PHILADELPHIA – The U.S. Department of
Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has launched a
"Construction Incident Prevention Initiative" campaign this summer to
curb construction fatalities. Compliance officers will focus enforcement effort
on construction sites covered by OSHA's Wilmington, Del., Area Office, which
includes the state of Delaware.
"Construction is a
high-hazard industry, and when employers do not employ an effective safety and
health program, workers are left vulnerable to serious injury and possible
death," said MaryAnn Garrahan, OSHA's regional administrator in
Philadelphia. "The increased presence of our compliance officers and the
immediate inspections conducted in response to unsafe scaffolds, fall risks,
trenches and other construction hazards should help to prevent work site
fatalities."
The initiative is designed to
identify and eliminate safety and health hazards at construction sites and to
prevent injuries and fatalities resulting from the four leading causes of
incidents: falls, crushing events, electrocutions and caught-in-between events.
The initiative will target health hazards involving silica, lead and hexavalent
chromium, and will draw on OSHA's national campaigns to prevent fall hazards at
construction sites and heat illness among outdoor workers.
During campaign periods, OSHA
will provide on-site outreach to educate and encourage employers to continue
good practices. OSHA will send its compliance officers into the field to
conduct inspections when unsafe working conditions involving the four main
hazards are observed at construction sites.
The initiative will be
conducted during the summer months of 2014 in OSHA's Philadelphia Region, which
includes Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia
and West Virginia. This region had 111 fatalities in fiscal years 2013 and
2014, with 16 attributed to falls.
During the first week of
June, tens of thousands of employers and more than 1 million workers across the
country joined OSHA in safety stand-downs to focus on preventing fatalities
from falls. Falls are the leading cause of death in the construction industry,
with hundreds of workers dying each year and thousands more facing serious
injuries. Lack of fall protection is also the most
frequently cited OSHA violation, proving that these deaths are
preventable when employers provide the right safety equipment and properly
train workers on how to use it.
OSHA is also conducting a
national outreach campaign this summer to educate both employers and workers
about the hazards of working outdoors in hot weather. Every year, thousands of
workers become sick from exposure to heat, and some even die. These illnesses
and death are preventable. More information on heat prevention is available at http://www.osha.gov/heat.
To ask questions, obtain
compliance assistance, file a complaint, or report workplace hospitalizations,
fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, the public should
call OSHA's Wilmington Area Office at 302-573-6518 or the agency's toll-free
hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742). Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of
1970, OSHA's role is to promote safe and healthful working conditions for
America's working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and
providing training, outreach and education. For more information, visit http://www.osha.gov.
Source: OSHA.gov
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