Friday, May 27, 2016

Construction Safety Council Executive Director Gayla Hurson was the recipient of the ASA Chicago's Outstanding Partner award .

Construction Safety Council Executive Director Gayla Hurson was the recipient of the  ASA Chicago's Outstanding Partner award at their annual awards night.
The award was received for the CSC partnership in the Annual Construction Expo and Safety Conference, which has been co-sponsored for the past 5 years by CSC and ASA Chicago. 

Patti Romero (CSC), Marissa Veith (ASA Chicago), Teri DeAngelo (ASA Chicago)
Virginia McFarland (ASA Chicago) Gayla Hurson (CSC)
We are proud to call ASA Chicago our partners.

Also receiving an award was Krusinski Construction Company for Outstanding General Contractor.. Joe Krusinski, Sr. has been a long standing board member of the Construction Safety Council. Congratulations to Joe and the entire Krusinski Construction team for this outstanding honor.

###

Monday, May 23, 2016

5 Keys to Safe Driving

Key #1 - Aim High Steering,

Key #2 - Get the Big Picture,

Key #3 - Keep Your Eyes Moving,

Key #4 - Leave Yourself an Out,

Key #5 - Make Sure They See You.

Read the full article: http://toolboxtalks.coffeecup.com/assurance/5KeystoSafeDriving.pdf 

###

Monday, May 16, 2016

Understanding & Implementing the New Construction Silica Standard



Thursday, May 19, 2016 -- 2 pm (Eastern Time), 1 hr.

David O'Connor, OSHA's Directorate of Standards & Guidance 
Chris Trahan, CPWR Deputy Director 
Eileen Betit, CPWR r2p Director




On March 25, 2016, OSHA released the new silica standard for the construction industry.  This standard, which was decades in the making, will prevent hundreds of deaths and many more illnesses each year.  In this hour-long webinar, David O'Connor (OSHA) will review the key provisions in the new standard and CPWR will share a free planning tool to help contractors comply. 


Wednesday, May 11, 2016

OSHA’s final rule to ‘nudge’ employers to prevent workplace injuries, illnesses



New federal requirements take effect August 10, 2016




The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration today issued a final rule to modernize injury data collection to better inform workers, employers, the public and OSHA about workplace hazards. With this new rule, OSHA is applying the insights of behavioral economics to improve workplace safety and prevent injuries and illnesses. 
OSHA requires many employers to keep a record of injuries and illnesses to help these employers and their employees identify hazards, fix problems and prevent additional injuries and illnesses. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports more than three million workers suffer a workplace injury or illness every year. Currently, little or no information about worker injuries and illnesses at individual employers is made public or available to OSHA. Under the new rule, employers in high-hazard industries will send OSHA injury and illness data that the employers are already required to collect, for posting on the agency’s website.
Just as public disclosure of their kitchens’ sanitary conditions encourages restaurant owners to improve food safety, OSHA expects that public disclosure of work injury data will encourage employers to increase their efforts to prevent work-related injuries and illnesses. 
“Since high injury rates are a sign of poor management, no employer wants to be seen publicly as operating a dangerous workplace,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels. “Our new reporting requirements will ‘nudge’ employers to prevent worker injuries and illnesses to demonstrate to investors, job seekers, customers and the public that they operate safe and well-managed facilities. Access to injury data will also help OSHA better target our compliance assistance and enforcement resources at establishments where workers are at greatest risk, and enable ‘big data’ researchers to apply their skills to making workplaces safer.”
The availability of these data will enable prospective employees to identify workplaces where their risk of injury is lowest; as a result, employers competing to hire the best workers will make injury prevention a higher priority. Access to these data will also enable employers to benchmark their safety and health performance against industry leaders, to improve their own safety programs.  
To ensure that the injury data on OSHA logs are accurate and complete, the final rule also promotes an employee’s right to report injuries and illnesses without fear of retaliation, and clarifies that an employer must have a reasonable procedure for reporting work-related injuries that does not discourage employees from reporting. This aspect of the rule targets employer programs and policies that, while nominally promoting safety, have the effect of discouraging workers from reporting injuries and, in turn leading to incomplete or inaccurate records of workplace hazards.
Using data collected under the new rule, OSHA will create the largest publicly available data set on work injuries and illnesses, enabling researchers to better study injury causation, identify new workplace safety hazards before they become widespread and evaluate the effectiveness of injury and illness prevention activities. OSHA will remove all personally identifiable information associated with the data before it is publicly accessible.
Under the new rule, all establishments with 250 or more employees in industries covered by the recordkeeping regulation must electronically submit to OSHA injury and illness information from OSHA Forms 300, 300A, and 301. Establishments with 20-249 employees in certain industries must electronically submit information from OSHA Form 300A only.
The new requirements take effect Aug. 10, 2016, with phased in data submissions beginning in 2017. These requirements do not add to or change an employer’s obligation to complete and retain injury and illness records under the Recording and Reporting Occupational Injuries and Illnesses regulation.
The final rule is available in the Federal Register at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2016-10443.pdf
Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA’s role is to ensure these conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit www.osha.gov.
# # #