content should be removed because it was not specific to the workplace that the recipient of this training would be receptive to.

So, in general, that's what we took into consideration. There's also another angle that we considered as we were going through the training module, that is for example, hazardous chemicals. It was understood that because there is another module within the curriculum, the OSHA 10-hour and the 30- hour that expands or gives a broadened perspective of the topic, that maybe in the introduction to OSHA curriculum should not be included.

And, again, we're trying to make good use of time. You know, the recommendation is to, at a minimum, have 60 minutes of contact with--classroom contact instruction with the recipient, so having that challenge we were chartered with, okay, can we take some of these away.

The last one, again, broad based, were some of the exercises, while exercises--and I'll reach out to the OTI for more input on this because I understand that with the diverse workforce meeting, a workforce that's aging, a non-English speaking workforce, the exercises are valuable. However, with the content and the timeframe that we were considering, you know, we were chartered with, okay, would this be best addressed in this introduction to OSHA module, or can this be addressed in other areas?

So, as you slide through all these slides, you will see that pattern of consideration that we took as we were reviewing and making the recommendation to delete some of the slides.

This is not written in stone. In every aspect, we've actually presented it here as a recommendation to gather input, again, both from the ACCSH members and some of the general stakeholders. That's what we understood as a workgroup having reached out to the building trades, our stakeholders, like associations and instructors, that's what we got, but for the general public and the ACCSH members, maybe we'd like to open it up to see what recommendations they would have upon reviewing this.

MR. ERICKSON: Jerry--or Mr. Chairman?

MR. JONES: Go ahead, Jeremy.

MR. ERICKSON: Roger Erickson.

MR. JONES: You need to speak up a little for us, though.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It was roger.

MR. JONES: Oh, I'm sorry, Roger. Is that you, Roger.

MR. ERICKSON: Roger Erickson, can you hear me all right?

MR. JONES: Yeah, just--

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Please identify yourself.

MR. JONES: Please identify yourself and speak up. That would be helpful.

MR. ERICKSON: Roger Erickson, both programs, International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, employee rep.

MR. JONES: Go ahead, Roger.

MR. ERICKSON: Okay, I just wanted to add what Jerry was saying there when he had mentioned health hazards in construction and where we were looking at and once again, it's very hard because all of this training is very important, very essential, but aside from the health hazards in construction, the other topic we looked at was personal protective and lifesaving equipment.

Both of those topics are covered elsewhere, should be covered elsewhere, because they are required topics under both the 10 and 30 hour. That's all I wanted to add.

MR. JONES: Did you remove--I'm speaking now to Jerry and Kevin. Did you guys recommend removing those from this?

MR. RIVERA: Yes.

MR. JONES: Okay.

MR. RIVERA: And another one that I can give an example if I may is when we look on page number nine it says "Examine exposure medical records", you know, we kind of try to battle as a group and reaching out we said, okay, would it be in the best interest of that employee to, you know, review some of these, or is this an administrative function. And, again, all this information is important and trying to achieve the goal of reducing the module, the instruction, to a minimum of 60 minutes, you know, that was also one of the areas that we said, this might be an administrative function versus something that will enhance the hazard recognition in the field.

MR. JONES: How much time do you think you've removed?

MR. RIVERA: Well, in consideration of looking at all the slides, we are about at 60 minutes.

MR. JONES: Okay.

MR. RIVERA: And that's considering about, you know, two minutes per slide.

MR. JONES: Hank, do you have any comments?

MR. PAYNE: Yeah. I think my big concern is that all of the group activities have been eliminated from this module and I'm just not sure that's going to be an acceptable recommendation. A lot of the workers who go through this training now, those group activities are important to them because they don't have other venues with which they are encouraged to participate to talk about hazards and other kinds of issues.

So, if you don't like the group activities that are in there, then I would recommend you give us a couple of ideas that you would think would be better than the ones that are there, but having no group activities I don't think is going to work.

MR. JONES: All right, Hank, if I could push back just a little, we're talking about no group activities for just this module. The group activities still will exist in the other eight hours of--nine hours of coursework, I'm guessing, right?

MR. PAYNE: It depends on what's taught by whom. Remember, there's no such thing as a 10-hour. It depends on what modules you select and the trainers have a lot of leeway in how they train them.

MR. JONES: Right, right. Okay. Any comments?

MR. ERICKSON: Roger Erickson. Employee Rep. All we looked at here was the intro to OSHA, just that two-hour timeframe that is a current mandatory topic.

MR. JONES: Sarah.

MS. COYNE: Sarah Coyne, employee representative. Thank you for reviewing this and I think that your suggestions are duly noted.

My question to you is, did you run this as a pilot yet? Have you offered the edits to a group possibly or just--

MR. CANNON: We're not that far along

MS. COYNE: You're not that far along.

MR. CANNON: Because as Jerry said, these are recommended. What we recommend could very well change as far as what's eliminated.

MS. COYNE: For argument's sake, though, I was just wondering if, you know, this is two hours right now, if you ran it through with the suggested changes, it's one-hour?

MR. RIVERA: Yeah, that's the hope that we get it down to 60 minutes and that's really what was our goal, to get to that timeline.

MS. COYNE: And so you hit that bogey with this?

MR. RIVERA: Yes.

MS. COYNE: Thank you. Good job.

MR. JONES: Thomas.

MR. MARRERO: Tom Marrero, employer rep. My question is for Dr. Payne. How are the group activities done now online? Is he there?

MR. PAYNE: I'm here. I would have to go look at it.

MR. MARRERO: Okay.

MR. JONES: Well, my next question is, where do we go next? What do you suggest we do next, Jerry or Kevin?

MR. RIVERA: Well, first of all, if we can get some input from the general public, I will take some notes on this as well. Like we said, initially the intent is to float this out in front of the stakeholders and gather some input if we are in the right direction or if there are some recommended modifications.

MR. McCULLION: Mike McCullion, Sheet Metal Contractors Association. There's nothing in here about the four parts of an OSHA inspection. That may be something that you could cover, and that could even be maybe an exercise, if you will, because that's important for the employees to know how the actual inspection goes, the fact they have a records review, you know, the onsite inspection, and the closing and the opening. So, there should be at least some touching on the actual four parts of the inspection.

MR. JONES: Rob.

MR. MATUGA: Rob Matuga with the National Association of Home Builders. One of the other things that sort of struck me, it's been a while since I've actually taken a look at the module and I commend you guys for actually trying to cut this down to just one hour. We've had some feedback from the membership at NHB who actually have done some 10-hour training and they said that that extra hour that you take away from the introduction for OSHA really could be used for the hazard awareness, which is the ultimate intent of the OSHA 10-hour training course.

But one of the things in going through here that struck me that I think is glaringly omitted from this particular module, there's a lot of focus on the rights of the workers, there's a lot of focus on the responsibility of the employer. I will remind everybody that there is a Section 5(b), it's the duties of the employees, and I think we're doing the workforce a disservice by not pointing out that they have a duty--the employees have a duty to comply with all standards, all rules and regulations, that have been issued under the OSH Act as well as that those-- their own actions that they take on the jobsite.

I think that this is, I think, something that needs to be pointed out in this OSHA 10-hour training program because the employees need to understand and recognize that they have a duty under the law to also follow the training that they've been given and the safe work practices that are laid out in the OSHA standards. And, like I said, those things need to be pointed out to the employees themselves.

MR. CANNON: And I'll say that, you know, Chuck, a fellow ACCSH member conducted his review and also made that same recommendation. And Matt's made a recommendation--

MR. GILLEN: Not on that.

MR. CANNON: No, not on that, but as far as reporting worker's rights.

MR. GILLEN: I did notice--

MR. JONES: Let me finish up out here and I'll bring it back to us. Tom.

MR. TRAUGER: Tom Trauger, Winchester Homes. First of all, I'd like to--this is a real tough job right here trying to do this, so kudos to all of you trying to do this.

There's a handout, a mandatory handout that goes with this. Are you guys looking at that handout and will it align with this? Because I've done several of these and I give that handout out because pretty much my old TI said, hey, you have to follow this handout and you need to cover every material in there, so--just to make sure, don't forget about the handout when doing this.

And I think there's good changes in here. However, I may not agree with everything. I think you need to have some kind of group participation because this topic is very dull, unfortunately, and people tend to not pay attention, so some kind of way to engage people in this is great.

Having taken a 30-hour online, there are no group activities, but there are cases where they ask you questions. If you don't answer all the questions right, you can't continue to the next section. So, that's how it's done online.

MR. JONES: All right, thanks. You had another one? Go ahead.

MR. HEAD: Yeah, Don Head, Balfour Beatty Construction. Wow, thank you guys for endeavoring to do this, to streamline the process. I'm a former outreach trainer. My credentials are expired, but-- and I introduce myself all the time as a safety guy, hey, I'm a safety guy, and I do hold a CSP and CHSD from Board of Certified Safety Professionals.

I do have a concern on the one slide, I guess you're asking for specifics, so exam exposure and medical records, we do have many construction workers that do have medical records, we have respiratory protection where a doctor certifies that they're good to use a respirator. We also have abatement workers for lead, asbestos, that type of thing, so if the workers aren't necessarily in that kind of work, then later in the sections they might kind of tune that out, so I think it's good to present that in the general part of the introduction.

MR. JONES: Do I have any more comments in the audience? Marcus.

MR. ODORIZZI: Marcus Odorizzi, City of Rockville again. I know ACCSH has been really looking into the Intro to OSHA module for quite some time now and I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, Walter, has made a formal recommendation to take a closer look at the two-hour or look at cutting it back to one hour.

MR. JONES: That's what we're doing now.

MR. ODORIZZI: Okay, thanks for clarifying. I guess, can the OTI address their willingness to accept an ACCSH recommendation and whether or not internally they have had those discussions to reduce the two-hour mandatory section, not only for construction but for general industry? Can someone from OTI address that?

MR. PAYNE: Yeah, this is Hank Payne. Basically ACCSH is the organization so far that has come up with a bona fide effort to make direct recommendations on paring down the Intro to OSHA module, and I commend Kevin and Jerry for their work. I think they've got a lot of great recommendations in here.

And we are working with ACCSH on this and we will continue to work with ACCSH On this and should someone be willing to do the same on general industry, we would also look at that.

MR. JONES: Okay. I'm going to come back to the committee now. Matt, I believe you had some input.

MR. GILLEN: Yeah, boy, it's tough work to do this. I do have to say though when I look, for example, that you suggest deleting the slides on filing an OSHA complaint where there's three slides, 41, 42, and 42 because it's--it looks like Slide 19-- really there's some key information in those three that aren't really in there. That's kind of an important issue for workers to feel comfortable they know how to do it.

And so, there probably at least needs to be one more slide that goes into some of the details on how you do it, to be fair.

The issue I had was about reporting complaints, so I did see that you commented there on Slide 15 and so that I guess that information would be added to Slide 11 to be part of the list.

MR. CANNON: Yes.

MR. GILLEN: Okay.

MR. JONES: Dean.

ACTING CHAIR McKENZIE: Dean McKenzie, DFO with OSHA. One of the things that I think would be important for the workgroup to consider is, when you talk about moving things off of the slides here, what is it going to look like in those other modules, which is going to have to bring a little bit of those modules into the conversation.

There's a couple places in here where we've identified material that should--a slide should be done away with and moved to a couple of slides, I think it was 10 and 11 or something. Well, one of those slides is already probably too full now, so you're not going to succeed in adding much material to that slide.

So, consider those things and, you know, perhaps what we need to look at is blocking out some agenda time at a future meeting to sit down and go through slide-by-slide. It's a painful process, as you guys already know, but to get the full committee's involvement, then--you know, buy- in on what you're wanting to change, and suggesting we change, is possibly a good exercise to run.

MR. JONES: I'm going to push back. I think that's something we may need to do or may end up doing, but I've been through that three--twice, I shouldn't say three times--that will be my third time, and all of these slides are important, every single one of them have important data that we need to give to employees, but we only have X number of minutes and time and we have to relay important-- so, I've been through this and I've listened when we've tried to cut these down. There has been a stakeholder for each slide in every one of these that I've been through, you know, and I just don't know that we're going to get complete consensus at any point, to be really honest with you.

I'm pretty happy that you got it down to an hour. I'd like to just see us address Hank's original concern of looking at a way to build in-- Hank and Tom's point of being able to build in some hands on--I don't know--training or whatever, to supplement what we've taken out and then we look at making a--and I don't know if we need to do a formal recommendation, just kicking it to the second floor, to Hank, and seeing what they think and moving from there.

But I don't know that going through this at a future meeting--I don't know. I agree, but I don't know.

MS. SHORTALL: I think you will need to give a recommendation formally on the record to the second floor. That's how the procedure for ACCSH works.

MR. JONES: I understand, I'm not sure we're going to be able to get that though.

MR. GILLEN: I thought the point of fact that there's a handout that goes with the course is an important one and, I mean, in some respects, what the slide says could talk about the importance of the issue and refer people to the handout and, you know, ask people to look at that, and if they have questions at the end of the course or something--so maybe, you know, the handout--the two really should be viewed as a package, don't you think?

MR. CANNON: And they do have mandatory handouts that cover a lot of what we were asking to be removed.

MR. GILLEN: But, so instead of saying "remove" it, some of the recommendations could be to-- this information should be put into the handouts.

MR. CANNON: Handouts.

MR. JONES: Or remain in the handouts.

MR. CANNON: Identify what handout--

ACTING CHAIR McKENZIE: Yeah, identify the particular--okay.

MR. GILLEN: Yeah, maybe that would help us take a more balanced view of it.

MR. JONES: Jerry.

MR. RIVERA: Jerry Rivera with Employee Rep. I guess I'm looking for some direction here. I've taken some notes on the input, both from the stakeholders out there and the ACCSH committee, and if it's recommended we could do it this way.

I would like to insert those recommendations into the packet that we've submitted and then make a motion tomorrow if that would be acceptable or, you know, which would be the best approach? I mean, we've got--

MR. JONES: I have some ideas. Go ahead, Chuck.

MR. STRIBLING: Chuck Stribling, I was just going to suggest, since the handout is an integral part of this, I think we need to look at the handout as well. I'm not comfortable making a recommendation right now without looking at the handout and/or what other handouts we think need to be included if we delete some stuff.

To your point on the complaint information, I mean, I agree, but it talks about complaints in another part of the presentation and, you know, to me--you can talk about how to file a complaint and what should be included in a complaint in every module, not just one time in the opening module, you know, it's employee rights and responsibilities, that's sort of like every module if I was instructing this.

And it was a little disheartening to know that the workgroup met, and as an ACCSH member I didn't even know the workgroup was meeting. No clue. I made my comments and turned them in, that's when I found out the workgroup had met.

MR. JONES: Yeah, yeah, I understand. I think I'm not going to speak to that because I don't know what the situation behind it--but this complaint issue is precisely the point I'm saying. There's a stakeholder for every slide. And I don't know how we get past that. One person will say it's good, another person would say it's out, and I just don't know how we're ever going to get out there.

I think we're already at a point where we've removed enough slides to get down to an hour. I'm kind of thinking that's where we should start. We should address the two glaring issues that Dr. Payne and Tom pointed out about hands on activities. I don't know whether you could do that in 24 hours or not.

But if we were going to now look at the additional handout and the additional material associated with the OTI course, then we were going to push this back. I don't know that that's entirely necessary. I think we could deal with this and deal with the handouts on another moment, but I'm just one voting member of, I believe, 12, but that's just my view.

So, my recommendation at this point would be that if you can address what the hands on experience module issue, which seems to be something that Hank said is a non-starter, to have this whole intro without hands on, you know, if that's a non-starter, we need to address that issue first, if we can. If we can't, the workgroup will meet between our next meetings to see how we can deal with that. If you can get it done overnight and we could bring this up tomorrow, in terms of a recommendation, because I think that this is fine as an hour, but it is missing that one glaring point.

If you could figure out a way to address that, then we could come to a vote and see whether we're going to make a formal--see what the committee feels on making a formal recommendation.

Otherwise, we punt this to--kick this down the road to our next meeting. That's just my suggestion.

MS. SHORTALL: I don't know whether what you're trying to get is a vote tomorrow or consensus tomorrow. It seems, from the discussion we're having, that there are some people concerned with making sure the handout and this material is considered together.

That may prevent you from getting a consensus tomorrow if people don't wish to vote or feel that they can't vote on something until both are looked at together. So, I think you need to figure that and ask yourselves what are you trying to achieve here, consensus or majority vote.

ACTING CHAIR McKENZIE: Dean McKenzie with OSHA. One thing that you might want to consider as well is I know that the overarching issue was two hours was too long. You set the goal for an hour. If that turns out to not be achievable in reaching consensus of an opinion or the content that needs-- everybody--we all finally agree needs to be there and you get it down to an hour and a half or an hour and twenty, an hour and fifteen, you've made a nice progress. Locking it down to an hour as the only option may not be your most effective move.

MR. JONES: But we're there, right?

MR. RIVERA: Yeah.

ACTING CHAIR McKENZIE: But you don't have an exercise.

MR. JONES: Yeah, that's what I mean. That's the--so, I'm kicking the ball back to Kevin and Jerry and tomorrow you will let us know what you guys have decided. It will be up to you on whether you want to take this to a vote or kick this down to the next meeting to achieve a better consensus.

MR. RIVERA: We'll do that and we'll discuss whether we're ready to make a motion tomorrow.

MR. JONES: Yeah.

MR. RIVERA: We'll clue Roger on that as well.

MS. SHORTALL: I also--one logistic thing to bring up, since we did take comments from the audience on the material that Jerry and Kevin had developed, a lot of you said your names very quickly and your organizations very quickly. If you spoke from the audience here today, it is crucial that you have your name written down in legible print in our sign-in sheet so that the transcript will be able to reflect your comments.

MR. JONES: And with that, is there anymore comments on this issue concerning the OTI, the OSHA 10-, OSHA 30-hour training course, two- hour introduction that the ACCSH Training and Outreach Workgroup labored to reduce to an hour?

All right. Thank you, Jerry and Kevin, and like I said, give you the unenviable task of coming back tomorrow with a decision on what we're going to do next.

MS. SHORTALL: Recommendation.

MR. JONES: Well, decision and then we'll move on to recommendation. Thanks, guys. And with that, I think we're nearing the end. Did you say--

MS. SHORTALL: Comments.

MR. JONES: With that we're nearing the end. At this point--Damien, is there anyone that's signed up?

MR. BONNEAU: No one signed up on the comment sheet.

MR. JONES: All right, even though you didn't sign up, this is your opportunity to have at it. Anything you want to discuss, it's right here, the floor is yours.

MR. BONNEAU: They still have to sign up.

MR. JONES: We've got a taker.

MS. LONDON: Lisa London with University of Texas at Arlington, the OSHA Training Institute Education Center. I also serve as the Executive Committee Chair and we serve kind of as an advisory committee to DTE. I wanted to reiterate the willingness of us, all of the Education Center directors. We're out there training trainers every day and we get a lot of feedback about what works, what doesn't work, when they come back for update classes what works, what doesn't work, people who call us and have similar responses to what you all are struggling with right now, and so just wanted to reiterate the willingness of our group to help and participate in any way with your workgroups as well.

MR. BONNEAU: We have another one.

MR. COTCHEN: Thank you for the opportunity. In a similar vein--

ACTING CHAIR McKENZIE: Identify yourself, please.

MR. COTCHEN: I beg your pardon. I'm Don Cotchen with Industrial Info Resources. We're a database publisher that tracks industrial construction of facilities in the U.S. and listening to the remarks today about some interest in oil and gas drilling and safety issues, temporary workers, a lot of those issues, there's a lot of temporary workers in the oil patch, people moving in and out of the Bakken, various areas of the country, this is an opportunity just to extend our willingness to work with the ACCSH and government to help to provide more information or insight about industrial construction activities.

Right now we're tracking 38,000 construction projects, industrial construction projects, in the United States. It's a growing area of construction and just wanted to state publically our willingness to work with the committee and with government in any area of focus that would involve industrial. And thank you very much.

MR. JONES: Thanks Don. All right, and with that I want to adjourn for the afternoon, and we'll be meeting again bright and not so early at 10:00 o'clock, and I'll see you all then.

CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER

I, CHRISTINE ALLEN, the Court Reporter before whom the foregoing proceeding was taken, do hereby certify that the proceeding was recorded by me; that the proceeding was thereafter reduced to typewriting under my direction; that said transcript is a true and accurate record of the proceeding; that I am neither related to nor employed by any of the parties to this proceeding; and, further, that I have no financial interest in this proceeding.

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