During a series of discussions convened by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), between September 7 and 19, ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø members , , and provided critical testimony on the potential impacts of OSHA’s on small businesses in construction.
Several important issues were raised, including the impracticality of a one-size-fits-all approach due to geographical differences in heat; personal risk factors of employees such as lifestyle choices and pre-existing medical conditions; prescribed rest breaks that would disrupt the natural flow of operations and, in some cases, introduce hazardous conditions; overly prescriptive acclimatization model; temperature triggers for implementation of controls beyond training, hydration, rest, etc.; and onerous recordkeeping requirements such as weather logs and symptom/first-aid logs.
The SBAR Panel is now required to issue a final report summarizing all small business comments to the head of OSHA within 60 days. The public has until December 23 to review the , , and to OSHA.
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø will submit comments by the December 23 deadline and continue to articulate problematic issues with OSHA’s approach.
For more information, contact Kevin Cannon at kevin.cannon@agc.org or Nazia Shah at nazia.shah@agc.org.