U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON
CONSTRUCTION SAFETY AND HEALTH (ACCSH)
December 5-6, 2013
Transcript of Day One of Two
1:02 to 3:58 p.m.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
U.S. Department of Labor
Francis Perkins Building, Room C 5515.
200 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20210
CONTENTS
- Opening Remarks/Agenda Overview
- Deputy Assistant Secretary's Agency Update and Remarks
- Discussion of the OSHA 10 Hour and 30 Hour Training Courses
- Chair Remarks/Public Comments
PROCEEDINGS
Opening Remarks/Agenda Overview
MR. STAFFORD: Good afternoon. If you will find your seats, please, we will go ahead and get started, since we have a quorum of ACCSH members with us this afternoon.
Damon, are we set with the folks on the phone?
[No audible response.]
MR. STAFFORD: Well, good afternoon again. Welcome to the meeting of the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health, ACCSH. My name is Peter Stafford. I'm an employee rep and chairman of the committee. I'd like to welcome you all here.
As you know, over the last year, many of you know we've had to restructure our meetings. The good news is this is the fourth meeting of ACCSH in the fiscal 2012, and it is the first time in many years that I think that we have had four meetings of the full committee, and I appreciate all the work of the committee members.
The bad news is with the budget restraints that OSHA has had over the past year, that we've had to modify the meetings, because we no longer have travel support to bring committee members in who are not in town that can support themselves. So, hence, we have a meeting where we have several of the ACCSH members that are participating over the telephone.
I would like to start today by doing introductions. I would like to first go around and introduce the folks around the table, the ACCSH members, and go around and have the folks that are on the telephone to introduce themselves, our members, and then we'll go and have introductions for those of you in the audience. And then we'll move forward with the meeting agenda.
I would like to first make an announcement. For those of you familiar with ACCSH, for years we had Sarah Shortall with the Solicitor's Office to work with our committee and who has made a great contribution to this. Sarah has moved on to other assignments within the Department of Labor and will no longer continue to be the Solicitor for this committee.
The good news again for that is that we have Lisa Wilson here joining us today from the Solicitor's Office, who will now be working with us on the committee. Lisa, we look forward to it. As I told you before, you will have to keep me and others in line sometimes, but I think overall we try to get through the agenda and try to follow protocol, but if I slip, you are going to have to correct me.
Lisa has worked with the Division of Solicitor's Office for 5 years, working on a variety of rulemaking guidance and litigation projects. The majority of these projects have involved Directorate of Construction on construction standards. Before joining DOL, she worked at the National Association of State Attorneys General. I am primarily making this announcement on behalf of Dean McKenzie, who is our Designated Government Official, who has a little bit of a cold. His voice isn't on top speed, so I'm doing that on Dean's behalf. So, again, Lisa, thank you very much.
So let's start with my right to introductions, and then we will get on with the agenda.
Kevin.
MR. CANNON: Kevin Cannon, Employer Rep, the Associated General Contractors of America.
MR. MARRERO: Tom Marrero, Employer Rep, Tradesmen International.
MS. SHADRICK: Hi. Laurie Shadrick, Employee Rep, United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters.
MR. STRIBLING: Good afternoon. Chuck Stribling, State Plan Representative, Kentucky Labor Cabinet.
MR. GILLEN: Matt Gillen, NIOSH Rep.
MR. JONES: Walter Jones. Laborers' Health and Safety Fund, Employee Rep.
MR. PRATT: Don Pratt, Employer Rep, representing National Association of Home Builders.
MS. COYNE: Sarah Coyne, Employee Rep, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.
MR. McKENZIE: Dean McKenzie, OSHA, Designated Federal Official, and I'm thankful for microphones.
[Laughter.]
MS. WILSON: Lisa Wilson, ACCSH Counsel.
MR. BARAB: Jordan Barab, Deputy Assistant Secretary.
MR. STAFFORD: Thanks, Jordan.
For those folks that are on the phone?
MR. BETHANCOURT: This is Jeremy Bethancourt, Public Representative.
MS. BARBER: Kristi Barber, Employer Representative.
MR. ERICKSON: Roger Erickson, Employee Representative, MOST Programs, International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.
MR. STAFFORD: Is that it, Damon? I think that must be it.
MR. HAWKINS: Steve Hawkins, Tennessee OSHA, State Plan Representative.
MR. STAFFORD: Thanks, Steve. Sorry about that.
Okay. Now we'll go to the back of the room starting with Rodd. Why don't you start for us, Rodd.
MR. WEBER: Rod Weber with the PENTA Building Group, Las Vegas, Nevada.
MR. O'CONNOR: Tom O'Connor, representing AWCI.
MR. PARSONS: Bill Parsons, representing the United States Air Force.
MR. BOLON: Paul Bolon, I'm in OSHA Directorate of Construction.
MR. MASARICK: John Masarick, Independent Electrical Contractors.
MR. KENNEDY: George Kennedy, NUCA, National Utility Contractors.
MR. SCHUMACHER: Randy Schumacher for the Materion Corporation.
MS. FENDLEY: Anna Fendley, United Steelworkers.
MR. CREASAP: Wayne Creasap, the Association of Union Constructors.
MR. HERING: Bill Hering, Matrix SME, large utility contractor in the Northeast, and also representing the Association of Union Constructors.
MR. MURRAY: Courtney Murray, OSHA.
MS. OLIVER: Lolitz Oliver, OSHA.
MR. BOOM: Jim Boom, Director of Construction, OSHA.
DR. PAYNE: Michael Payne, Directorate of Construction, OSHA.
MR. JOHNSTON: Mike Johnston, National Electrical Contractors Association.
MR. CHARTIER: George Chartier, OSHA Communications.
MR. ECKSTINE: Matthew Eckstine, NCCCO, National Commission for the Certification of Crain Operators.
MR. BIRD: Charlie Bird, Balfour Beatty Construction.
MR. RHODEN: Travis Rhoden, J.J. Keller & Associates.
MR. LUNDEGREN: Bruce Lundegren, Office of Advocacy, U.S. Small Business Administration.
MR. MATUGA: Rob Matuga, National Association of Home Builders.
MS. VETICK: Chelsea Vetick, National Association of Home Builders.
MR. PENNELL: Mike Pennell, OSHA Enforcement Programs.
MR. HOFFMAN: Julian Hoffman, National Safety Council.
MR. MADDUX: Jim Maddux, OSHA's Directorate of Construction.
MR. BIERSNER: Bob Biersner, Solicitor's Office of DOL.
MR. STAFFORD: Got everyone? Okay, thank you.
Whoops. Sorry. Christine. Sorry.
MS. BRANCH: Christine Branch, NIOSH.
MR. ROLFSEN: Bruce Rolfsen, BNA Occupational Safety and Health reporter.
MR. BONNEAU: Damon Bonneau, OSHA.
MS. CHATMAN: Veneta Chatman, OSHA.
MR. STAFFORD: Now we have everyone?
[No audible response.]
MR. STAFFORD: All right. Thank you, Damon.
As a reminder for folks, at every meeting, we make time at the end of the meeting for public comments. So anyone that would like to address the committee, we will carve out some time at the end of today and at the end of tomorrow. There is a sign in sheet in the back. You will have to sign in. So please, if you would like to make comment, sign the sign in sheet.
For all of us, both on the committee and particularly those folks on the phone and you in the audience, if you have comments later on, please announce yourself again, and the affiliation is going to help our recorder keep our minutes straight for our meeting.
Deputy Assistant Secretary's
Agency Update and Remarks
MR. STAFFORD: So, with that, let's go ahead and get into the agenda. It's our pleasure to have Jordan Barab with us today. Jordan is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for OSHA, has been an advocate here, and is obviously very interested in the construction industry. Primarily, we have Jordan or Dr. Michaels come in and address the committee to give us an update on what's going on, on the state with the agency.
So, with that, Jordan, welcome, and the floor is yours.
MR. BARAB: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. David unfortunately had to be out of the office this afternoon, so I am here. I am going to discuss a little bit about what we're doing now. I will answer a few questions, and then I have to run to another well, I'm not going to run. I will limp to another meeting because, once again, I have somehow been scheduled to be at two places at the same time, and even after 4 1/2 years here, I haven't figured out how to do that, so let's get going here.
Again, I want to welcome you. We have been particularly busy, it seems, especially over the last several months, both in terms of regulatory activity, general outreach activity, and enforcement activity. And I will go through a few of those things now, and some of my able compatriots will go into more detail on a number of them as the meeting progresses.
Probably, the most exciting news and certainly most significant on the regulatory forefront is our silica proposal, which you're aware we issued on September 12th, and that is basically an update, a modernization of a 40 year old standard, a 40 year old permissible exposure limit, bringing this agency into the 21st century.
That standard, as you're well aware, especially the construction side of it, was totally antiquated, I mean to the point where we couldn't even measure to the method outlined in the standard. We figured between that and the fact that there has been a lot of new evidence over the last year, so that not only does silica exposure cause silicosis, as we all know, but also cancer, COPD, and other diseases as well, at much lower levels than we're at right now, that we felt the need, the well overdue need to update the standard.
Again, we are in the public comment period right now. That ends in the middle of January. Those of you who want to appear at the hearing, our notice of intention to appear, the deadline for that is next week. Hopefully, you have already filed that or you're about to file that. It is a fairly simple procedure. It is basically just a few lines saying you want to appear, what you're going to be talking about, if you're going to be testifying for more than 10 minutes, we want a short summary of what you are going to be talking about.
So we are looking forward to the hearings. As you are aware, OSHA has probably one of the most open public processes of any government agency in terms of getting public input. Not only are we having this written period, but then that will be followed by hearings. It will begin in March where you can all come and testify, and the fun part about OSHA hearings, of course, is that not only do you get to testify, you actually also, if you're a witness, you get to cross examine other witnesses as well. So those of you who are not attorneys, but really always wanted to be kind of, it's an opportunity for you to show us your stuff. You can also question OSHA, too, if you want to ask questions about the proposal.
The hearings will be followed by a post hearing comment period, and then, hopefully, we will get this rule out in a reasonable period of time.
But I do want to emphasize we do want to hear from you. It makes no sense for us to be issuing standards that don't make sense in the workplace. So we want to hear from all of you, employees, employers, about whether this standard is (a) protective enough and (b) whether it makes sense the way we've structured it to be feasible in your workplaces.
Another rule that we've just proposed as our rule on record, what we colloquially calling "recordkeeping modernization," improving injury and illness tracking, basically what that's going to be is we are going to be collecting health and safety statistics, basically your logs not your logs, but the logs of employers who are already required to fill out the logs. For large employers over 250, they will be sending them in. We will make sure that none of the personal information is there, and then we will be posting them. We think the advantage to that is that employers will be able to basically benchmark themselves against other employers in the same industry. Workers will be able to also compare their employers with other employers, and we are hoping that that together will encourage employers who may not have the best health and safety record to really improve their health and safety performance.
Smaller employers, those that are small but still required to keep records, will be sending in basically just the bottom line totals. Aside from the physical action of sending the information into OSHA, there is no additional requirements put on employers.
We're having a one day meeting soon. I can't find the date here. Not really a hearing, because this is a regulation, not a standard, so there are different requirements for it, but we will be having a one day meeting, and of course, we will invite anybody who is interested in making comments on that to come to that meeting. Being as I don't have the date on that, we can either get it for you, or it's on our website.
One other thing we just recently did, which will be of interest to a lot of you, is we just issued a Request for Information on modernizing our process safety management standard. This was a result of the executive order that the President issued in August, following the disaster in West Texas, the ammonium nitrate disaster. The President issued this executive order to basically improve safety and security in our chemical installations across the country. So it goes way beyond just ammonium nitrate, to all of PSM, as far as we're concerned. It also goes into a number of security issues and environmental issues that are under the purview of EPA and Department of Homeland Security.
In any case, this is a Request for Information. There are a number of issues in there. The PSM standard I think is probably one of our most important and effective standards, but it's 20 years old, and this gives us the opportunity to really address a lot of the issues that have been raised over the last 20 years that aren't adequately covered in the standard
An RFI, Request for Information, is exactly that. It's kind of the very, very beginning of the regulatory process where we're basically asking you questions about how we should proceed as to go forward.
Following that, assuming we proceed along the regulatory path, there would be, of course, SBREFA and eventually ending up in some kind of proposal.
But again, we encourage you, especially those of you who have members or employees who work in the areas covered chemical industry, petrochemical industry, refinery industry that are covered by PSM to take a look at that and give us comments, if you have any.
A couple of initiatives we've been focusing on, one, probably most important, recently is our initiative to address health and safety hazards among temporary employees, and we are looking mainly here at staffing agencies, agencies that provide staff or other employers.
We used to at least when I was but a lad, I think to think of staffing agencies kind of as Kelly Girls, kind of clerical stuff, that you needed some clerical work, somebody to type and file and use carbon copies and things like that. It was very clerical.
These days, of course, not only are staffing agencies much more common, used much more, especially as the economy has problems, more employers want the flexibility that temporary employees can provide, but we are finding them in almost every industry, from construction, steelworkers, warehousing. All kinds of different industries, you find temporary employees.
The problem is we're finding a lot of health and safety problems, and at least anecdotally, more and more cases where we found workers who are literally killed on their first day on the job, and that is primarily due to the fact that they aren't familiar with the job and haven't been trained adequately.
The responsibility, depending on the case, can lie either with the staffing agency or with the employer, the actual employer where the worker or staffing agency worker is working, and depending on the circumstances, again, it can be one or both of those parties that could be responsible.
Our basic aim is to make sure that either through misunderstanding or intention that there are no gaps left in the training and protection of these employees. Every employee in the United States, whether they're a permanent employee or a staffing agency employee, deserves a safe workplace.
We have been working with the American Staffing Association very closely to make sure that this message gets out to their members. We did a webinar with them to talk about best practices. So we are working very closely with the industry, but nevertheless, we continue to see these terrible accidents, fatalities, injuries that really should not be happening. So that is one of the major emphases we have been on most recently, and you will be seeing more about that in the media and around as well.
On the enforcement front, probably the biggest news in the construction side is the citations that we issued following the building collapse in Philadelphia, the building that was being demolished. November 14th, we issued a citation to Campbell Construction following the building I guess the building collapse was in June, killed 6 people, injured 14. You will recall it fell the building fell on top of a Salvation Army and killed a number of people in the Salvation Army thrift store.
We found violations of OSHA's demolition construction standards. Basically the company had been sort of trying to save some of the materials in the building and really taking it apart, including some of the supporting structures from the bottom up, had apparently been warned a number of times in the days before that, that something didn't look right, nevertheless kept on with it.
They were cited with three willful, egregious violations for each day, that it left the wall without sufficient lateral support; two willful violations alleging the failures to demolish the building from the top down; and to have an engineering survey by a competent person on the possibility of collapse prior to starting the demolition. Jim Maddux will fill you in a little bit more on the details of this, but again, we thought it was a very significant incident.
We are working very closely with the City of Philadelphia and their code officials to make sure that this doesn't happen again, that there is sufficient oversight, and we want to get the word out to other cities and other parties responsible for demolitions to make sure that something as avoidable as this doesn't happen again.
Finally, on well, I don't know if it's a sadder note or a happier note, but I do want to note that Matt Gillen is retiring, and we will greatly miss him. I have worked with Matt practically since we were children. Right?
[Laughter.]
MR. BARAB: I don't even remember where you were working or where I was working when we first met, but we've both been around the block a few times and both ended up in government.
Matt is just a great trainer, educator, researcher. Even though he doesn't work for OSHA, we practically consider him sort of one of ours, because he's worked with us on so many important projects. He's kind of known around here most recently as "Mr. Nail Gun," but that's really just the surface of what he's been
MR. GILLEN: I started out as an OSHA inspector.
MR. BARAB: Oh, right. Okay.
[Laughter.]
MR. BARAB: Right. Good.
So Matt has been around in a number of different roles over the years. His kind of experience in a variety of facets of this area and his concern, his caring, his expertise, and his skill, this is where I get sad, because it's hard to know how to replace somebody like him. It's really difficult to figure that out.
Nevertheless, it's not totally sad, because he's going on to a whole new thing. I have no idea what it is, but it sounds good, anyway. He smiles a lot.
MR. GILLEN: I am going to say a few words tomorrow, and I do want to say you are going to be in good hands with Christine as far as will be the NIOSH rep, and she's great. So she'll be carrying it on.
MR. BARAB: Well, Christina is great. We know that.
[Laughter.]
MR. BARAB: And that's about all I have here, but I'd be glad to answer a few questions before I have to run off to my next meeting.
MR. STAFFORD: Thanks, Jordan. You will have to come back for the Matt roast tomorrow.
MR. BARAB: Oh, the Matt roast? Okay, good. I will.
MR. STAFFORD: Any questions for Jordan from the committee?
[No audible response.]
MR. STAFFORD: I have just two, very quickly, and then I know you have to limp off to another meeting.
Tomorrow, we are going to have a discussion openly about the reformulation of the work groups under ACCSH, and for those folks on ACCSH or if those folks are familiar with ACCHS, the brunt of our work gets done through the work groups, and we've had some I guess a learning curve to go through as we try to figure out how to have work group meetings in this area when we can't travel people in, and it's become an issue that we are going to try to straighten that out tomorrow.
But one of the things we had talked about in realigning our work groups gets back to the issue of the temporary staffing agencies, and it's something a lot of folks around this table are very interested in, and I'm assuming folks in the audience too.
So I guess the question is, generally, if we were going to do something at the level of this committee in terms of working with or recommending or helping the agency take a look at this issue specific to the construction industry, is there any kind of charge or mandate or something that you could like for this committee to address to help you?
MR. BARAB: Well, one of the things we're trying to figure out is the extent of the problem. I mean, first of all, the extent of where we have temporary employees like this. We know, obviously, in construction, there are a lot of contractors, and we're not really looking at that.
It's not totally clear. Nobody really has a handle on where temporary employees are working and to what extent they're working, what their penetration is, over and above what obviously the problems, the health and safety problems are. So obviously, the more knowledge we can get about that, it would help us just from the get go, and then obviously, anything else you have in terms of the extent of the problems that there we don't hear about, because we only hear about based on reporting, we only hear about fatalities basically or catastrophes. So there must be there's a lot, obviously, happening out there that we don't hear about.
We have the same issues with reporting that we have elsewhere, but they're a little more complicated here. If you get injured in a place in your host employer's, it will go on the host employer's log. Sometimes, though, it's the staffing agency that files the worker's comp report, but in terms of days away from the job, how does that get counted? Does it get counted accurately? So those are all the kinds of things we're looking into.
But we'd be glad to talk to you more about it in some detail, because we are trying to formulate a plan here.
MR. STAFFORD: Right. Well, it's a little bit premature, because we will have this discussion tomorrow, but I am thinking this will be one of the work groups that we are going to end up with.
MR. BARAB: Okay, good.
MR. STAFFORD: And the second question is on the same issue. For 2 years, this committee and its' done a terrific job, our I2P2, our program standard work group, of talking to the issues we think of OSHA move forward on a program standard that would be specific to the construction industry and our multi employer setting.
And we're thinking now because it looks like to me that I'm not sure where the program standard is, and I guess that's the brunt of my question, is of sunsetting that group and establishing another area of work, because it just seems like to us that we've done about as much as we can do as an advisory committee on what we think a standard should look like for the construction industry.
We've brought in large employers, small employers, medium size employers, heard from all kinds of folks about what the advantages and disadvantages are, and we are kind of at a stalemate at this point, Jordan.
MR. BARAB: Yeah. Right, right.
I think that's probably an accurate appraisal. Again, we hope to move forward on it. We certainly appreciate the work you've done on it. You've given us an enormous amount of information.
As you know, if we if when we move forward, it will be combined, general industry and construction, but obviously, we are going to have to take all of that into account. And I think the work you have done has been great.
You're right. Probably, until we move further in the process, there's not much more we can get out of that, so if you need to move on to other issues
MR. STAFFORD: Okay. That's what we'll do. We will come back.
MR. BARAB: Yeah, yeah. It will be a multiyear process, as you know.
MR. STAFFORD: Anything, Matt?
MR. GILLEN: Yeah, I had a question. Now that I'm getting older and out of date, I find myself interested in some of the OSHA standards that are older and going out of date, and I just learned about month ago that NIOSH recommended that for lead, levels above 10 micrograms per deciliter are considered elevated. Of course, OSHA standard for construction is designed to keep levels at 40, you know.
MR. STAFFORD: Yeah.
MR. GILLEN: And so there's been a lot more information about that.
Even if you wanted to do it, there is just only so much that OSHA can do, and the problem is that most workers and employers, they view OSHA standards as top, and they are going to protect them. So what do we do in the meantime to get to sort of communicate this kind of residual risk with some of the older standards, is there some way that OSHA and NIOSH should work together, or AIHA? How do we get the word out to people that meet the OSHA standard, but you might need to go above and beyond it? Because it's getting a little out of date.
MR. BARAB: Well, yeah. Lead is really just the top of the ice berg, although it's something that has been in the news and I think something we probably need to look into, but as you know, almost all of OSHA's chemical standards are 40 years old, and almost all of those are based on science from the 1950s and '60s.
We just put those two webpages up, which I think is the first step in that. Those of you who aren't familiar, I don't know if that's going to be discussed in more detail, but we put two new webpages up. One talks about all the OELs, the occupational exposure limits from other agencies, including NIOSH, ACGIH, California, to compare them with OSHA's because, as you know, OSHA's are antiquated, and a lot of the organizations and some states have much more modern protective standards. So we put those up there which hopefully should be and will be indicative of the fact that OSHA's are not adequate.
David, when he was announcing these, said right out front that OSHA standards, a good number of OSHA standards, are just not protective.
The second thing we did was another website that helps employers develop safe alternatives, safe substitutes for what's out there, so that's one thing.
We're working on another RFI, which hopefully will be issued soon, on chemical hazards. One of the major purposes of that is also to elicit opinion on how we can update our standard a little bit more efficiently than one at a time, which as we know is impossible when you look at the whole scope of what we have to do and do it within our law. As you know, we have a lot of fairly rigid requirements between our law and court decisions, et cetera, for our standard setting. We haven't really found a way around addressing standards, addressing chemical standards, except for one at a time. So that's also high on our agenda to try to figure out new ways to do that, but you're right. It's a serious issue.
I think more information coming out about lead indicates that's something we really need to look into, but again, it's not alone among the chemicals that are inadequately covered.
MR. STAFFORD: Thanks.
Anyone else?
[No audible response.]
MR. STAFFORD: Jordan, thank you. We really appreciate it.
MR. BARAB: Okay. Thank you. Have a good meeting.
MR. STAFFORD: Okay, yeah. You, too. Have a good next meeting.
Hey, Damon, I didn't hear Jerry Rivera on the phone introduce himself. Is he on?
MS. CHATMAN: He just came in.
MR. STAFFORD: He did? Okay.
MR. RIVERA: Yes, I'm on.
Discussion of the OSHA 10 Hour and 30 Hour
Training Courses
MR. STAFFORD: All right. Now we are going to move in for the next, and this is really the roll out sleeve up kind of discussion on the OSHA training program. I want to put this conversation, I hope, in context on how we got from there to here for this discussion today. Even though the agenda talks about the discussion of the OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 hour training courses, we are indeed going to talk about those, but we are talking specifically about the introduction module for those programs.
Over a year ago I am not going to go back as far as I was born in a log cabin, but I am going to have to go back to how we started. We have a training and outreach work group that had several meetings and included lots of folks from the public, because this is a very interesting topic to a lot of folks in the industry.
For those of us that have been around from the beginning of this program, I don't think anyone envisioned that the OSHA 10 or the OSHA 30 would essentially become the gold standard for training hazardous awareness training in the industry, but indeed a voluntary program has become, it looks like, the gold standard, and we know, of course, that there are eight states that actually require it by law now. So we have been kind of going through some growing pains with OSHA on how to get a handle on this program because of its popularity and trying to do the balance between the quality control that we all think is needed for quality training of workers in this industry and letting the thing get out of control, because of the popularity of the program.
So our training and outreach work group and I'd like to thank Kevin Cannon, who is here to my right. Roger Erickson is an employee rep with the Boilermakers Union, and Jerry Rivera is an employer rep with NECA are the co leads of this work group, and they have done a lot of work over the last couple of years in our open meetings. These meetings were open when we had everyone physically together and the public was able to participate, and what we heard, I think, by and large, unanimous from the industry that means ACCSH members and many of you sitting out in the audience today that we think the industry believes the current OSHA requirement that mandates 2 hours on the introductory section of the program is not necessary.
So last November, this committee took action, made a recommendation as a result of that work group meeting, to ask or recommend to OSHA that they enhance the learning objectives of the program, and those learning objectives were submitted by this committee to the docket for the record. We have copies here. I don't know if copies are in the back, but we can certainly have some of those for you.
MR. BONNEAU: They are in the back.
MR. STAFFORD: They are in the back. Thanks, Damon.
So that is the guiding principle for the introduction to OSHA, and as long as you meet the enabling objectives of the program, the committee has recommended that you don't necessarily have to spend 2 hours on the Intro to OSHA, because we've heard almost unanimously from everybody in the industry for all size employers that they would rather get into if they can cover the objectives, get into actually teaching and training about the hazards of the work that their workers are going to be dealing with on the job, and I think we all agree with that. And it made sense to us; hence, the action.
So today, what we're going to do as a part of the follow up to that specific recommendation is go through the slide deck of the Intro to OSHA module, and in the end, the exercise is not to say to OSHA that this slide or this particular exercise can no longer be taught. What we are saying, as we go through these, are these are slides or exercises or whatever they may be that we could set on the side that could be used by an instructor if they so want. It's all good material, but it's not essential to meet the enabling objectives. So that's where we're at today, and this is going to take us a little while to go through the slides and actually strike.
Kevin and then Jerry and then Roger will go through the slides and actually suggest slides where they think this committee thinks that these particular pieces do not necessarily have to be included, and this is an important distinction. Again, I think it's important that we are not going on the record. ACCSH is not saying that this exercise is not necessary and, therefore, this exercise can never be used in an intro module. We are just pointing out essential things that we think are necessary, and the ones that we don't think that are necessary, even though they are good materials and they could be used at the discretion of the instructor as long as we meet the enabling objectives.
So I hope I said that clearly enough, because there has been some confusion about this, and I just want to be sure that we all understand what we're talking about, because at the end of the day, we're 13 months into this. What is this? December. We are 13 months into this. We made this recommendation in November of 2012. We would like to move this forward.
I believe that Dr. Payne, Hank Payne, the Director of the OSHA Training Institute, is on the telephone, so he's a part of this conversation. He was at our meeting last November when we had this discussion. It's my impression that Dr. Payne is very supportive of what we're doing, and this is just the next step to try to identify collectively, openly to the public those things that we think are not essential to the program, so that we can get around the 2 hour mandatory requirement for the intro.
Fair enough? Clear enough?
[No audible response.]
MR. STAFFORD: Okay. All right, thank you.
What we are going to do here is that I am going to get out of the way, and I don't know, Damon, if we need to get the lights down a little bit or not. We're going to go through the slides, and we have divided them up between the three co chairs. So Kevin Cannon will start, and then we will return it over to Jerry Rivera, who is on the telephone, and then finally to Roger Erickson to go through the end of the slides.
We will just have to monitor the time. We are going to spend up until four o'clock on this issue, if necessary, but not after four o'clock. As we get into this and see how things will go, we will have a discussion amongst the committee as we go or will wait until the end, and we will just try to get through the slides and see how it goes.
With that, I am going to turn it over to Kevin.
MR. CANNON: Thanks, Pete.
ACCSH members as well as those in the public, you had available to you the slide deck. I'll just let you know how we're going to go through it. We are going to go slide by slide, but those that you see with the diagonal strike through, they are the ones that our group have already recommended amongst ourselves to be set aside for further teaching, as Pete said, but the discussion does not have to be limited to just those slides that we have already identified to be removed.
Am I correct, Pete?
MR. STAFFORD: Right.
MR. CANNON: So, as we go through, I am going to do the first 16. If there's any slides that are of interest or you want to speak up, have an opinion about, please feel free to do so.
Right now, what you are looking at is the opening slide to the 2 hour intro. I think we want to keep that one.
And then the next slide, please, is the Lesson Overview. Based on discussions with the work group, there was very little that needed to be changed with this one. I do know that per my notes from discussions, there was some question as to the need for Question Number 4: What do the OSHA standards say? So we would move to strike that one question and renumber accordingly, so 5 would now be 4 and 6, 5.
All right. I will move on.
Pete, are we doing this as we go?
MR. STAFFORD: Yeah. I think we have time.
MR. CANNON: Yeah.
MR. PRATT: Okay. Don Pratt.
We might want to under topics on this slide we might want to add what are the worker's responsibility, as outlined in Section 5(b) of the OSH Act. They are clearly identified in the Act, and it might be something that we should be adding in there. Along with the rights of the employee, there should be the responsibilities of the employee.
And then there's a further slide back that I will get to when we get to that slide that would identify it even further.
MR. CANNON: That particular point has been brought up with our group and
MR. PRATT: I would hope so.
MR. CANNON: Yeah, we've discussed addressing that later on, so
MR. PRATT: That's fine.
MR. CANNON: If you're satisfied with how we intend to address it later in my portion of it, then say so or not.
Any other discussion on this slide?
[No audible response.]
MR. CANNON: Now, Pete, I do have another question, I guess a procedural question. As far as the folks and I know the intent to do this slide by slide was not only to give ACCSH folks an opportunity, but those in the back as well.
MR. STAFFORD: Yeah. I think once we get through this, the folks in the who want to comment, we will do that at the end as part of the comment period. Any discussion about this, we will save to the end.
MR. CANNON: Okay. So we would encourage you guys to make notes if there's any issues, concerns that you would have.
The next slide. All right. Now, this is the first slide that we have come to that we identified for removal, and it is not necessarily because the information is not useful, but as we move through, you will see that a lot of this information is covered again in Slide Number 6, History of OSHA; Slide 8, OSHA's mission. If there's any information in there that you would like to save, you can incorporate it into the later slides, or OSHA has put together a pretty extensive instructor's guide for this. Either incorporate it in later slides or enhance what you have already in the instructor's guide, because in my opinion, based on these recommendations, they will need to do some modifications to this, anyhow.
MR. MARRERO: Tom Marrero, Employer Rep.
If we are going to strike this Topic 1 here, "Why is OSHA Important to You?" then shouldn't we strike it in the slide before as well or possibly change it or word it differently, so the discussion questions can be utilized?
MR. GILLEN: Can I ask a qualification question? And I apologize if you covered this and I wasn't
You go first. You had a question?
MR. MARRERO: No. I already said it, so you're good.
MR. GILLEN: Matt Gillen, NIOSH. So what we're looking at here isn't what the group didn't fill in the slide, so that this represents what the final product would look like. It's just your idea of which slide should be taken out.
MR. CANNON: Yes.
MR. GILLEN: So, for example, somebody has to take "Why is OSHA Important to You?" and put it somewhere else. You can't just take away that. Somebody has got to if you are going to have the topic "Why is OSHA Important to You?" then it's got to be in one of the slides.
MR. CANNON: I think that is the point that Thomas was making. Yeah.
MR. GILLEN: What we're going through is we need to make notes as to where OSHA needs to add slides or just editorial slides to smooth all this? Because it doesn't, as it is, represent a coherent presentation, right?
MR. CANNON: Exactly.
MR. GILLEN: Okay.
MR. STAFFORD: So to clarity that this is Pete the exercise is that what the committee is presenting is areas where they think either certain sections of a slide or a slide entirely could come out.
MR. CANNON: Any further discussion?
[No audible response.]
MR. CANNON: Any questions?
[No audible response.]
MR. CANNON: All right. Next slide, please.
These are discussion questions that are put in place to help get the attendees or students involved. We didn't make any recommendation on this particular slide. I know Chuck had an opportunity to weigh in, and according to my notes, it was remove or revise the first and second questions.
MS. COYNE: I do have a question. Sarah Coyne, Employee Rep.
Do we have an idea of what we want or how this is going to look once or if your proposed changes are accepted?
MR. STAFFORD: Clarify how. This is Pete Stafford. I don't think this is on, but what do you mean how it's going to look, Sarah?
MS. COYNE: Well, if we're going to take this slide out or take this verbiage out and, hypothetically, let's say that the proposed changes were all accepted, do we have a draft of how this Intro to OSHA will look like?
MR. STAFFORD: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think once we go through this exercise and if we all reach agreement today, then we will finalize this thing and there will be a new
MS. COYNE: Reformat it?
MR. CANNON: Yes.
MR. STAFFORD: There will be a new document that said this is it, now based on this discussion.
Next slide, please.
MS. COYNE: Okay. And the reason why I'm asking, it's just a little confusing when you say, "Well, we are going to take this slide out," which I think you should, but then you go into these questions, and where it's placed now is inappropriate.
MR. STAFFORD: Mm hmm.
MR. CANNON: It will be reshaped, reformatted.
MS. COYNE: Thank you.
MR. CANNON: You're welcome.
MR. STAFFORD: All right. So, Kevin, I'm sorry, and, Chuck, you're here next. You said at the last meeting that Chuck had suggestions for changing these questions?
MR. CANNON: No. I think Chuck had an opportunity to review this in between meetings and provided feedback in the Notes section on the side.
MR. STRIBLING: Well, just to speak to these two questions, you're right. The whole thing has to be reformatted when we get through.
MR. CANNON: Mm hmm./p>
MR. STRIBLING: But these first two questions could eat up a half hour of the class. You go around asking everybody that; you're going to get that throughout the class. That's going to be a discussion point.
If our goal here is to whittle this thing down to an hour, take it out. It's going to come up during the course of the instruction.
MR. CANNON: Anyone else?
MR. MARRERO: This is Tom Marrero, Employee Rep.
I got to agree with Chuck then here too. From my experience, a lot of times with this first question, the first time that they heard about OSHA tends to be the first time that they do their OSHA 10 or any time they're doing a safety orientation.
I don't think a lot of people really understand that question, when they do an OSHA 10, what that really means to them, and like Chuck said, it does come up throughout the instruction as you go through it.
MR. CANNON: All right. Next slide, please.
This is one that we have identified as removal. My initial thoughts is that it's somewhat out of place, putting it smack dab in the middle. You're talking about the history of OSHA, and then you're talking about fat cats. Then you go back to, you know, what is OSHA, and then go back to the history of OSHA. It could be handled in other ways as far as reviewing some of this.
Another thought that I have is that you have such a diverse group that sometimes these reports doesn't represent the type of work that your students to. What use would that be for them to investigate something that does not really pertain to their operations, their task?
Any questions?
[No audible response.]
MR. CANNON: Comments?
[No audible response.]
MR. CANNON: Okay, thank you.
Next slide, please.
No recommendations were made by the work group on this, so if you guys want to take some time to look at it, but this is one of the slides where I indicated that you could either incorporate some of the statistics and data from early on into these or enhance the instructor's guide to cover some of that same information. I mean, it is sort of repeated again if you look at how they ask you to flow through it in the instructor's guide.
Yes.
MR. JONES: I only have one question. I like what Chuck said. It makes a lot of sense in terms of getting rid of the slide on discussion questions.
The problem I just have, and it's not a big point, is that most workers when you ask them what do they know about OSHA, they are going to give you the Gestapo answer that, "Oh, they're just here to shut the job down. They don't want us to work." They don't have a full understanding of exactly what OSHA is. So I think this history slide talks out really why OSHA is there, and I think it's a good point.
Then if a discussion followed up after that, they are not there to shut the job down or fine you or everything else; they are actually there to try to help work safely. Even though you may not want to wear a harness, this is why you wear one.
MR. CANNON: Yeah. So you're
MR. JONES: So my point is this this should stay.
MR. CANNON: Which? This slide here?
MR. JONES: History.
MR. CANNON: Yeah. That is staying. There was no recommendations made on this one.
MR. JONES: Good place for it.
MR. CANNON: Next slide.
This slide talks about OSHA's coverage activity, and I understand this is the module that is used for both construction and general industry, but our work group though it would be useful to use examples specific to construction as far as who is covered and who is not, and maybe do three separate slides, like they have done in some of the other parts where they have construction, maritime, and general industry, maybe do the same for this one. Have OSHA coverage activity for construction, maritime, and general industry, but other than that, I guess sorting out who is covered, who is not, it is not a bad thing, but we would recommend having examples specific to construction.
All right. Next slide.
No recommendations by the work group on this one as far as revising, removing, but this is also one of the slides that I mentioned early on that some of the same information was being covered.
MS. SHADRICK: Hi. This is Laurie Shadrick.
I just have one thing. Shouldn't OSHA's mission be like right up front?
MR. CANNON: Yeah.
MS. SHADRICK: Your mission statement?
MR. CANNON: Yeah. That's
MR. MARRERO: This is Tom Marrero.
Even if you flip flop the OSHA coverage activity slide with that one, I think it would make more sense, because then it's followed by the questions for review, so
MR. CANNON: Any other questions or discussion?
[No audible response.]
MR. CANNON: Okay. Next slide, please.
This slide was not recommended for setting aside. I don't want to say remove. But it was thought that the first question, the wording could be changed. Instead of "Why was OSHA necessary?" you know, basically, "Why was OSHA established?" and that was the only recommendation that was put forward by the work group.
Next slide, please.
No recommendation. So if there's anything on this slide that the group would like to share their thoughts or opinions on, please?
Yes.
MR. GILLEN: Again, it's my pet issue that I bring up each time about the right to report an injury without fear of reprisal, and so it's an insertion. It could go here. It could go on later on and be on Retaliation, Slide 21, but I think explicitly, that's something that needs to be in as a bullet point somewhere.
MR. CANNON: Does the last bullet cover that, or do you want it to
MR. GILLEN: I think it's not specific enough.
MR. CANNON: Okay.
MR. GILLEN: I think if you think about it, that's the most specific thing that could happen to a worker is getting injured, and the fact that you need to report that to the employer. We know that there is a fear of reporting injuries, and so to sort of be explicit and to just come out and say it, I think is one of the most important things that the course can do.
So it's something to add in or just make sure it's not so much that it has to be in this slide. It just has to be somewhere in the presentation, so if we can make a note somewhere that that's included.
MR. STAFFORD: So we can just take that last bullet and make it explicit.
MR. CANNON: I was looking at how it was covered in the instructor's guide, and it doesn't expand on it any further besides just
MR. GILLEN: You could just put dash "including the right to report an injury without fear of retaliation.
MR. JONES: Walter Jones
Isn't reporting injuries a responsibility under the Act? I'm not clear.
MR. CANNON: A responsibility of the employee?
MR. JONES: Don talked earlier about making sure employee responsibility is in there. Isn't that a responsibility to report injuries?
MR. CANNON: I don't think it explicitly says that, no. No, I don't think it says you must report.
MS. WILSON: We don't have the text of the Act in front of us, but we don't think that's explicit in the Act.
MR. CANNON: No. No.
So on this particular slide, it would just be a dash "including the reporting of injuries and illnesses."
MR. STAFFORD: Well, I think what Matt said would be dash "including the right to report an injury without reprisal.
MR. CANNON: Okay. Good?
[No audible response.]
MR. CANNON: All right. Next slide, please.
This particular slide did not have any recommendations put forward by the work group. There was a suggestion made that the second bullet was also covered in the previous slide as well as the slide that will be following, so maybe consider removing it.
Any questions? Comments?
[No audible response.]
MR. CANNON: No? Okay.
Next slide, please.
This is where 5(b) was being discussed as far as inserting what the employee's responsibilities are under the OSH Act. Any thoughts on that?
MS. COYNE: I think you're right.
This is Sarah Coyne.
I think your recommendation on the previous slide to remove the second bullet point, especially if they are going to go in this order, is appropriate.
MR. CANNON: Okay. Any discussion about the 5(b), inclusion of that language into this slide? Because it's right now just 5(a)(1), and of course, there is the 5(b).
MR. STRIBLING: Yeah
This is Chuck Stribling.
I'd say put it in, 5(a)(1) and 5(b). This is the slide that covers both of them.
MR. BETHANCOURT: This is Jeremy Bethancourt.
I guess my comment would be that I would agree that it should actually be addressed in this slide or somewhere in here, but this is an appropriate place to put that, where it addresses both parties have responsibilities in the OSH Act. That would be my recommendation whenever that time comes.
MR. JONES: Walter Jones.
Just getting back, just looking at the flow here, maybe we might want to take this first bullet point that you want to remove from the prior slide, leave it in that slide, and then have the two
MR. CANNON: Condense 5 1, okay.
MR. JONES: You have employer responsibility, employee responsibility on one slide, and then keep this bullet or move that first bullet to the worker rights one. Do you know what I mean?
MR. CANNON: Yeah. No, that makes sense.
MR. JONES: You were talking about reviewing it, but then you'd have like a jumbled slide. I mean, it's already filled. Look at it.
MR. CANNON: So keep it under the previous slide and remove it from this particular slide and have 5(a)(1) and 5(b).
MR. JONES: Yeah.
MR. CANNON: Does that make sense? I mean, it makes sense to me, but I want to give the rest of the group an opportunity to
MR. JONES: That works. All right. And keep.
MR. CANNON: Next slide, please.
Other than need to be updated to reflect the revised I'm sorry? Yeah. Outside of needing to be updated, some of the other recommendations were made to if it's being covered in other parts of the 10 and 30 hour, then potentially remove this slide.
But if you look at the requirements for the 10 and 30 hour, it's not an absolute requirements, for it has come to be covered. They give you 30 minutes to talk about health hazards, and it says you can talk about silica or HazCom or whatever you would like. If you remove it, it's not guaranteed that it be covered unless we're able to get this as part of the mandatory curriculum.
I know the industry, both the 10 and the 30 hour require one hour on HazCom; whereas, construction does not have that where it says you must cover HazCom. Does that make sense?
MR. JONES: What's the question?
MR. CANNON: So the recommendation was either, you know, remove remove this slide as well as the next, but my thinking is that it's not a mandatory requirement anywhere. So if we do, it may be missed. Is this an opportunity to say we could use that optional 30 minutes or the elective 1 hour that's at the end of this? Because the 10 hour gives you an optional 1 hour at the end to cover whatever you want. The 30 hour gives you 2 hours of optional time to cover whatever you want.
MR. JONES: Walker Jones.
So you're asking can we remake this a non mandatory slide?
MR. CANNON: No, not as far as take it out of the intro, but require it to be covered elsewhere in the program.
MR. JONES: I don't understand.
MR. CANNON: I'm sorry?
MS. CARTER: Oh, definitely.
MR. JONES: I don't know that I support heard a reason to support that.
MS. COYNE: Sarah Coyne.
Basically, what you're saying is any authorized instructor who doesn't opt to choose the HazCom elective, that this will everybody will at least hit on this particular right for every class, right? Is that what you're saying?
MR. STAFFORD: No, no.
MS. COYNE: If you leave this slide in, everybody will cover this topic, where when we get to the elective portions, I don't have to cover HazCom. So this will ensure that everybody covers it if it's left in the
MR. CANNON: Yes..
MR. STAFFORD: Yeah. Sarah. I don't think that's what Kevin said specifically, but I think in the end, that's sounds like where we're coming to.
MR. CANNON: Yeah.
MR. STAFFORD: Kevin, I think was proposing to take this out because it could be covered in another area, and I think it sounds like Kevin to me that potentially because it could not be, that it's probably worthy to keep this hear to make sure that it's touched upon.
MR. CANNON: I guess I would ask the question why is it required in the general industry and not the construction.
MR. STAFFORD: I don't know the answer to that.
MR. CANNON: Yeah, I don't know the answer to that either.
MR. STAFFORD: That's kind of omitted.
ATTENDEE: I can fix that.
MR. CANNON: And that's what I'm saying. If we can fix that, then we can take it out of there.
ATTENDEE: No. Now make sure it's in both.
MR. JONES: Yeah, because we can't. Right to know is one of the basic fundamental values that we fought for in the whole Act, the whole point here, and I don't know how we can we're talking about their rights, so I don't know. I don't know.
MR. STAFFORD: This is Pete.
I agree with you, Walter. I think that this is one that probably needs to say. If it's not going to be covered elsewhere, it's an important slide.
MR. CANNON: Next slide.
Well, I am assuming then if we are going to keep the previous slide, we will keep this one, but just revise it to say SDS and use an example of it.
ATTENDEE: Yep.
MR. CANNON: Next slide, please.
All right. Now, this has the slash through it identifying it, but it's a possible, and maybe it's depending upon how the language could or should be revised to say that you have the right responsible to report the occupational injuries and illnesses, and that your employer cannot stop you. I think this was one area where we could expand on what Matt was saying as well, now that's impossible.
MR. GILLEN: Nobody else feels this seems like important information as well.
Matt Gillen.
I'm just wondering. You know, this is the basic log. It's useful for workers to know about, because sometimes people feel like if an injury happened and it might have been carelessness or something is what's the discussion that people might have or might feel.
Whereas, when you look at the log, seeing that it's happened to other people makes you realize there's more to it. It isn't just a carelessness thing. This is something that's going on, and that, you know, talk to the other person, what happened to you. I think it's an important right to know about.
I mean, in our recommendations here, we shouldn't just limit ourselves to deleting it. We could say what about consolidating some of the
MR. CANNON: Exactly.
MR. GILLEN: Take a point here and a point from another slide, maybe not entire all of the points need to be kept, but it could be made simpler and put in another slide.
MR. CANNON: So research the slides to see where some of this information fits elsewhere.
MR. GILLEN: Yeah. Consolidate it with another slide.
MR. CANNON: Okay.
Walter?
MR. JONES: Nothing, nothing, nothing.
MR. CANNON: Next slide.
MR. STAFFORD: Let's go ahead and reconvene, please.
No recommendations on this one.
MR. STRIBLING: I just have a question, because I don't know. I don't know.
Chuck Stribling.
I don't know the answer to this. What is 29 CFR 1977?
MR. CANNON: Lisa?
MS. WILSON: I believe 1977 is the regulations for the whistleblower program under Section 11(c).
MR. STRIBLING: Oh, okay.
MR. CANNON: Okay.
MR. STRIBLING: See, coming from a state plan state, it's not codified that way with us, so it wouldn't ring true for that slide in our state, but instructor can change that as they go.
ATTENDEE: You could just say whistleblower.
MR. STAFFORD: I was going to say why don't you just say whistleblower. I mean, don't you have whistleblower protection?
MR. STRIBLING: Oh, sure.
MR. CANNON: So then why don't you just say whistleblower?
MR. STRIBLING: Yeah.
ATTENDEE: It makes no sense to tell a construction worker 29 CFR and we supposed to know, and we don't know. Why don't we just say whistleblower?
[Laughter.]
MR. CANNON: Delete the reference to that
ATTENDEE: And insert "whistleblower."
MR. CANNON: Whistleblower.
All right. That ends my section of review.
I believe it's Jerry who is up next. Jerry?
MR. RIVERA: Yes. Good afternoon, everybody. Can everybody hear me okay?
MR. STAFFORD: Yes.
MR. RIVERA: Okay. So I'm going to try to do my best to take us through the next round of slides.
MR. STAFFORD: Jerry?
MR. RIVERA: Hopefully, you guys can hear me a little bit better than I heard you on the lagging end, but just if you want to interrupt me, go ahead and I'll speak a little louder.
MR. STAFFORD: Jerry, I want to interrupt you. Jerry?
MR. RIVERA: Yes.
MR. STAFFORD: Hold on. Lisa, what did you
MR. CANNON: And introduce himself.
MS. WILSON: Oh, I was going to ask him to introduce himself.
MR. RIVERA: Sorry about that. Could you text that message?
ATTENDEE: He didn't hear you.
MR. STAFFORD: Introduce yourself, Jerry.
MR. RIVERA: My name is Jerry Rivera, and I'm an employer rep.
All right. So I am going to begin and take this through the next couple slides like Kevin and our chairman mentioned before. It's very tough to take away some of the slides and keeping the integrity of the program, but most importantly, because the OSHA 10 hour workforce is so important and it's so well accepted in the industry, it was important for us to give it a really good look in some of the slides that were either covered in some other sections of the 10 hour or that were kind of redundant.
This first slide that we're looking at, we decided to keep, which is "Complain or Request Corrections." It was important to keep this slide.
The Training, another important element that we keep in our training program to advise some of the workers of the importance of where they can get some training, not only from their employer, but maybe some of those GCs on site and the coordination to happen there.
Next slide. Next slide.
ATTENDEE: It's there.
MR. RIVERA: I might be lagging behind because of the buffering.
But the strike through, "Examining Exposure and Medical Records," you know, based on the discussion of the work group, it was understood that, number one, it's a 1910 requirement, but examining the records for employees, while it's important, it might have not helped improve our safety and health divisions on the job site. So it was decided to strike this one out, because normally employees are not involved at this level.
There's other venues that were used, such as toolbox offerings on the job site to capture the but actually going into the administrative part of it was thought to be something that would be more of an administrative function.
Next slide.
MR. CANNON: Hold, Jerry. You have some comments.
MR. RIVERA: Go ahead.
MR. JONES: I was asleep at the wheel here.
I want to go back to that slide, "Your Right to Training," and that second bullet point, I'm not clear totally on what you mean by "required training," required blood borne pathogen training or topics. If we could make these topics that were, I guess, using as examples more relevant, as relevant as possible to construction activities, that would be great, or either align in there for the instructor to make it relevant to the work site that they're at, because I just think leading with blood borne pathogens is kind of tough, and then required training on noise, I'm not so sure about.
MR. CANNON: Well, if I can, these are the standard slides. We didn't revise this at all.
MR. JONES: Oh, I know, but aren't we making recommendations for it?
MR. CANNON: Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, okay.
MR. JONES: As Matt said earlier, we should not only be talking about what we want to take out, but what we want to improve.
MR. CANNON: Yeah, improve. Okay.
MR. STRIBLING: Chuck Stribling.
From a state plan perspective, we like this slide, because as a state, we have a requirement for blood borne in construction. We have a construction confined space standard. So you can change it. You might want to take it out because you think you are making it more relevant for construction, but that doesn't mean it's more relevant nationwide for construction. See what I'm saying?
MR. BETHANCOURT: This is Jeremy Bethancourt.
I also believe that that is an important thing to speak to in there, even in construction, and having had experience with workers who have been exposed to potential hazards from blood borne issues that occur out on a job site. That's the grim reality at times is that they're faced with that, and having some training on that would be vital.
I agree that perhaps we might explain what that means a little more, but maybe that's something that would be like a subtext or something for an instructor.
MR. RIVERA: This is Jerry.
Keep in mind that the training requirements here is an idea where the audience gives an opportunity to see what type of topics that should be covered. They're not all inclusive, but I think the remarks that we shared as far as padding may be okay to bring some of the more construction specific requirements. It might be something that should be left up to the instructor.
All right. If there are no comments on this one, I'd like to move over to Slide Number 19. I believe that's the one we are going into.
MR. GILLEN: Matt Gillen with NIOSH.
Again, I think this is an important one. I think it could be consolidated like with the information about injuries and illnesses. In both cases, you are talking about records, and it could be probably simplified to say where employers collect air samples or environmental samples or noise, readings, that workers have the right to see those records and find out what the results were.
And same with the medical records. I mean, it's an important issue for a worker to understand what their rights are to medical records.
I think it could be shortened, but I think it's definitely important information to have in there somewhere.
MR. BETHANCOURT: You know, this is Jeremy Bethancourt.
I would tend to agree with Matt. We just recently did a survey at a facility, and as part of that, of course, we did instruct the workers that they have a right to know the records from the exposure examination and the survey that we did there for contaminants.
And I think that this is important. I would agree, especially for folks who are exposed to hazards, that they know that they're allowed to if anything, the OSHA 10 hour should be educating them, to prompt them to know they have that ability perhaps, and then that might get them thinking about it for wherever it is that they work.
So maybe there's a way, like Matt said, we might condense it, but I think that this is important. That's what I'd say.
MR. JONUES: Can we look at consolidating that point of medical with the information about injury and illnesses into one or something like that? I don't know. Instead of having two slides, turn it into one. Is that doable?
MR. RIVERA: That might be the solid approach.
Again, these were some of the recommendations from the work group at the time, but this is not written in stone. So some of those remarks that you guys are sharing right now, I know I'm taking notes on this end to make sure if we can consolidate this slide, that is the wishes from the group, before we move forward.
MR. JONES: Great.
MR. RIVERA: All right. So moving on to Slide Number 19.
MS. COYNE: I'm sorry. This is Sarah Coyne.
Just a question. As we're looking at this pertinent information and we're debating what we should include and what we should consolidate, to file a complaint, participate in inspections, and some of the other information that we have discussed thus far, is it possible would it be possible to just have that as additional information in a handout form?
MR. CANNON: And that's where I was going to go, is that some of this that we're recommending to be removed or set aside is covered like in the handouts; for instance, the OSHA poster that you're required to use for the group activities.
MS. COYNE: Exactly.
MR. CANNON: So I understand.
MS. COYNE: So not only we provide the information to our audience, but we don't necessarily have to cover it in that time slot.
MR. CANNON: A lot of it is covered in the handouts.
MS. COYNE: But we can do that? We can take some of this information out and produce them as handouts?
MR. GILLEN: Matt Gillen.
You can also put a reminder by putting "see handout" in those particular slides, so that people get the message that there is this supplemental information, both the instructor and the student.
MR. JONES: That's a good point.
MR. CANNON: Okay, Jerry.
MR. RIVERA: All right. So looking at Slide Number 19, "File a Complaint with OSHA," again, the task group basically believed that it was important to keep this level of information within a 10 hour, so that employees have a way to know how to file a complaint, should there be an imminent danger, without worries that there will be some type of retaliation. So it's basically knowing their rights that they can file a complaint with OSHA if they can't work it out at the employee level.
Slide Number 20, next slide.
Participating in an OSHA inspection is another vital component. It was understood that employees should know that a representative could accompany during an OSHA inspection, the employer rep during an OSHA inspection, whether it's to point out hazards, describe some of the injuries, or to find out what the issues were identified, what was the abatement, again, another vital set of information that will uphold the integrity of the 10 hour course.
Next slide.
MR. STRIBLING: Hey, Jerry, it's Chuck Stribling. Could I interrupt you a minute?
MR. RIVERA: Go ahead.
MR. STRIBLING: That final bullet, I don't completely agree with, because in some states, that might be different. For instance, in Kentucky, they can also object to the abatement dates, but in Kentucky, they can also object to the citation and/or the penalty. So it's not the same everywhere, and to give information that this is the way it is for employees, they have additional rights in some other states.
MR. RIVERA: Chuck, that's a great observation, and I realize that the differences between state and I'm dealing with that now are vast. I don't know. The recommendation might be that in some regards, even though this is I believe we are trying to fashion this for the federal component, if some of these slides have an additional note to say, "Hey, state requirements might be different."
MR. ERICKSON: Jerry, this is Roger Erickson.
I think that's a great idea that we have some type of asterisk or whatever on some of these slides that are in question regarding state requirements.
MR. RIVERA: Hey, Chuck, would that capture your thoughts?
MR. STRIBLING: Sure. And you've got to remember, you know, obviously, I'm here representing the states, but you're talking about 27 state plans. So that's a pretty significant portion of the country that's going to be getting this information.
MR. GILLEN: Chuck, so in those cases, the states can't go below the federal minimum, but they go above it, right? So the note could say states may have additional rights or additional something along those lines as a footnote.
MR. STRIBLING: Sure.
MR. RIVERA: All right. So switching up to Slide Number 21.
We talk there being free from retaliation. Again, there is always that concern of the employee that they identify an unsafe condition or they file a complaint, that they can be retaliated against. This was, again, one of those slides that was important to keep there, to make sure that that end user, who is getting the 10 hour, can know his right as it relates to being protected when they file a complaint. So we chose to keep Slide 21.
MR. STRIBLING: Jerry, this is Chuck Stribling again.
Here again, I would ask that you put a note in there that it might be different in the states, because in Kentucky, an employee has 120 days to file a discrimination complaint.
MR. RIVERA: You know what, Chuck, I'm going to make that asterisk, and it might require a little bit more. You know, again, in different states, some of those instructors typically addressed those issues, but it might be worth, like you mentioned, putting the asterisk that way as a reminder to that instructor that the information can be different from that, the federal requirement.
MR. STRIBLING: Sure.
MR. RIVERA: Slide Number 22.
MR. MARRERO: Real quick, Jerry. This is Tom Marrero.
With Slide 21, I think it would be better suited if we put it in front of Slide 19, because Slide 19, when you read it here, you know, Worker may file a complaint with OSHA and they believe a violation or safety or health standard or imminent dangerous situation exists in a workplace, I think it would flow better if we put 21 in front of that, because if the employee is exposed to a hazard, he should be addressing it with the employer, prior to calling OSHA. So I just think it would flow better, maybe add a little bit of verbiage in there that they should address it with the employer. And if the employer fails to do anything, then to file a complaint.
MR. RIVERA: That's the recommendation is duly noted.
Again, we will add these remarks, so that we can finalize our recommendation. So I will jot that down, Mr. Marrero.
Slide Number 22 is a set of questions that basically asks or tests the instructor to use test the knowledge gained, what is an MSDS, what are some of the rights related to injury and illness, and what are some of the standards or hazards where workers must be trained.
Again, we have taken out some exercises, but others we've chosen to keep, because there needs to be somewhat of an assessment from the instructor as he's going along to make sure that the audience is understanding the message being portrayed.
Slide Number 23.
Now, in Slide Number 23, what responsibility does your employer have under OSHA, again, it's also worth noting for the folks who are taking the 10 hour to understand also that the employer has some rights, which vary differently from what the employee rights are, but again, it's just more knowledge based on what the requirements are and how they impact whether it's the employer or the employee group.
There's also some notes there as it relates to the posting of the signs, that again, it's not it's a requirement for the employer, but employees should know where to find that information should there be a citation and the notices where they will be posted.
Slide Number 24.
Keep the records of injuries and illnesses. It just basically goes over and over of what the reporting, some of the deaths or reporting responsibility, whether somebody has been hospitalized three or more and the access to annual records.
Slide Number 25.
MR. GILLEN: Matt Gillen with NIOSH.
Is this a case to make it crystal clear to say report each worker death to OSHA and report each incident that hospitalizes three or more workers to OSHA, just to make it clear?
MR. RIVERA: Yes.
MR. STRIBLING: Hey, Jerry, this is Chuck Stribling.
This is another one that needs the state asterisks. In some states, you have to report all hospitalizations. In some states, you have to report all amputations. So the states go above and beyond OSHA on some of their specific reporting requirements.
MR. JONES: If there's going to be an asterisk for every Walter Jones.
There's probably going to be an asterisk for every slide, because state plans are required to at least have the minimum requirements of OSHA, and in any particular area could go beyond.
Is Hank on the phone?
DR. PAYNE: I am on the phone.
MR. JONES: Hey, Hank. How are you doing? Walter Jones.
DR. PAYNE: Hi, Walter.
MR. JONES: Does your OSHA 500 deal with this issue of state plan versus fed OSHA?
DR. PAYNE: No. It does not.
MR. JONES: That's all I have.
MR. GILLEN: Matt Gillen.
So is the idea that this model template would go out to states, and then the states, they take it and they tweak it to incorporate their information? Is that how it works?
MR. STRIBLING: No.
Oh, I'm sorry. Are you asking Hank, or are you asking me?
MR. GILLEN: I'm asking you, Chuck, as far as your experience.
MR. STRIBLING: No. We've run into this. You will have an instructor who can take this template, and they give this information out, and it doesn't include any of the state specific requirements. None. They don't have to, because this is an approved 10 hour presentation or a 30 hour presentation.
So they don't know in Kentucky we have a different requirement for steel erection fall protection or residential construction fall protection or reporting all hospitalizations.
MR. GILLEN: It sounds like that's an issue that maybe the group would want to maybe come up with some ideas for OSHA to think about. What do you think?
I mean, one way would be that there is an instructor package that goes with this, and the instructor notes, ask people to refer to that, or it could be some handouts.
MR. CANNON: Maybe just incorporate I'm sorry. No, it doesn't, but what I'm saying is like with the grant training, you know, we do when we put together the grant training, it's per the federal OSHA requirements, but they specifically state that if you are going to a state to do this training that has different requirements, you must modify your presentation to reflect that. So I guess it's as simple as making that language available in the instructor's guide, because there was a pretty good instructor's guide with this.
MR. JONES: Yeah. Well, this is a process here, state question. Maybe we want to look at this state issue separately from this consolidation issue, because I think we're going to run through the state problem over and over again, and maybe this is an issue that ACCSH in the future needs to look at, like how do we address some of these state issues that are differing that go beyond, especially in this rights section, that you feel is misleading to employees in state plan states.
MR. STRIBLING: Yeah. And I don't mean to disparate Chuck Stribling. I don't mean to disparage every instructor out there. There are many conscientious instructors that do their homework and relay the state specific information to their students. I just think students get shortchanged when they get information that's not wholly correct for where they work.
MR. MARRERO: This is Tom Marrero.
How about if we add a slide somewhere in the beginning that addresses that there is federal OSHA and state run plans, and state run plans will vary, so that way at least they're aware.
MR. HAWKINS: This is Steve Hawkins on the phone.
I was just going to say exactly what Tom just said. I agree with him. Probably a disclaimer at the front, because this is a it varies so much from state to state, and a lot of our construction workers, unfortunately, lately have been kind of transient, you know, having to go from state to state and kind of follow the work, because the economy has been down.
I mean, one problem we've got here, probably a lot of times, you could probably query them the next day, and they wouldn't remember whether it was 30, 60, 90, or 180 days.
When I teach a class like this, I try to tell them to act immediately. If you think you've been discriminated against, you don't need to be sitting around looking at a calendar. You need to call the day that you realize that's happened to you, and so I think some kind of disclaimer at the front really might be worthwhile.
MR. RIVERA: I think one of those two approaches might be sufficient. So what we will do is we will take notes on both angles whether to add an additional slide or just an asterisk in the bottom.
Going back to Slide Number 25, in this slide, this is one of the handouts where they hand out the OSHA 300, and this has tended to go through a couple of exercises of how OSHA 300 log is filled. This is more of another function that's handled administratively, either at an office by an administrative assistant.
And, you know, the groups thought, look, as long as employees know where to report it, filling out the log might not really improve safety and health conditions on the job site by learning how to fill out the logs.
So again, it's a tough one to strike out, but at the end of the day, how many of the guys or in the field really fill out OSHA 300 forms of the workers? Probably none of them, but it was important to take this one out to make sure that we'd make good use of the time.
Moving on to Slide Number 26, which addresses payment for PPE, again, vital information that needs to be included, but this information, we chose to strike it out here, because there is a PPE. This information would be better housed in that module versus in the Introduction to OSHA.
As you'll see, some of these, like this slide, it's kind of redundant. There's nothing wrong with redundancy. We sometimes need to remind folks of things over and over, but in this particular case, given the time constraints and knowledge base and where we'd be covered, we were confident that this would be better covered in the PPE module.
Slide Number 27. Questions for Review. Again, there needs to be a way to assess the knowledge gained in the classroom to see if the instructor needs to emphasize some other areas, but we chose to strike out the PPE and who must pay for it. Again, the assumption is that this is being covered in the PPE module.
Slide Number 28.
MR. GILLEN: Matt Gillen, NIOSH.
The second bullet there, I mean, I think it's really important that people know that the Act prohibits employers from discriminating. I'm just not sure if knowing the section and all I mean, what they need to know is they should call OSHA and discuss it, right? I mean, is that something to discuss, this section? Is that that critical? Is it that critical of a point? I mean, is that something that could be deleted or reworded? Basically, they need to know that they have that, and if they ever want to discuss it, they can, but knowing this section is less important to me than knowing that they can call and discuss that with someone.
MR. JONES: I think that is why that earlier slide had 29 CFR 1977, so that you know what I mean? That's why.
But again, we struck it there. We should strike it there and enter another question.
MR. MARRERO: This is Tom Marrero.
Kevin, you said that when Don asked about the 5(b) would that be somewhere after the employer responsibilities, or is that going to be later on throughout the presentation? You made a comment earlier.
MR. CANNON: No. And we addressed that during my section as far as readjusting that slide where it talked about 5(a)(1) and then slapping 5(b) into there.
MR. MARRERO: Oh, okay. Okay. I thought you had mentioned it was going to be
MR. CANNON: I mean later in my section, not Jerry's.
MR. MARRERO: Oh, okay.
MR. CANNON: Okay, Jerry.
MR. RIVERA: All righty. Going to Slide Number 28.
What do the OSHA standards say? Again, this slide gives a general overview of what the categories that each standard falls into and most importantly the General Duty Clause, which again is a little bit redundant, but there's nothing wrong with that in this particular slide, and we chose as a group to sustain this type of information and keep this slide.
Slide Number 29 talks about the most frequently cited standards. Again, this information is shared elsewhere. We make a big campaign of what the most frequently cited standards are, and the majority of the audience doesn't really, you know, just understand the standards as is articulated in this slide. So it was decided that it might be best to just strike this one through.
Slide Number 30. The handouts. While it's a strike through for the actual slide, it is not necessarily a strike through for the handouts. These resources have been developed, and they are usually handled throughout the course of the 10 hour course by the instructor. So while the instructor will hand out some of these materials, it doesn't necessarily need to be this stuff at this point, and particularly because all protection is covered in another module as well, so is Subpart K in fire prevention and fire prevention.
MR. PRATT: Jerry, this is Don Pratt.
I want to go back to the previous slide, "Most Frequently Cited Standards." Is it your understanding that this is going to be covered somewhere else, or is it covered somewhere else? Let's ask it in a positive, because I personally think that this is valuable to the students, that they need to know what these what the frequency of some of these cited standards are, and this should be something that's updated every year.
Why are you shaking your head, Kevin?
MR. CANNON: I am just saying this could be another one of those handout situations.
MR. PRATT: That's fine. I have no issue with that at all. I just don't want to forget it.
MR. CANNON: Yeah.
MR. RIVERA: Any other questions there?
MR. CANNON: Go ahead, Jerry.
MR. RIVERA: All right. Let's go back to we're in Slide Number 31 now, which is the review of some of the general industry, 1915, which doesn't apply, what the OSHA construction standard is. The first question is covered throughout the course, but the others are kind of irrelevant to what the construction industry sector might be more in tune with. So again, it was the general belief of the group to strike this one through for recommended deletion.
And this really takes me to the end of the slides where I hand this over to my peer, Roger Erickson, but if you have any questions on the slide that we just discussed, I'll be more than happy to take those now.
[No audible response.]
MR. ERICKSON: Okay. Thank you, Jerry.
Roger Erickson, Employee Rep, most programs, Boilermakers International.
I want to thank Jerry and Kevin for helping here on this project. As everybody knows, the recommendation was to condense the 2 hour part of this, and whenever you condense something, you have to unfortunately get rid of some things.
Please remember that this Intro to OSHA, it's just the 2 hours. It's 20 percent of the 10 hour. So we're not throwing out a lot of these things and don't think they're relevant. It just is we feel that they can be covered in different parts of the training.
So with that being said, we will start with Slide 32, and that slide, the committee recommended keeping. It's a very important slide.
Next slide.
Any comments?
[No audible response.]
MR. ERICKSON: I'm on a teleconference. I'm not webbed in here, so just speak up or interrupt me, please.
Slide 33, OSHA Inspection Priority. Once again, we feel like this is a very important slide and should be kept.
Next slide, Slide 34, Citations and Penalties. Again, the committee feels that this is an important slide and should be kept.
There was one suggestion, and Chuck had made the recommendation that failure to abate should be listed under Violation Type. So we will make a note of that.
Slide 35, Questions for Review. The committee thinks this is a very good slide and we should keep.
Slide 36, which is the start of Topic 6, Where Can You Go for Help? The committee thought this slide could be deleted. There was a lot of conversation regarding this and very good dialogue, but the consensus was to delete.
MR. GILLEN: Matt Gillen here.
Is that because you felt that the sources outside the workplace covered it or for some other reason?
MR. ERICKSON: Well, I think basically and like I stated earlier, this was a topic of good dialogue here, but we thought that possibly the sources outside would be that proper place to go.
MR. GILLEN: Okay.
MR. ERICKSON: And here again, just looking at this, the three bullet points, of course, we would eliminate the whole slide, but remember how to file an OSHA complaint has already been talked about, and the second bullet point, I am going to get to here with sources outside the workplace.
Slide 37, Sources Within the Workplace. As I stated before, quite a source of dialogue, but it was a consensus to delete this slide.
Slide 38, Sources Outside the Workplace, a very good slide. We want to keep this slide. Also, I believe there was a suggestion by Chuck that there should be some mention of state plans. As they are contacted, there is different contact information, and we have already discussed that, regarding some type of new slide or an asterisk.
Slide 39, How to File an OSHA Complaint, the handout. This has already been covered under Topic 2, which was Slide 10, Rights Under OSHA, and also covered under the previous slide, 19.
Want to remember, too, that we make sure that all of our trainers when they are taking the 500 class and I think it's very important that anybody how helpful the osha.gov website is and for all the students to be aware of that, and right there in that website, it spells out very clearly how to file a complaint.
Slide Number 40, Filing an OSHA Complaint, I've just touched on. It's already covered in the intro, and the committee's consensus was to delete that slide.
MR. GILLEN: Matt Gillen, NIOSH.
You know, back on Slide 38, it might be useful after you talk about the OSHA website to mention that there is an OSHA construction, Directorate of Construction site or some sort of site like that. People who may be not as savvy with the Web, just that there's one place you can find construction information and that you include that Web address as well.
MR. ERICKSON: We can just add another bullet?
MR. GILLEN: Correct.
MR. ERICKSON: Okay. I don't think that should be an issue.
Slide 41, Filing a Complaint. The committee's consensus was to delete that slide, which brings us to Slide 42, Questions for Review. We are going to keep that slide, but the first bullet point had been eliminated through previous action as regarding resources inside the workplace.
Slide Number 43, Session Summary. We are going to keep this, of course. What we are looking at is a suggestion by Chuck, and I'll read this. Because we struck the importance of OSHA previously, we should make history of safety and health the start of the first bullet point. Also, a suggestion to change bullet six to "including the right to file a complaint," not "how to file a complaint."
And that brings us to Slide 44, the final slide.
So by keeping score here at home, I think we are to the point where we have decided and correct me if I am wrong to keep 29 of the slides or the recommendation, keep 29 of the slides and delete 15.
MR. STAFFORD: You are the only one that's got a scorecard, so I would quit while you're ahead at this point.
[Laughter.]
MR. ERICKSON: Well, I'm just writing because the question was originally we were going to delete Slide 14. I'm just making a comment, Pete, that we were going to delete Slide 14, but I think the consensus of the group now is to keep Slide 14.
MR. STAFFORD: Yeah. And I think based on the discussion, we have to go back and do some wordsmithing and some consolidation of some of them as well.
I think it's been a useful exercise. I want to thank you, Roger and Jerry and Kevin, for your work.
Hank, we're going to take a break in a minute and then open it up to the public, but now as a protocol question, I think now that we've gone through this and the committee has had a chance to react and I think that it generally looks like we're on the right track here, but in terms of actually polishing this up and finalizing it and dealing with the issues of adding a slide with a disclaimer about the differences in state plans or just the specifics of the words, is this something that now we're to the point that it would be something we would work with the OTI on to finalize language, or are you looking to us to come back with a final product with our specific recommendations for an example how to add a disclaimer or a new slide on state plan state differences, or can you tell us how you would prefer to work with us to finalize this?
MR. ERICKSON: You know, Pete, I'm going to have to talk with folks on the second floor and get back to you. I really don't know.
MR. STAFFORD: Okay. That's fair enough. That's a straight answer. I don't particularly like the answer, but it's a straight answer.
Okay. Well, why don't we take a break. We will come back at three o'clock, let's say, and then we will have a final, finish this discussion and have open comments. Thank you
[Break from 2:45 to 3:03 p.m.]
MR. STAFFORD: Let's go ahead and reconvene, please.
Lisa, before we go on to wrap this discussion up and public comment, do you have exhibits to report?
MS. WILSON: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will just mark the slide deck of the Introduction to OSHA that was just discussed as Exhibit 1 and the one page recommended modifications as Exhibit 2.
Thank you.
MR. STAFFORD: Okay. Thank you, Lisa.
MR. BONNEAU: Mr. Chair, can you poll the phone just to make sure everyone is here?
MR. STAFFORD: Sure.
Steve, are you still with us Hawkins?
MR. HAWKINS: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I'm here.
MR. STAFFORD: Jeremy?
MR. BETHANCOURT: Yes, I'm here.
MR. STAFFORD: Okay, good, Jeremy
Jerry Rivera?
MR. RIVERA: Yes, Mr. Chairman.
MR. STAFFORD: Okay. Is Kristi there? Kristi?
MS. BARBER: Yes, sir, I'm on.
MR. STAFFORD: All right, Kristi.
And Roger Erickson still with us?
MR. ERICKSON: Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman's Remarks/Public Comments.
MR. STAFFORD: All right. Thanks, Roger. Okay, Damon. It looks like we've got a quorum and ready to go.
Before we move on to public comment, I just want to say to the committee, particularly the training and outreach work group, that I really appreciate your work on this. I think at this point, if we are going to try to move this forward and as Dr. Payne said get this to the second floor for approval or not approval or whatever the second floor is going to do with it, I feel compelled struggling with this, because on the one hand, I feel compelled to ask Kevin and Roger and Jerry to sharpen your pencils, and based on the discussion we just had, modify the slide deck as discussed and give us a fresh slide deck tomorrow morning, so that we can take an official action and essentially recommend this committee recommends that the new slide deck go to OSHA officials for approval.
On the other hand, we put so much work into it, I'm a little bit concerned to try to rush this through by tomorrow morning without giving the committee time to consider the comments, and the language and consolidating slides might be a little bit of a push. So I'm just raising this, because I am torn on it, personally. I really want this to move, because I know the industry stakeholders want it to happen. We all agree to that. We are 13 months into this discussion. If we put it off again, we are going to have to take official action at our next meeting, which pushes it back to March and April or whatever that time frame is, and then we're a year and a half into the discussion on what we thought was a relatively simple thing to do.
So I'm a bit perplexed by it, and I'd like the committee's comments before we move forward one way or the other, if we're going to ask the work group to go tonight and revise this based on the discussion and give us a final slide deck tomorrow for action, or do we want to wait and give the committee time and absorb the comments and give us more time to revise the intro module and come back when we meet in March or April and at that time take formal action.
So if there's any comment from the committee, I sure would appreciate it, your thoughts on it, especially the three co chairs. If we go the former, that they're the ones that are going to have to be doing the work tonight and tomorrow morning to prepare for a formal recommendation. So I am just throwing that open to the committee on what you think about it.
Walter?
MR. JONES: I guess either directly to you or Hank, if the committee was to come back with a package, it's not likely or is it likely, I should say to be positive is it likely that the second floor would accept it as whole, or are they going to want to edit it themselves or make changes?
DR. PAYNE: Hi, Walter. This is Hank. I can't really address what the second floor would do, but what I would say is I don't think you can just hand them a slide deck. I think the instructor guide, where a lot of the information about what is supposed to be done and additional information on each slide, would also need to be revised according to the changes you want to make.
And without the two, I think it's easy to misconstrue some of the changes that you all might be recommending, without seeing what the accompanying intent is behind the slide, which should be in the instructor guide.
MR. JONES: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, okay.
DR. PAYNE: And I wouldn't ask them to I don't think they can do that overnight.
MR. JONES: Yeah. No, nor can we.
MR. STAFFORD: Yeah. I was just going to say, Kevin I don't know, Dr. Payne. We don't I know Kevin has a copy in his hand, here to my right, but he just has that on a PDF, and if the committee was going to take a shot at doing that, can you forward that or get that to us or to Damon on staff, and then he can get it out to the committee?
DR. PAYNE: Yeah. We have it, I believe, somewhere in a Word document.
MR. JONES: Yeah, that would be better if editable.
DR. PAYNE: We will hunt that down and get it to you.
MR. STAFFORD: Something that we can edit or the committee can edit.
Okay. Well, then it sounds like and this is for, I guess, Lisa and Dean. I'm glad you're here, because obviously if this is the approach that we're going to take, that means that the work group is going to continue to work on the slides and the manuals for presentation to the full committee ACCSH, which means that the work group will be working. This drives the issue that we've had over the last year about the work group working and doing it in such a way that it's transparent and open to the public.
So now that we it sounds like we decided that the work group needs to take its time and go back through the slides and incorporate the comments and address the two guides that go with this, that we need to do that in a transparent way.
And I would suggest if this and I am looking to Lisa when I suggest this that the work group somehow goes through that process and we have an open call in the end before we come back as a full committee and make a formal action that we don't have any kind of issues, that we didn't have a transparent work group meeting, so the public can comment on the revisions that we're going to make.
MR. McKENZIE: This is Dean, Dean McKenzie with OSHA.
I think the approach should probably be that the committee works on it, and when you come back in March, you present what your recommendations are. It should be fairly quick. You have gone through it one time, and any modifications to the other but if you have a full committee on a work group meeting, that invokes FACA, and so now we have the public and now we have the recording requirements and all that.
MR. STAFFORD: Right.
MR. McKENZIE: So we either continue to work on it as the full committee, or the work group goes back, cleans house a little bit with the recommendations from this meeting or the discussion from this meeting and brings it back out, and we talk about it again at the next meeting.
MR. STAFFORD: Right. I'm sorry, but this is what I want to try to avoid, Dean. I want to try to avoid talking about it again at the next meeting, and I want to have a recommendation at the next meeting that says this is it and it goes to the second floor for final approval. And I don't want to get stumbled in March by saying that the work group met and did all these revisions and the public didn't have an opportunity to comment, and so that's what I'm trying to get at.
MR. BONNEAU: Just for the work group process, the work group is going to receive public comments in a few minutes, right? So they will receive the comments from the committee, and the committee during public comment period is going to receive public comments. So now the work group is going to go away and incorporate those comments into a document and bring it back at the next meeting. I'm not understanding how it could be excluded.
MR. STAFFORD: No, no, no. They are included now. We just went through this process, but when we drop this on the table in March, let's say, and we make a formal recommendation that this goes to the second floor for final approval, I don't want anybody to say, "Well, the public didn't have a chance to look at the final document before the committee has taken final action."
MR. McKENZIE: The committee would have to debate the final package at the meeting, anyway.
MR. STAFFORD: Correct.
MR. McKENZIE: If we post the
MR. JONES: First of all, do we need the public, first of all? As Sarah often said, we are the ones that vote, and we provide OSHA with advice. So I don't know that we necessarily need the public, per se, and if the second floor decides that we do that against what's written in the Act, they need advice from the folks sitting at this table. And if we decide this package is good enough, that's it.
Second in my opinion, I'm speaking. Second, the question I think, the bigger question is, Is the second floor open to this idea of reducing it? It needs to be covered, because even if everybody in this room and 90 percent of construction agrees with us, it seems like this thing is a little too long, and efforts need to be made to shorten is, if they don't agree, aren't we back where we started?
MR. STAFFORD: Yeah. Well, the short answer to my view is again, just my view
MR. JONES: Yeah.
MR. STAFFORD: as the chairman is yes. I was under the impression that 13 months ago after we took action that the second floor was generally in favor of the recommendation, and we were going to come back with specifics on how it could be done. And that's why I said to Dr. Payne, when he said it's got to go back to the second floor, I was a little bit confused, because it seems like we've gone full circle.
MR. JONES: Okay. Well, shouldn't we just bring them in here and ask them, or can we, or ask Dean or Jim Maddux or whoever we can talk to? Like we're working on this. We've been giving you tons of recommendations. I'm almost I thought I remember us making a motion at some point to reduce this.
MR. STAFFORD: We did. I can read you the recommendation, if you would like.
MR. JONES: So in the past, Jim would start off these meetings by saying these are the motions that are out there, these are the ones that we're working on, these are the ones we're not working on, and these are the ones that we're still thinking about. Can we bring Jim up to give us a real discussion on this? Because the work is going to take to really get consensus on this, even for March, it's going to be tough, and to tell us that, all right, we'll think about it another 13 months would be very frustrating.
MR. STAFFORD: Right, I agree. Normally, we had started that process of Jim coming at the beginning of the meetings to talk about that, but just with the schedule and Jordan today, that didn't happen that way. And Jim just stepped in, so it was a very opportune time, Jim.
We've having this discussion, Jim, and this is a protocol discussion as much as anything, and here it is. We have just gone through this exercise of going through the slide deck. I think we all agree, generally, that we're on the right track in terms of what needs to be done with the OSHA intro based on 13 months' worth of work now.
Now, the question is and Hank pointed it out, and I was struggling at the beginning of this discussion of saying whether we want to ask the work group to go back and work tonight to incorporate everything that was said today, to have a final product on the table for us to take action on tomorrow.
Dr. Payne has reminded us that he didn't think going to the second floor with just a revised slide deck is good enough, that we would have to also go with our thoughts about how we would revise the instructor manuals, et cetera, that go with the program.
So here's the question. So we go back and do that. So again, now we're waiting until the March or April meeting of 2014, and we have a final product. We've heard from the public today. We are going back and we're revising based on this meeting, so in April, we have a final product that's a revised slide deck, a revised instructor manual, and revised everything.
That I do not want to come back to a meeting in March or April with a revised document that we're ready to take action on, as Hank says, to go to the second floor and hear that we did not get input from the public before we've taken action in March or April on a revised final document that goes to the second floor for approval, and it seems like we've gone full circle now.
MR. MADDUX: I don't think that that's necessary.
MR. STAFFORD: Okay.
MR. MADDUX: I think that the committee has done a lot of work on going through this. It sounds to me like there are specific recommendations inside of the slide deck, and that then there are another set of recommendations that are kind of related to certain process issues; for example, the state plan question or to certain types of things, you know, sort of thematic things for the instructors.
So it seems to me that if the work group could get the slide deck modified to reflect today's discussion and that these other sort of themes could be put in the form of a recommendation, that that would be enough.
MR. STAFFORD: All right. So you think that would be good enough for you or Dr. Payne or you and/or Dr. Payne to go to the second floor and say this be it?
MR. MADDUX: Yes. I think that the committee has had a very full discussion, and that if we want to go through and figure out why the committee made a specific recommendation, that we have a thorough discussion on the record today that will enable us to do that.
I really had a very strong goal of trying to wrap this out at this ACCSH meeting, and I think that we're kind of at a point of diminishing marginal returns, to talk like an economist, where the committee has done a lot of work. I think you've gotten into the detail that we asked you to get into in terms of the recommendations of how the 2 hour presentation could be tightened up, without losing the important content that is in this module that we all agree is important.
And I think you are probably there. I think that as part of that and maybe it says something about the value of the conversation you have identified another set of issues that need to be coordinated with that or should be, and that two recommendations, one saying OSHA, we'd like for you to consider our recommendation on the actual content, and number two, you know, a motion, we would also like for you to consider these issues inside of the 10 and 30 hour programs would be adequate.
MR. STRIBLING: Yeah. Chuck Stribling.
That sort of leads into what I was thinking here.
We looked at the content. We're pretty much in agreement, so why can't we recommend that and leave it to the agency to work on the instructor manual and the handout. I mean, we've done the heart of it.
MR. MADDUX: We need to make it match.
MR. STRIBLING: Right.
They can add to it through those other documents to match our recommended content.
MR. JONES: They may have concerns that we haven't raised that they want to address as well, take this opportunity to address as well, so let's move forward.
MR. STAFFORD: All right. Well, then that sounds that's what we wanted, and that's what we talked about prior to this meeting.
Okay. With that said, then this is what we're going to do. Kevin, this is what you're going to do.
[Laughter.]
MR. STAFFORD: And you and Roger and Jerry, I'd like you to take the feedback from today with your notes, and I have some, too, and I'm sure others do to help you. And if we could have a new slide a revised slide deck based on today's discussion openly with the public, we'd like to have that tomorrow to make a formal recommendation, okay?
Jerry and Roger?
MR. RIVERA: Okay.
MR. ERICKSON: Okay.
MR. STAFFORD: Okay. All right. Thanks. Thank you, Jim.
Ready for public comments. I don't know who are you first on deck, Steve, or the only one on deck?
MR. BONNEAU: [Speaking off mic.]
MR. STAFFORD: If we don't like what they want to talk about, we will send them next door to the FACOSH meeting.
[Laughter.]
MR. STAFFORD: All right, so let's go. I guess Matthew with NCCCO, I'm sure you I wanted to get to the comments, if there were any that pertained specifically to this discussion on OSHA, the intro course.
And I know, Matthew, yours is probably not, I would imagine. Okay. So we'll come back to you.
For those of you that had signed up, did any of you that signed up want to talk about the OSHA training program? Because I think it would be okay, so we all right.
So then I will have to go in order. Anna Fendley, did you want to talk you don't want to talk about training?
ATTENDEE: [Speaking off mic.]
MR. STAFFORD: I will come back to you. Okay.
Frank Trujillo. Frank, you want to talk about training? Okay. Please, Frank. Come on up.
MR. TRUJILLO: Okay. My name is Frank Trujillo with Miller and Long Concrete and Construction here in Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.
I just made a few notes. I noticed on Slide 10, you were going to add a note about reporting injuries, and I know it's splitting hairs, but I just thought I'd bring up reporting workplace injuries and illnesses, focus on and also specify the workplace.
And on Slide 13, there was some debate about keeping that slide.
MR. STAFFORD: Wait a minute, Frank. I'm sorry. Go back to Slide 10. What did you
MR. TRUJILLO: Yes.
MR. CANNON: Where Matt wanted to expand on reporting workplace injuries on the last bullet.
MR. STAFFORD: Including the right to report an injury, okay.
MR. CANNON: Injuries in the workplace.
MR. STAFFORD: And illness. Okay.
MR. TRUJILLO: And illnesses.
MR. STAFFORD: Okay. Sorry. Thanks.
MR. TRUJILLO: No problem.
And Slide 13 was decided to be kept because of its important right, and I agree with that; however, Slide 14, while that is a good exercise to have, I think it should be considered that the OSHA 30 or 10 does not meet any of the required OSHA training that is mandated by the standard.
And I think getting into the rights of HazCom and then getting into an MSDS exercise could have employers thinking they've met that requirement and maybe stop there. I'll leave that in your hands, very capable hands. I just thought I'd raise that point that while it could be a valuable exercise, it does take time, which you're trying to reduce, and it should be covered in another area in order to meet those required standards.
MR. McKENZIE: Nothing in the 10 or 30 hour meet the training requirements is defined in the standard. It's an awareness course.
MR. TRUJILLO: I thought that slide had been put back in.
MR. CANNON: Yeah. The know about hazardous chemicals?
MR. TRUJILLO: Yes, the handout and what does this information provide and has been crossed out, and then I think there was discussion to put it back in.
MS. COYNE: Or was it that we kept 13 in and kept 14 out?
MR. CANNON: I thought we just kept 13 , and 14 was out.
MR. STAFFORD: 14 is out.
MR. TRUJILLO: Good, I got that done. Thank you.
[Laughter.]
MR. CANNON: For that matter, I'll take out 18 too.
All right. Thank you, guys.
MR. STAFFORD: All right. Thank you.
Okay. Rod, you want to talk about training?
MR. WEBER: Yes.
MR. STAFFORD: Okay, come on up.
MR. WEBER: Good afternoon. My name is Rod Weber. I'm with the PENTA Building Group in Las Vegas, Nevada.
And there were several points here I wanted to talk about. One was I'm in agreement with adding a state specific slide in the beginning or at least a bullet point that just addresses the state specific issues that would then cover all the preceding slides.
My general statement on the discussion questions would be to delete all of those slides, the reason being is that at the end of this session, there is a quiz for general knowledge information retention, that all of those questions could be put into a quiz format at the end. That would save you quite a few slides that you don't have to cover it. It's redundant. There's no sense that you have to do one little topic and then have an exercise to see if everybody got it. You could save that for the end of the hour and then I mean, it's only an hour long training. It's not like it's an 8 day training course and you'd want to do periodic measurements throughout the course. So I think you could delete that.
My other general statement would be that under your I believe it was look here, it's the topic slide. Okay. It's Slide Number 2 where you have listed the topics that will be covered. I agree with the deletion or at least the revision of the first one, Why is OSHA important to you specifically, because you are going to delete that slide.
But the other topics there, as they are listed and then you go into a slide that obviously addresses what are your rights under OSHA, I believe that that those slides where it says Topic 2 and then Topic 3, so that it would be Slide 10, for instance, and it would be Slide let me see. Then it would be Slide 23, and you've got Slide 28, Slide 32, and Slide 36. Those would all be good slides to use as your main slide for that point, and then you can expand on those under the bullet points as applicable for your audience.
So, for instance, you'd be able to if you look at Slide 10 where if you use this as your main rights, you know, your rights under OSHA slide, that you could expand on each of those points as necessary versus having a slide for each of those points, which some of those which you've deleted. So rather than having one slide on a safe and healthy workplace or one slide on know about chemical hazards, which I'll get to in just a second on that one in particular, but I think that you could use those main topic slides as your main slide and then just expand on those points as needed. Kind of leave that up to the trainer. It would help you reduce the length and certainly the not necessarily the content, but it would certainly reduce the length and give you some flexibility within the program itself to meet the training need.
For instance and I think it was Matt Gillen that brought it up, emphasizing the whistleblower protection would be certainly something you could expand upon, where it talks about be free from retaliation from exercising, the last point there on Slide 10. Instead of having to have a slide for that, which I believe was Slide 21, which that's good information to cover, but if you just had that as a general "here's our main slide," here's what we're going to cover as the main points, I think you could just cover that as well in that. And you can elaborate on that as needed for your audience.
Going back to the second point on that, though, where it talks about knowing chemical hazards, my suggestion would be due to the fact that OSHA is requiring the GHS training now, but that happened as of December 1st or should have happened, I would hate to say add something additional for training, but I believe that you Dean actually had mentioned it that you could add that as a requirement.
I don't necessarily think that's a bad idea to just include HazCom as a required section of the training. I mean, I do the training myself. I have a bunch of safety guys that all do the training for me, and it's something that we certainly cover, the HazCom, as one of our electives, if you want to call it that, the 10 or the 30. In Nevada, we're required to have every employee trained either 10 or 30 hours, so that is for us, it's a required course, and I think it makes sense under the construction standards that people are trained, specifically now with the GHS requirement, that they all have to be trained on that anyway. So it might make sense just to add that in. So that's just something I'd throw out for consideration.
And then I think a lot of the points that I was talking about specifically to each slide for like your right to training or your right to examine, expose records, I think all of those are great point they have great points within those, but some of those are very redundant, and I think, again, if we just put it on a bullet point, even if you did one slide just with some bullet points under your rights for those things, you could reduce a lot of these slides.
And so again, I don't want to be redundant on this myself, but again, Topic 3 would be your main slide. You could expand upon that as necessary with each of those points, rather than adding specific slides.
And I think if you added like I know Chuck has brought up several times with adding a footnote, referencing the state plan differences, I believe that if you just covered that under your main slide at the beginning, that would I think, Tom, you had actually mentioned that as well. That makes sense.
There was one other point here.
[Pause.]
MR. WEBER: I believe that would be it.
MR. STAFFORD: All right. Well, thank you very much, Rod. It's very helpful. I appreciate that.
MR. WEBER: Thank you.
Go, Chuck. I'm sorry.
MR. STRIBLING: To address some comments that were just made, the point about the discussion slides, I'm sitting here thinking that's a real good idea, eliminating them, because you're going to get to it at the end, and correct me if I'm wrong, if Dr. Payne is still there, this could also be a course that people are taking online, this module. So they get to that discussion slide. Click, you know. They're not going to sit there and discuss it with themselves. So at the end, it's going to get incorporated, so
MR. STAFFORD: I do that. I didn't know
[Laughter.]
MR. STRIBLING: And in the classroom setting, as you go through these slides, you get discussion, so just to recap it with discussion again seems kind of silly.
MR. STAFFORD: Does everyone agree with that for our folks?
ATTENDEE: Absolutely, that was a great suggestion.
MR. STAFFORD: Thank you, Rod. Greatly appreciate it.
Tom?
MR. TRAUGER: I will be brief. First of all, good job on a very tough job in trying to change this and keeping everybody happy.
I want to make sure that this
MR. STAFFORD: Announce yourself, Tom.
MR. TRAUGER: Oh, I'm sorry. Tom Trauger, Winchester Homes.
I've done several of these trainings for the past several years, and one thing, this is the student handout that I have right here, 42 pages. You have the instructor's guideline. There's also some procedures online. I want to make sure that they all align, because there's a lot of handouts in here that are referred in here, and then by taking out these slides over here, you are taking these out over here.
You may want to keep these in there as reference because they're very good reference, and my understanding is I have to give this to every student. So this could be good reference material. It may not be mandatory.
And just one suggestion on Handout Number 9 for the resources. If they can add trade associations, AGC, ABC, NAHB. All of these have excellent materials, and they are not listed in here. Handout Number 9 of the student
MR. STAFFORD: The student guide.
MR. TRAUGER: That's it.
MR. STAFFORD: Thank you, Tom very much.
Wayne, do you want to talk about training or something else?
MR. CREASAP: Training.
MR. STAFFORD: Training? All right. Come on up, bud.
MR. CREASAP: Good afternoon. I'm Wayne Creasap with the Association of Union Contractors, Arlington, Virginia. Again, commendable job on this. I know it's been a long process, and I really appreciate all the efforts on the OSHA 10 and 30.
My question, I guess, was more along the lines of the document, these objectives, the learning objectives for the course. As I was going through this, I noticed that everything on here is kind of geared toward the OSHA 10 or talks about the OSHA 10. There's not a reference to the OSHA 30, and with this being an intro to OSHA class, I guess a couple of thoughts would be, one, to make sure that it does include the OSHA 30 hour, but also that the OSHA 10 is as Dean pointed out, these are awareness classes, and we are not going to expect certain things form the people based on the type of class that we're teaching, whether it's the 10 hour or the 30 hour.
So I would ask the committee to consider maybe looking at these objectives and maybe breaking them down as to which would be applied to the OSHA 10 hour and what would be applied to the OSHA 30 hour because, for example, looking at the enabling objective number 4, discuss the use of OSHA standards, students will be able to match three requirements with their appropriate citation number, and in an OSHA 10 hour class, chances are as an instructor, I am not going to go to the expense and the time to purchase 1926 standards books for my students to go through and teach them how to do that.
I know there's a handout that teaches the students as part of the handouts, that will teach them how to read the standard, but in all reality, in a 10 hour class, that's a hazard awareness, hazard recognition class. How do I teach somebody to avoid those hazards, not read the standard? Maybe in a 30 hour class for a supervisor, I might want to see them do that, but I don't see where I'd want to have them do that in a 10 hour course. So I'd ask the committee to consider maybe breaking that down to what would be applicable for those different classes.
And Tom mentioned this earlier. You know, for example, another your sources on a different subject or similar subject, for example, enabling objective Number 6, you have a Slide 38 on the present handouts, which is on page 19, about some different sources, and I know Tom mentioned some of the various sources that are there as well. You also have different workers' comp insurance, other professional safety associations. I don't know if that would be appropriate to maybe look at, not necessarily in a slide, but as a handout for as part of the handouts on that page 9.
So those are my two comments.
MR. STAFFORD: I appreciate that, Wayne. Thanks. We will go back and look at the objectives. I think that is a good point.
MR. CREASAP: Thank you.
MR. ERICKSON: Pete, Roger Erickson.
MR. STAFFORD: Hey, Roger.
MR. ERICKSON: Can I just make one comment to Wayne?
MR. STAFFORD: Oh, sure.
MR. ERICKSON: Just a clarification there, and if I heard you right, regarding the 10 hour and the 30, any basic differences, please note that the Intro to OSHA is also required in the 30. The 10, of course, is the component.
Roger, absolutely, I agree with you. I was just looking at it as I would take more time as an instructor to go through and teach my students in a 30 hour class under the Intro to OSHA how to read the standards, more than I would in a 10 hour class. I just want to make that differentiation.
MR. ERICKSON: Okay.
MR. STAFFORD: All right. Thank you, Wayne.
Okay. I think that's it for the training. So I want to go back on top of the list.
Matt?
MR. ECKSTINE: All right. Good afternoon, and thank you. My name is Matthew Eckstine, and I'm with NCCCO, National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators.
I would like to take this opportunity very quickly to change topics, and of course, being from CCO, you can appreciate I want to talk about cranes.
Really, a question for the committee is, as far as the cranes and derricks and construction, operator certification rule, has there been any kind of updates on the proposed delay regarding the operator certification in cranes and derricks and construction rule?
As you know, specifically to extend the crane operator competency certification date by 3 years to November 2017, as it currently stands, we're about 1 year out, the way the rule is currently written. There is a certification for operators or I'm sorry a requirement for operators to be certified by November 10th, 2014.
Now, it does seem like from what I understand and from what I just read recently that we were getting some traction with this, and that there was a semiannual regulatory agenda that was published on November 26th that seemed to suggest that the 3 year extension will actually be made public to November 2017, that that will be made public soon.
So I guess really my question is, Do we have any kind of an update for a timeline of whenever that 2017 extension will be made official, if you will?
MR. STAFFORD: Well, I'm not sure that it's our place. We had a very lengthy discussion on this issue, Matt, two meetings ago and made a recommendation from this committee on what OSHA should do on this, but I know it's coming out. I think I should probably defer to Jim Maddux on the timing, because I think that that
MR. MADDUX: I think that that will be in my remarks tomorrow morning.
MR. ECKSTINE: Okay, excellent. Thank you, Jim.
MR. STAFFORD: All right. Thanks. So you will have to come back tomorrow.
MR. ECKSTINE: Will do. I was planning on it, anyway.
[Laughter.]
MR. ECKSTINE: I will grace your presence again tomorrow.
MR. STAFFORD: All right. Thanks, Matt.
MR. ECKSTINE: Thank you.
MR. STAFFORD: Anna?
MS. FENDLEY: Good afternoon. I have a prepared statement. I am Anna Fendley with the United Steelworkers, and I am offering this statement on behalf of the United Steelworkers and the Materion Corporation.
We at the Steelworkers represent the majority of unionized workers exposed to beryllium, and Materion is the world's only fully integrated supplier of beryllium and beryllium products and accounts for all of the pure beryllium metal and preponderance of the beryllium containing alloys products in the U.S. That's a mouthful.
Domestically produced beryllium containing materials are also exported by Materion.
No doubt, it might be somewhat unusual for ACCSH to receive a unified statement from a labor union and a manufacturer. For our two organizations, however, this is a continuation of a process we started several years ago centered on establishing a new, more protective OSHA standard for beryllium.
We eagerly await the release of OSHA's proposed standard for this metal, yet this year in accordance with the regulatory agenda.
A proposed beryllium standard is well overdue, and both organizations want to see its release as soon as possible.
In February 2012, we jointly presented to OSHA a complete model beryllium consensus standard. The letter accompanying this agreement stated we believe the enclosed draft standard is both necessary and sufficient to protect beryllium workers and that it meets all the criteria established by Congress for rules promulgated under the OSHA Act.
The cover letter recognized that ISHA could not see its authority, but encouraged OSHA to give the draft standard serious consideration and recommended that OSHA quickly propose its own standard.
The USW and Materion collaboration and proposal to accelerate the OSHA standards process is unique in the history of OSHA standards. The desire to better protect all workers exposed to beryllium containing materials sooner rather than later is the underlying motive that brought us together.
Achieving this objective in a technically and economically feasible way guided the two organizations' discussions on each element of the consensus standard. In addition, the body of science from the 15 plus year beryllium research project between Materion and NIOSH, the longest of all such NIOSH research partnerships, frequently underpin discussions in crafting the consensus standard.
On August 26th, leaders from USW and Materion sent a letter to the new Secretary of Labor to inform him of our work together and to offer OSHA an opportunity to advance the beryllium standard swiftly through the standard setting process, and we continue to stand ready to assist the agency, so that a proposed beryllium standard can be published as soon as possible.
We urge OSHA to accelerate its efforts to complete whatever work remains on the draft standard and to fast track internal and external review, so the agency can publish a new proposed beryllium standard in the swiftest time frame possible. It would stand as a hallmark achievement to this administration. It would also serve as a forward thinking model for future labor management collaboration to update other significantly out of date standards.
Surely, ACCSH and OSHA should do whatever it can to complete this as quickly to complete a final beryllium standard as quickly as possible. USW and Materion have laid out a strong foundation for OSHA through our collaboration with the sound science and technological and economic feasibility requirements of the OSHA Act.
So thank you again for allowing this time for public comment and for considering our appeal for swift action as part of your agenda tomorrow, and I believe this is on your agenda tomorrow.
MR. STAFFORD: It is on the agenda tomorrow. Again, thank you for your statement.
This is an area where I and I have mentioned this to Mr. Maddux before the meeting. I mean, obviously, the Act requires that OSHA comes to this committee before it can proceed, and so that's what we're going to hear tomorrow, but I have to confess my ignorance with how the beryllium standard really impacts construction, and I need to do as the chair, do my homework on that, and I yield to my fellow committee members here too. But certainly, this is something that we recognize that it's important, and we will listen to what OSHA has to tell us tomorrow, and we will do our part.
MS. FENDLEY: Absolutely.
MR. STAFFORD: Thank you.
MS. WILSON: Thank you.
This is Lisa Wilson. I will mark Ms. Fendley's statement as Exhibit Number 3.
MR. STAFFORD: Okay. I think it looks last, but certainly not least, our good friend Steve Rank from the Ironworkers.
MR. RANK: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, committee members, and representatives from the agency. My name is Steve Rank. I'm here on behalf of the Ironworkers International Union. General President Walter Wise asked me to come here today to urge your continued support to pursue the reinforced concrete standard that's currently on one of OSHA's two regulatory items on our agenda.
We thought that it was very important to kind of reiterate the timeline, that in 2010, we submitted a petition to Dr. Michaels and Jordan Barab and others in the agency to say we need new reinforcing steel and post tensioning standards. If you will look at them under your concrete and masonry standards, there's only two references to rebar and only one or two to post tensioning operations, but yet this industry has grown so much, and we have so many workers that are affected by the concrete reinforced concrete structures that it's time to revise these standards to address specific hazards.
In that proposal that was submitted to Dr. Michaels and also submitted to this committee later on was the rationale for it and also was a laundry list of stakeholders who were both union and non union, who were organizations like the Post Tensioning Institute who do nothing except do work on how much how many cables that you put in concrete beams and joist and columns to replace rebar, how do you make concrete structures stand and not fail. So they are the foremost authority. We had them as a stakeholder.
We had the Concrete Reinforced Steel Institute, who does nothing except study reinforced concrete structures and promote the growth of that industry.
We had four other industries that I won't mention that all came here with us that day to submit to this committee a petition or a proposal or urge your support to get the agency to pursue revising the Subpart Q, concrete and masonry standards, to include new rebar and post tensioning standards.
We were told at that time that because it was an election year, we wanted first of all, we wanted negotiated rulemaking. We wanted labor and management people, people doing the work to be at the table to say this is what happens in the field, so that they could assist the agency in writing the right standards.
In lieu of that, we were presented with a counter proposal that the best way to do it would be to get it passed through OMB and then send out a Request for Information, an RFI, and that was done last July. And that was done.
During that time, before this at the time this issue came to your attention, the chairman directed a work group or subgroup to convene to do a study on this and report back to the parent committee, and we did that. The subgroup was unanimous that the standards were antiquated, they needed updating, they didn't address the hazards that had resulted in numerous fatalities and disabling injuries.
We came back to your committee, the parent committee. We allowed you to look at the slides, to look at the current standard, and it was your unanimous decision and vote that day that to urge the agency to pursue this. That's how it got on the regulatory agenda, but we sit here today, and General President Wise wants this committee to once again urge the agency to continue forward and request the agency to pursue this as a standard.
Just this last year, ANSI has revised their concrete and masonry standard, their ANSI A10.9 standard. They adopted every one of the standards that has been presented to this committee and to the agency, every one of them, word for word. There were 73 voting parties, and 99 percent of the voting party voted yes to adopt this. It's now a current national consensus standard. It's the concrete and masonry standard that ANSI has called the A10.9 standard.
In addition to that, we had three state approved OSHA plans that are looking to adopt this. They have received formal petitions from General President Wise for these state plans not to wait on federal OSHA, but to go ahead and adopt these standards under the provisions of state approved OSHA plans, California, Oregon, Washington, and Michigan is next. We have met with their state administrators. They see the need of it. They have had fatalities, disabling injuries as a result of their not being a clear line of responsibility for safety standards in this particular industry.
So we're just urging your support to have this, Mr. Chairman, as one of the agenda items for your next meeting, and at your direction, we can pursue this and hopefully save lives.
It's been my understanding in the last 6 months, we've had two fatalities that have dealt with reinforcing steel. One of them was a collapse of forum work, who crushed a worker because the vertical form work wasn't adequately braced and shored. There needs to be a clear line of responsibility for that. That happened just north of here in New Jersey, I believe.
The second one was in my back yard in California that due to site conditions tried offloading truckloads of rebar. They had a forklift overturn and crushed one of our members.
So we're after a comprehensive standard that allows for site conditions to address columns, walls, decks, impalement, training, hoisting and rigging of rebar assemblies, and things like this, because we see a pattern of these types of injuries and fatalities.
Lastly, I just want to say we appreciate the agency sending over their representatives to the Ironworkers International a year ago that reviewed our fatality data. They brought their fatality data, and we matched them up to make sure that these fatalities were a result of the lack of regulations, the much needed regulations.
So I just want to conclude by saying thank you for all your work to do to advise the agency on matters of safety and health, and this is certainly one that's important to the ironworkers and other people that work around us doing reinforcing and post tensioning work, so thank you very much.
MR. STAFFORD: Thank you, Steve. Appreciate that.
Any other questions or comments?
Yeah, Chuck, please.
MR. STRIBLING: For us or for
MR. STAFFORD: For us, yeah. The public is finished.
MR. STRIBLING: Yeah. I had one thing. I don't think we're not talking about SIPs this meeting, are we?
MR. STAFFORD: No.
MR. STRIBLING: Okay. Well, I'm glad Mr. Maddux is here, and I wish Mr. Bolon was here, but a good while back on the SIP stuff, I brought up a point about the variances that were being granted to chimney construction. And OSHA said, well, it's not really appropriate for SIPs.
So I thought that was pretty well done, but then October 2nd, OSHA issued another set of variances for chimney construction, and this time, they consolidated 15 employers who construct chimneys into this variance. The preamble is 19 pages. The regulatory text is 7 pages.
I don't know how many companies are out there building chimneys, but I'm betting it's about 15. I don't know. Because they probably all just got a variance. Yeah.
So I guess, you know, what I would suggest here, the variance is in force in all federal jurisdictions, and it's in 13 state plan jurisdictions. The other states had problems, said they and they commented against the variance, and a couple of states might have included, said, well, you can maybe do a variance, but you got to go through us. Here in Kentucky, you got to let us know.
So with this many employers who are getting this variance out, I still think we should consider or if the agency could consider why can't this just be part of the regulation, because it is as effective as, it is as safe as the current requirement. So it could just be you could do the current requirement and/or or I'm sorry this new requirement. Like I said, it's 7 pages long.
And it also presents a problem for us because let's just say there's an employer out there building a chimney in Kentucky, and we have some power plants going up, and they are. And they said, "We're not going to do what's in the standard. We're going to do what's in this variance," and although they weren't granted the variance, I am told from a compliance standpoint, we don't have a leg to stand on. If that variance is as effective as and it's been granted to that many different employers, for us to cite them for doing the standard instead of what the variance allows, which is as effective as, a hearing officer would laugh us out in a heartbeat.
So if you just put it in the regulation, then every single state will have to address that on their own, and it would be published in their regulations, which it already is. But instead of it being in 13 states and some not here and some there, it would be out there for everybody as an option to follow in the standards, if they could.
MR. STAFFORD: Right. Paul is not here, and I guess, Jim, the question comes back is this a I think, Chuck. You can correct me. Is this a possibility that we revisit this a part of the SIPs process?
MR. MADDUX: Yeah. I think that we still have some time to look at it. I think that this committee has an active chimney stack recommendation on the books already that we look at doing something at this with SIPs. I think that this either/or approach is a slightly new wrinkle.
MR. STRIBLING: Yeah. And it's also important to note that this variance goes above and beyond the other variances and incorporates a couple other things that are new in chimney construction that these employers are doing.
So if the agency is comfortable with it for that many employers, who like I said I think probably are the majority of all employers in that industry
MR. MADDUX: We are still in development of the SIPs process, so there's no reason why we can't think about it.
MR. JONES: Hey, Jim, wasn't the issue that the standard was outdated as the real problem with that?
MR. MADDUX: Well, the standard is outdated.
MR. JONES: It's outdated, so it doesn't reflect the changes in technology and the difficulty of complying?
MR. MADDUX: I'm not sure about that.
MR. JONES: Okay.
MR. McKENZIE: This is Dean McKenzie.
I think one of the biggest issues was the variance has new cost requirements above and beyond the standard, and if you want to be able to use these procedures and you're willing to bear those costs, that's one thing. But to just plug it in the rule, that goes beyond SIPs. We can't add much in the way of new cost.
MR. MADDUX: Well, that's what we'd have to take a look at. This either/or approach may resolve that.
MR. STAFFORD: Thanks, Jim.
Any other questions or comments?
[No audible response.]
MR. STAFFORD: Okay. Then we'll adjourn for the day. We're going to reconvene tomorrow morning I mean tomorrow afternoon I'm sorry back at 1 p.m., back in this room. So I thank everyone.
[Whereupon, at 3:58 p.m., the ACCSH meeting was recessed, to reconvene at 1:03 p.m., on Friday, December 6, 2013.]