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ACCSH Transcripts: February 13, 2003

Editor's notes for the February 13, transcript: The following phrases and words in this document should appear as follows:
  • "Employee Representatives" should be "Employee and Employer Representatives"
  • All references to "alliance or alliances" should be "Alliance or Alliances"
  • All references to "DBA" should be "dBA"
  • "... IOSH ..." should be "... ACCSH... "
  • " ... ASHAC ... " should be " ... ACCSH, Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health..."
  • "... electric power transmission, ... NAPIM." should be "... electric power transmission, ... NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.) ... "
  • "sweeper panel" should be SBREFA (Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act)
  • " ... Silica, obviously, an NAPIM." should be "Silica, obviously, an NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking) ..."
  • " ... as a notice of proposal, we are making a hearing conservation ..." should be " ... as an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ... "
  • "Anthrax were ..." should be "Anthrax affected... "
  • " ... counsel's meetings ..." should be Council's (Sic Construction Safety Council)
  • " ... Subpart B is on the radar scope..." should be "Subpart V is on the radar scope ... "
  • "... under the Subpart V standard ... " should be "... under the Subpart V standard ..."
  • " ... Carolina, AGC..." should be "... Carolina's, AGC ..."
  • " ... pilot mobil work force partnership ..." should be " ... pilot mobile work force partnership ..."
  • " ... Construction Safety Counsel ..." should be "... Construction Safety Council ..."
  • All references to "John Merrano" should be "John Maronic."
  • " ... Harvard grant ... " should be "... Harwood grant ..."
  • All references to "Subpart B" should be "Subpart V"
  • " ... EPS ..." should be "EPT"
  • "... are much wider ..." should be "... are much louder..."
  • " ... when you average it ..." should be " ... when you average them... "
  • " ... has what would ..." should be " has hearing loss that would ... "
  • " ... so that the, again, ..." should be "... so that the, average carpenter..."
  • "... It would be like 50 year old ears...." should be "...It would be like having 50 year old ears."
  • "... Gardiners ..." should be "... Carpenters ..."
  • " ... minimum reproach distances ..." should be "... minimum approach distances ..."
  • " ... ACCSN ..." should be "... ACCSH... "
  • " ... dodger boards ..." should be "...Dodge Reports..."
  • " ... the U 10 reports ..." should be " ... the University of Tennessee reports... "
  • " ... legal prescriptions ..." should be "... legal proscriptions..."
  • " ... entire expectorant ..." should be " entire inspectorant ..."
  • "... Subpart M ..." should be "Subpart N..."
  • "... DIH conference..." should be "the IH conference..."
  • " ... Mr. Routent..." should be "... Mr. Rhoten..."
  • "... Subpart M ..." should be "Subpart N..."
  • "... Dawn Garby ..." should be " ... Don Garvey..."
    •

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON CONSTRUCTION 
SAFETY AND HEALTH (ACCSH)

Hyatt Regency O'Hare
TWA Room
9300 West Bryn Mawr Avenue
Rosemont, IL 60018

Thursday, February 13, 2003


The meeting was called to order, pursuant to notice, at 8:30 a.m., JANE WILLIAMS, Acting Chairperson, presiding. Dennis 224 pp.

P R E S E N T

CHAIR

JANE F. WILLIAMS
Acting Chairperson
President
A-Z Safety Resources
4901 E. Kathleen Road
Scottsdale, AZ 85254

EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATIVE

MR. DAVID M. BUSH
CEO
Adena Corporation
282 North Trimble Road
Mansfield, Ohio 44906

MR. JOSEPH L. DURST
Director, Safety and Health
United Brotherhood of Carpenters International
Training Center
6801 Placid Street
Las Vegas, NV 89119

MR. MANUEL MEDEROS
Assistant Business Manager, Local 1245
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
704 Timber Trail
Pacific Grove, CA 93950

MR. DAN MURPHY
Vice President Risk Control
St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance
385 Washington Street
St. Paul, Minnesota 55102

MR. MIKE SOTELO
Vice President/Field Operations
W.G. Clark Construction Company
408 Aurora Avenue N.
Seattle, WA 98109

MR. GREG STRUDWICK
President
Greg Strudwick and Associates, Inc.
P.O. Box 1820
Coppell, TX 75019


STATE REPRESENTATIVE

MR. KEVIN BEAUREGARD

Assistant Deputy Commissioner,
Assistant Director of the Division of Occupational
Safety and Health
North Carolina Department of Labor
4 West Edenton Street
Raleigh, NC 27601


PUBLIC REPRESENTATIVE


MR. THOMAS A. BRODERICK
Executive Director
Construction Safety Council
4100 Madison Street
Hillside, IL 60612


DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL


MR. BRUCE SWANSON
Director
Directorate of Construction
200 Constitution Avenue, NW
Room N-3468
Washington, D.C. 20210


COMMITTEE CONTACTS


SARAH SHORTALL, ESQUIRE
Office of the Solicitor
ACCSH Counsel, DOL


ALSO PRESENT:

MR. JOHN L. HENSHAW
Assistant Secretary

MR. STEW BURKHAMMER

MR. MIKE CONNORS

MR. SCOTT SCHNEIDER

MR. BRAD SANT

MR. BILL PERRY

MR. NEIL DAVIS

MS. TRAECI FLETCHER, MS, CHST
Safety and Security Manager
Parsons-Odebrecht, J.V.

I N D E X

PAGE
Call to Order...................................................................................... 6
Introduction of ACCSH members/alternates................................... 7
Introduction of Public Guests............................................................ 9
Housekeeping Items......................................................................... 10
Remarks of Secretary John L. Henshaw......................................... 15
Construction Partnership Updates..................................................... 65
Region V Update................................................................................. 80
Highway Work Zone Safety Update.................................................... 110
Hearing Conservation Report.............................................................. 141
Status Report, SubPart V...................................................................... 159
Crystal and Silica Report..................................................................... 167
Remarks from Mr. Bruce Swanson...................................................... 191
Director, Directorate of Construction ACCSH Business.................... 197
Public Comment...................................................................................... 206
Adjournment............................................................................................ 222


P R O C E E D I N G S


CALL TO ORDER

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: I would like to welcome you all to the ACCSH meeting that we are having here in Chicago, Illinois. I am the acting Chair, Jane Williams, for Chairman Bob Krul who was not able to make it with us today.

We will go through various items on the agenda that has been provided. However, there are some changes to the agenda, which I will go over in just a moment.

At this time, I would encourage all members of the public to please sign our sign-in list that is going around. I brought it in and it is being circulated here, Mike.


INTRODUCTION OF ACCSH MEMBERS/ALTERNATES

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: And I would like to begin with introductions of the committee, itself. And we will began with David.

MR. BUSH: I'm David Bush, CEO of Adena Corporation, a general contractor in Ohio, and representing management.

MR. MEDEROS: I'm Manny Mederos, representing IBEW, from the labor sector.

MR. MURPHY: Dan Murphy with St. Paul Companies.

MR. STRUDWICK: Greg Strudwick, Greg Strudwick and Associates.

MR. SWANSON: I am not a committee member. I am Bruce Swanson. I am the Designated Federal Official for this committee.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Again, Jane Williams, A to Z Safety, Public Representative, Scottsdale, Arizona.

MS. SHORTALL: Hi. I am not a member either. My name is Sarah Shortall. I am in the Office of the Solicitor and Counsel to ACCSH. And I am hoping I am the first to say Happy Valentine's Day to you.

MR. BRODERICK: I'm Tom Broderick with the Construction Safety Counsel, and I am the other Public Representative.

MR. SOTELO: Mike Sotelo, W.G. Clark Construction, Seattle, Washington, Employer Representative.

MR. DURST: Joe Durst, United Brotherhood of Carpenters, Las Vegas, Nevada, Employee Representative.

MR. BEAUREGARD: Kevin Beauregard, North Carolina Department of Labor. I'm the State Plan State representative.

INTRODUCTION OF PUBLIC GUESTS

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Thank you. And at this time, I would like to hear from our public guests. If you would start with Mr. Stew. (Whereupon, the public guests introduced themselves.)

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Good morning. The Chair would like to recognize our special guest, Mr. John Henshaw, The Assistant Secretary of Labor. John, we are very pleased to have you, and we will be hearing from him very shortly.

HOUSEKEEPING ITEMS

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Our first item is to take care of some housecleaning items, if we may.

You are located in the TWA Room. Our emergency access route is directly to the right, upon leaving this building. There is an exit door that you would follow to the right, past the buffet table that is sitting there.

Our accountability zone is going to be across the street. That is why it is imperative that everybody please sign in. It is important that we know who is in the room, so we can account for you.

And secondly, we also will be providing that to our data recording people, so that they can record that you were here and present. So, please make sure you sign that list.

If there is an emergency in the room, if anyone should need medical attention, the extension number that we will dial will be 55. And Kevin Beauregard is going to be my designated representative to control that emergency.

HOUSEKEEPING ITEMS

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: The first item of business is to review the minutes that have been provided in your packet. We do have some changes to those minutes.

ACCSH members, if you would turn to page four. As our guidelines require us to go by Robert's Rules of Order, as does the IOSH requirements, we are inserting the comment: The chair was vacated by Chairman Krul and Jane Williams assumed the meeting as acting Chair. Our Solicitor, Mr. Biersner, vacated as solicitor. Mr. Hoffman assumed as acting solicitor.

Second correction --

MS. SHORTALL: That would be Mr. Hammock.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Hammock?

MS. SHORTALL: H-A-M-M-O-C-K.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: The Chair is corrected. It is Mr. Hammock, H-A-M--

MS. SHORTALL: M-O-C-K.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: M-O-C-K.

Our next correction appears on page six. If you go up to the second paragraph from the bottom, which begins Noah, insert prior to that paragraph: Upon motion duly made by the work group and voted upon

HOUSEKEEPING ITEMS

by all ACCSH members present, the in-progress work group work product was unanimously adopted. Page seven, second paragraph from the bottom, second sentence, to record a statement that, insert: Chairman Krul. Krul is not identifiable as a person. And Page 10, insert above the third paragraph from the bottom: Ms. Williams vacated as acting Chair. Chairman Krul resumed the Chair. Mr. Hommock?

MS. SHORTALL: Hammock.
CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Hammock vacated as acting solicitor and Mr. Biersner assumed the chair -- excuse me, the solicitor position.

The next item I have been asked to clarify -- there was some confusion in the appointments made by our Chair to various committees. As you are aware, by our guidelines we are -- we have two Chairs, typically, for most workgroups. We try to make sure we have representation from various entities on the ACCSH Committee. I have been asked to clarify who are the Chairs of these workgroups, and it will be so reflected in these minutes at this time.

Data Collection and Targeting. The two representatives as shown are the Co-Chairs.

Diversified Construction Work force Initiatives. Williams/Bush are the Co-Chairs.

Musculoskeletal Disorders. Sweeney/Durst are the Co-Chairs.

Multi-lingual Issues in Construction, Sweeney/Broderick are the Co-Chairs. Greg Strudwick and Mike Sotelo are members.

Noise in Construction, Sweeney/Durst Co-Chairs.

OSHA Training Institute, Frank Migliaccio and add Jane Williams as Co-Chair.

Certification and Training, Durst/Broderick are the Co-Chairs. Greg Strudwick is a member.

Safety and Health Programs, Williams/Beauregard are Co-Chairs.

State Plan States, Beauregard/Sotelo are the Co-Chairs. Durst is a member.

Tower Erection, Construction/Fall Protection, Fatalities, Injuries, Beauregard/Ahern are the Co-Chairs.

Silica, Williams/Sweeney are the Co-Chairs. Ahern, Strudwick, Mederos, Bush are members.

And at this time, there has been some discussion this morning, we would like to ask if there are any other ACCSH members that wish to be noted for these different committees that we have at this time?

I did skip Sanitation. That is myself only, Jane Williams. We are an ongoing committee at this point in time. We do not have any formal actions of ACCSH, but I will be reporting to you on the status of that issue regarding A.10 and the participation that we have had from DOL with that.

And the last correction, on page 12, third paragraph, the Chair agreed to have, and it should read: Jane Williams, Work group Chair for the Guidelines to present recommendations, et, al. Mr. Durst made the suggestion to us, and the suggestion was accepted, and had been totally overlooked. And we thank Joe for that recommendation.

MR. DURST: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: The Chair requests of the Directorate of Construction to revise those minutes accordingly, and please provide that to all ACCSH members.

That takes care of our housekeeping, the beginning our meeting.

At this time, we would like to welcome Mr. Henshaw and hear his comments. Sir, welcome.

REMARKS FROM ASSISTANT SECRETARY HENSHAW

MR. HENSHAW: Thanks, Jane. I appreciate it. Thank you all for allowing me to speak to you today. It's a great opportunity. I had an opportunity also to extend some of the sessions at the conference here, and obviously speak at the conference two days ago, or a day and a half ago.

But what this committee does and the kind of work that you've done in the past is worth acknowledging. You guys have got, you know, your act together. The Advisory Committee has been very productive over the years, and I think, you know, the kind of work and kind of advice this committee provides is very, very useful to the Agency.

So, I look forward to your continuing support. You certainly have my full support. You have both ears and all ears of the Agency in respect to advice and where we can go from here and how can we advance the ball. Advancing the ball in my mind is how do we be more effective in reducing illnesses, injuries and fatalities. So, I am very pleased to be a part of this, to listen.

What I would like to do this morning is to tell you a little bit about, you know, where we are heading. You have a number of the OSHA folks who will give you more detail in a lot of the things that I will mention today. And please feel free to ask me any questions when I finish my prepared remarks.

Let me just give you sort of an overall. I mean, you have heard, sort of, our vision of the future, our vision of the Agency, our vision of how the Agency can be more productive and effective in the triple bottom line, which is reducing injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.

I don't want to repeat all of those, but I will give you a little bit of an update as to where we have been in those areas and our strategies, as well as what the future may hold in some of those strategies. Where we are heading. Where our vision takes us to the next level.

And so, at least, you can determine whether that is right or not. I would certainly like to have your input as to whether that's right, the right vision and the right strategies to get there. And also, maybe, how we can get more participation in fleshing out or boning out those strategies to be -- so we can produce more positive results.

What we are about here, and what I am about, is not to talk about the past, but talk about the future, talk about where we are heading. We only analyze the past to see what's effective, what's worked in the past so we can build on that to go forward. We have to be focused on that, and we have to focus on dropping the things that were not successful, and the ones that are, build those even stronger and stronger and stronger.

So, we will be measuring this. The Agency will be taking time and effort and analyzing data and determining the effectiveness over all of our programs to see whether, in fact, they deserve continuing support so that we can drive injuries, illnesses, and fatalities down, down, down.

One of our approaches -- I think you all understand or know that we have really three strategies that we are working on in driving performance. And the strategies are--and these are fully supported by the ASHAC--the ASHAC has 13 different issues, items that talk about how the Agency can do its mission, which is to assure a workplace in this country that is safe for all workers.

One of those items, obviously, is enforcement. And setting standards is another item. We will be doing that. We will be strengthening our enforcement efforts. We will be improving our targeting of construction. Our intent is to go to those workplaces that need enforcement as an incentive to drive performance and provide a safe workplace. For those facilities that already have the right message and are already working in the right direction, we'll use other strategies to continue and foster further growth and further performance around reducing injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.

So, certainly the idea of how do we target construction sites is critical. We need to be more effective on how we target construction sites; how do we go to the facilities that need that kind of strategy to drive performance.

One of the other things that we will be announcing very soon is enhanced enforcement efforts, around what we call the recalcitrant employers. The employers that constantly, over some period of time, have chosen to take a different path in respect to compliance. How do we touch them? How do we get them to achieve the performance we are looking for?

The result of our measuring is not how many fines we issue, or how many citations we issue. That's not the result. The result is a safe workplace. That's got to be our mission. That's got to be the measure that we look at how effective we are in accomplishing the mission that Congress has given us and the ASHAC.

So, we will be looking at ways, and we will be talking ways, and we will be announcing soon on how we are going to deal with employers that have not got the message. We do not want to be a part of the cycle where we continue to just participate in issuing fines, they pay the penalty, and work continues, and hazards continue. We've got to be out of that cycle. We've got to stop that cycle. We've got to find ways to stop that cycle.

Again, the measure of success is not how many fines we issue. It's how many hazards we correct, and how many lives we save, and how many injuries and illnesses we avoid. So, we will be talking more about that. But, our target is driving the numbers down. That has got to be our ultimate measure of success.

So, targeting inspections, as well as recalcitranting employers. We will be focusing on that in the upcoming years. Targeting inspections round construction.

We have a reasonably good targeting system for general industry. We do not have, in our mind, a sufficient or good enough targeting process for construction. We've got to find a way. Don't know what that is yet, but we need to find a way. And we certainly can use your help.

The second strategy is around the outreach and education and assistance area, knowing that we can only approach, we can only inspect two percent of the facilities in this country. Incidently, that's going through them one time. If we have to keep going back over and over and over again, we are cutting the number of people we can go to even less than that. So, that's why we have got to be effective in creating a change, so we don't have to go back to those facilities again.

So, we are only going to two percent of the facilities. What are we doing about the other 98 percent? And I am talking about all of the facilities in the nation, not just construction. We can only go to a small percentage. We've got to identify which ones we do enforcement, and then how do you deal with the other 98 percent. And that's going to be through our other two strategies around our education, and outreach, and assistance, and the other strategy. The last one I will talk about is voluntary programs.

Let me talk about cooperative programs. Let me talk first about our education and outreach. As you know, we have issues around immigrant workers. We will be addressing that in a very significant way. We have in the last year and a half and will be doing even more. Somebody asked me, are we doing enough? Well, in my mind today, we are not doing enough of anything. That is the reality of the world. Tomorrow we are going to do more, and do it more effectively. We are never satisfied with what we are doing. We need to continue to . improve, and that is what continuous improvement is all about.

Are we doing enough on Hispanics? Do we need to do more? Certainly. We need to began to approach, and more effectively approach the issues around immigrants coming into this country and working in hazardous jobs. We need to identify where they are. We need to identify how to reach them; how to reach the employers that employ them; how to reach the cultural issues, and the language issues.

We need them to respond, both employers -- Hispanic employers and employees -- in a way that they are safe as individuals, and they operate safe workplaces. The employers need to understand how to relate to immigrant workers, certainly, from a language barrier issue and a cultural barrier issue. There is cultural differences that we have to address. It's just not translating into dialect respect, it is other issues as well.

We have to be smart enough to understand what that is. We are going to need partners in making that happen, and we are going to have to continuously improve that process as we go through it.

But, again, our goal has to be are we impacting the numbers? Are we impacting and reducing injuries, illnesses, and fatalities? That's got to be our mission. That's got to be our measure of success. Are we doing that?

Currently, I think you know the numbers are going in the wrong direction for Hispanic workers. We've got to stop that. Somehow, we've got to approach that, and we are going to need partners to make that happen. We are going to need alliances. We are going to need to work in a collaborative way with everybody to make that happen.

This cannot be done with OSHA, just by itself. We are all in this game together. We are all in this process together, and we are all going to have to work very closely together to attack this issue.

We have done some things that you have heard about, and certainly, I'm not going to repeat some of the stuff that I repeated -- I mentioned at the opening session two days ago. You know, we've got 800 numbers. We've got a task force. We've got a lot of activity going on in the Agency. We need to do more. We need to be as effective as we can. We are going to have to partner with a lot more people to make it happen.

We have done an awful lot of great work, but still, more great work is necessary to accomplish this result.

On our education outreach, one of the tools we are using to provide communication, provide information, provide guidance, provide instruction, provide lessons learned, provide business cases around how you -- what is the value of safety and health? And we firmly believe there is value derived from good safety and health practices. It's not just on human terms, it's also on business terms, on economic terms. We want to be able to articulate that even more effectively than we have in the past.

And I would encourage this committee to give us some guidance on how we can do that. And the articulation, or the way we frame this, is not based on the traditional safety and health model. It is not as a safety professional. It's got to be on the economics. It's got to be -- we've already done that on the safety side. Safety professionals are out there shouting from the rooftop about safety pays. We've got to have insurance companies we've got to have business agents, we've got to have business people articulating the business value around good safety and health programs.

And today, more so than anytime in the past, with insurance rates like they are, with the concern about the quality of work force and dealing with all of the pain and suffering and the loss time associated with injuries, this is the time. We are at a better time than ever in our history, of articulating a business case around safety and health, the value around safety and health. And the value is not just for the business, it is for the workplace, and that includes quality and moral. And it also is, obviously, for the individual. We've got to articulate that as effectively as we can.

We are going to be using the website to help us do that. We are going to use other kinds of media. I certainly would encourage and hope that we'll have business schools starting to pick this up. One of my goals is to have the Harvard Business Review talk about the value of safety and health, and show it in terms that business people can understand and put in place and integrate into their businesses, safety and health. It is not a separate piece. It's an integral piece of their operations.

The website, as I mentioned, we have an excellent website. We were able to secure a very high rating from OMB on our website, which is great. But, we can't rest on those laurels. As technology changes--and they change every day in this area--we have to continuously improve that communication mechanism. And so, we can use your advice on how we can reach out, how we can communicate more effectively using, not only the website, but also other tools. Maybe there are other tools we can use.

We have one we call Quick Takes. This is a newsletter that goes out, and electronic newsletter that goes out to your email address, if you subscribe. Right now, we have 30,000 subscribers. We are not satisfied with 30,000. I know there is over 100,000 people interested in safety and health, and we ought to not stop until we achieve those high levels.

This is a tool that can communicate issues, little small tidbits. And if you want more information, there is a hot link you can link on, or click on that and get more information if you choose. We need, and OSHA needs to be part of, the continuous communication around the value of safety and health. That means everything we do. We need to keep it up front and foremost in everybody's mind. That means a strong communication system. Quick Takes is one way to do that.

Our electronic e-tools are another way to provide best practices help for small employers and large employers on figuring out how to derive the value of safety and health in the workplace. We need to communicate that. We need to be more effective. We can use guidance on how we can do that.

The Agency, we have our resources inside. You are the ones doing it every day. You are the ones who are creating the innovation and creativity every day to realize the value of safety and health and reducing injuries and illnesses. We need your help on how to be more effective in the long run.

We've got on the training side--I think, we have advertised--I think most of you know that we have increased, at least our education centers, educational centers. This was created several years ago, where we, basically, franchise, or we grant the ability for them to use OSHA training material and certify that you've been training under the OSHA training curriculum. We have 12 institutes where we are doing that, and we have trained about 14,000 people. They, in turn, trained about 250,000. These are train the trainer programs.

That's not enough. We have got to find ways to enhance that, increase that. Fourteen thousand train the trainers, and 250,000 individuals is not enough. We have 100 million people working in this country today in construction and general industry. We've got a long way to go.

What we have done recently is we've increased the number of educational centers from 12 to 20. And that 20 represents 35 different institutions. A lot of these are in consortium. And they will be developing and delivering OSHA training material to these trainers who, in turn, will be training other individuals. We need to expand that.

One of the reasons why we did that is because we want them to market their skills and their training. We don't want the stimulus to only come from OSHA, and then they go to the training session. They've got to go out and market this, and go out and create the demand. And I think there is a demand out there. They've got to be skilled enough to go out and create that demand.

So, now the goal is not 14,000 train the trainers. Our goal is 30,000. There is no reason why -- we can double that in the next two years, and then the goal would be much higher in subsequent years.

We owe it to the American workers to get the training out there. And we owe it to them to find creative ways when marketing this training so that people understand. And when I say this training, it includes Spanish. It includes reaching the Hispanic worker and the Hispanic employer, and that includes, obviously, construction and general industry. We will be doing that.

On the training side, it deserves some attention that is structurally involved in this committee and some of your work, there is--we've got a new model now for training our employees, our COSHOs. We are on the sixth training of our Steel Erection Standard, and using people who know how to get this done; using contractors and the iron workers on figuring out, or showing us, how we can be more effective in our inspections.

That's a great tool, great model, and we are going to do more of that, certainly, in the construction area, where we need to be more skilled on how to go into these workplaces, and how to do proper inspections. And that requires training on our part. So, that model, the sixth one is in St. Louis. Is that right?

MR. SWANSON: It's the seventh one coming up in St. Louis. That's the next one, John.

MR. HENSHAW: Seventh. Okay. We've done six.

MR. SWANSON: Right.

MR. HENSHAW: And the seventh one is in St. Louis. We get great reviews on the training, because it's not OSHA folks telling OSHA folks about how to do an inspection, it is people who do it day in and day out. It's the workers and the employers who do it day in and day out.

That's the value of this kind of training. We hear it from the experts, and then we, in turn, can now represent some knowledge that we may have not had on how to do a proper inspection. We need to do more of that, certainly, in the construction area.

In other kinds of training, as far as our own internal training, we need, and will continue to bring in, people who know the construction industry in the Agency. And we've brought in a couple of new people as you probably have known -- know, with Stew and Steve. And we have good expertise already, and will continue to improve on that.

Our goal is to continuously improve our ability to do our job and understand the business in which we operate. And in construction, that's a whole different set of circumstances and paradigms that we don't understand. I'm from general industry, and I don't understand construction well enough. And we recognize that, and therefore, we need that kind of expertise in this system.

Also, we are looking at internships, interning both ways. Our folks intern in construction, and the construction folks intern in OSHA. So, we can understand the relationships, understand the issues, so we can be better equipped to do the kind of job that we have to do. Those are being explored through alliances and partnerships and will continue. I am sure you will be hearing more about some of those later.

Let me talk about some of our voluntary programs and cooperative programs. Specifically, we are--the voluntary protection program has been around for 20 years. We have over 800 sites--900 sites in the voluntary protection program. And we have five of them now in construction, mobile sites. And we have several in construction that are permanent sites.

The reason why I personally like VPP, because it is a process by -- there is a qualification. You go through, probably, too much paperwork. And we've got to worry about that. We are going to fix that. But, there is a process where we can recognize organizations. And when I say organizations, I am talking about workers and employers, unions and management, working together for one reason, and above anything else, safety and health.

VPP has to be safety and health, is above any other issue in that manufacturing site or in that construction site. It has to be above all of this. It has to be above the issues that we have to deal with day to day with labor management. VPP sites, in my mind, have said that. They have established safety and health as a core value. It is above all other issues, and they hold that sacred. And all of them working together. All parties are working together to resolve the issues.

A good example of working together is not only a VPP site, but the World Trade Center. I think you all understand the issues around the World Trade Center. We've had cooperation from the trades, from the employers, from the city, and from government, that we are going to work together and make sure nobody gets hurt. And the results of the World Trade Center, I don't need to reiterate that, but we had no fatalities. We had many near-misses. But, we corrected those near-misses, or corrected those issues on the spot, as opposed to waiting to go through litigation.

And, I think our success rate, or the injury/illness rate, loss time rate, was half of what you would normally expect at a demolition site. To me, that's a great example of what we can do when we work together, not fight each other, but we hold safety and health paramount to anything else we do. That's the success of that kind of partnership.

VPP is similar, although VPP has, obviously more. It's been around for a while. We want to expand VPP. And not necessarily VPP Star, but we want to expand voluntary protection programs. VPP is plural. It is more than one. Right now, we have Star and Merit. I think the opportunities are immense for us to build in a process where we identify rungs of a ladder and allow people to climb the ladder appropriate. Get them started.

What's most important is, you get people on the right page, working in the right direction. How fast they get there is going to depend on a lot of energy we put into it. But, the first step is getting into the conversation, getting into realizing there is a reason for doing this. Safety and health does add value. As they derive value from one step; they'll go into the next step and the next step. We want to be a part of that driving force.

And so, we will be expanding VPP. Our goal is not 800 sites in VPP. Our goal is 8,000 sites in VPP. And if you think about it in a minute, why? And, again, the reason why you have to keep focusing on a triple-bottom line is, because no matter what we do, there is going to be all kinds of trappings, all kinds of concerns, and all kinds of, whether it be political, or whatever it might be -- there is all kinds of issues around this. But, at the end of the day, we have got to say that whatever this program is, it is producing a better result than if we didn't have it. That's what we've got to look at.

VPP sites, both construction and general industry, their average injury rates are less than half their industry averages. They are less than half. One Hundred and fifty of them did not have a loss time accident last year, or in 2001. One hundred of them didn't have an OSHA recordable at all. Thousands and thousands of injuries have been avoided as a result of this program, in my mind.

If we didn't have that kind of a drive, that kind of interest, that kind of discussion or energy around safety and health, we may have not had that kind of reduction in injury and illnesses. Thousands of people may have been injured, and we avoided that, I think, because of this energy around VPP.

And the energy to go to VPPPA, the participants association conference, you see people, both labor and management, talking about one issue and one issue only, about how they can be more effective in reducing injuries. The conversation is not how you comply with OSHA Standards. The conversation is, how do I avoid the next injury? How do I prevent the next injury? That's the conversation.

And you have the people who know how to do it. You have the workers, and you have the management, who are committed to make it happen. They are the ones who can figure this out. So, think of the possibilities. Thousands -- I think there is over 5,000 or 6,000 injuries avoided and countless deaths avoided as a result of VPP at 800. Think if we increased that to 8,000. Think of the magnitude, the impact that would have. The number of lives saved, or the number of injuries and illnesses saved and avoided.

That's why we have to grow it. And we have to grow it in a way that -- right now, OSHA is a stumbling block in the sense it's a resource intensive. We've got to be creative on a way to still maintain quality, still maintain the value of this, and yet minimize the resources so we can grow it. We can not be the limiting factor of this growth. We have to be the facilitating factor of its growth. So, we've got to figure that out.

We will be expanding, and our goal is 8,000. It won't be tomorrow, but it will be, I can guarantee, it will be, we will have 8,000 VPP sites.

The other cooperative program--and I am stressing the new stuff, like the cooperative programs and the outreach, and still want to maintain, and I should probably repeat it every time--enforcement in voluntary programs, enforcement in outreach and education. Enforcement has to still be there. Enforcement has to be stronger than it ever has been.

And I think the statistics -- I didn't say that earlier, but the number of inspections, while that may not be the ultimate measure, the measure in my mind is the triple bottom line, but we have increased our number of inspections and will increase them this year. And we will increase our targeting this year for construction. And we will be doing more inspections this year. More importantly, we are going to get people turned around. We are going to figure out a way to get them to get off this viscous cycle and have a safe workplace.

On the cooperative programs, on the other ones, the partnerships and alliances, real brief, we've got abut 188 partnerships. We are going to grow those significantly. They are -- most of those are in construction. They produce value. And they produce value in not only human terms, which is safety and health terms, but also in economic terms. We want to develop business cases, or articulate the value of those partnerships more than we have in the past. And we've got some ideas of how we can do that.

I was in Cincinnati, and we talked about the Paul Brown Stadium and the value of not only injuries and illnesses avoided, but also the money saved, that went back to the city. We need to get that information out. We need to let people know that there is value in doing the right thing. And it is not only in human terms, but it is also in economic terms. And we will be doing more of that.

A significant partnership is in Idaho, and I already mentioned that, I think, a number of times, about the value of that. The value is we are leveraging resources. We are getting people focused on safety and health. We are getting people accountable for safety and health. Like the Idaho is, believe it or not, the general contractors are holding themselves accountable for safety and health. And they are producing positive results. Cut the fatality rates in half for the data we have so far, and injuries and illnesses from 25 per 100 to 14.

So, we are cutting injury and illness rates down. And the money saved, the worker's comp cost have been significantly reduced. And this one partnership deals with 27 general contractors in the State of Idaho.

And the leverage, we're talking about leverage resources, just real quick. The reason why this is important, these partnerships, we can only touch 250 facilities, construction sites, in the State of Idaho in a given year, based on our resources. And that's 250 sites as well. This partnership in that one year, touched, or did audits, evaluations, of over 3,000 operations, and over 500 sites.

That's a leverage of over 10 to 1, of people going in. That wasn't the same as an OSHA inspection, granted, but you know there's 80 percent of an OSHA inspection. That's 80 percent more than we had for those other 3,000 sites, or 2,500 sites. That's what the value is.

We've got people holding people accountable and paying attention to safety and health. And the value, as I mentioned, the bottom line was, we reduced significantly the injuries, and avoided fatalities. And, by the way, we saved money for the contractors and for the owners.

We want to do more of those. And we've got more to do, but the bottom line is, as we do those, we've got to measure the effectiveness of those partnerships. We've got -- at the end of the day, at the end of the partnership, we've got to say, here is what it was before, here is what it may have been without, here is what it was with, and to show and demonstrate that this is working. If it is not working, we've got to do something else, or we've got to fine tune it.

But, we've got to demonstrate the effectiveness of everything we do. And in my mind, the result is going to be, are we saving injuries and illnesses and lives?

We've got, as I said, numerous partnerships. We want to grow those tremendously. They are a great program for construction sites, for projects. Lambeau Field is one. We've got one with the Bears, the Bears' stadium here. We did one with the Patriot Stadium. That was the first one I was involved in. And at that time, they were only five, and five in 2001, as far as their record. And, of course, they went on to win the superbowl.

And so, I used that a number of times as a motivational piece. You know, if you want to win the superbowl, sign an agreement with OSHA. But, then we signed one with the Bears, and so, I don't want to say anymore about that. Unfortunately, New England beat my hometown, which is the St. Louis Rams. So, that hurt too. But, at any rate, the idea is -- obviously, I was just joking, but the idea is, the performance at Foxborough Stadium, as well as the other stadiums is tremendous, as far as avoiding injuries, illnesses, and fatalities. And we want to continue to build that even more.

The other piece that I think is worthwhile to mention are the alliances. And I think it is worthwhile because I want to clear up any kind of mis-perceptions or misconceptions about the alliances, and why we are doing alliances.

In my mind, one of our jobs -- we have less than 23,000 employees in the federal system. We cannot do all of the work by ourselves. And we are not. I'm not suggesting we are. You guys are doing heavy lifting here. But, we need to find ways to bring in, to collaborate, to share resources, to improve our effectiveness as a total entity as opposed to individuals more than we have in the past.

We have got to spend our time helping, driving performance, as opposed to hindering what we've got to do. So, that means working on the same page. Now, obviously, there are times, certainly on the litigation enforcement side, we will take a different path, and we have to do that. But, there are many of other opportunities where we can work in a collaborative way and accomplish the results that we are all striving for.

In alliances--the partnerships, there are bells and whistles with that--you know, it is a little bit more detailed. There is evaluation. There is give and take. There are a lot of roles and responsibilities built into that, as well as VPP. In alliances, those strings are not attached to alliances, nor are there concessions made. No concessions made on alliances. But what there are are agreements up front that we are going to work on a project and work on issues together, and usually in the outreach and education side.

They are in the area of how do you touch people? How do you educate? How do you sell the process? How do you sell the program? How do you sell the value of safety and health? How do you help them to establish a safe workplace? That's what the alliances are for.

My goal is to establish alliances with trade associations, with organized labor, labor organizations, with professional societies, with other kinds of organizations that are there to help specific aspects or specific organizations, where we gather people who are concerned about safety and health, I want to develop an alliance with them and find out how we can work in a collaborative way to produce a more positive result. Again, reduce injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.

We've got over 20 alliances at this point right now. A lot of them are around ergonomics. A lot of them are around Hispanic issues, some of our concerns that we are addressing. All of them are dealing with training, outreach, getting the word out, convincing their members, like if it's a trade association. Can you imagine the power?

Now it is one thing OSHA saying that you ought to do this, employer. It is another thing if it is a trade association, who they are paying hard-earned money in dues, if they are saying the same thing. That creates a different paradigm in my mind. That provides a better communication process than if OSHA or the Federal Government says it.

That's what we want them to do. We want them, as member organizations, to be articulating the value of safety and health, helping their members create value around safety and health. That's the value of it. And so it's not like a partnership, or not like VPP, where you have labor management all the time. You can't always have a tripartheid in an alliance.

But, what I am looking for is gathering whatever energy I can around safety and health, get them aligned, and help work on the same thing together. Like I said, there are no concessions with that. Nobody is getting a free pass. Nobody is getting anything special. What we are doing is saying, we can work together on this issue, and improve something.

In the case of ergonomics, obviously, we are trying to improve ergonomics or musculoskeletal disorders.

So, now a number of alliances, we've got lots of opportunities on the construction side. And, I'm hoping we are all creative in our thinking, thinking outside of the box. Look at where there is value on both sides, and see if we can't articulate that in a way that we can continue to foster that.

I mean, the bottom line is, individually, we can only go so far. But, I think, collectively, the end result is greater than the sum of the individual efforts. We can create a much bigger impact if we collaborate. And that's the goal behind the alliance piece.

Let me talk a little bit about, specifically, two things. What is coming up in construction, and you will hear some further discussion from others today on that issue, and more detail about partnerships and some of the other things that I alluded to. They have the detail. They are the experts at this, so I just step out of the way.

But let me talk a little bit about where we are heading in respect to standards, where we are heading in respect to homeland security, and then open up for any questions.

In respect to standards, as I mentioned, enforcement has got to be the fundamental basis of which we operate. We cannot get anywhere--we cannot do the alliances, we cannot do cooperative programs, we cannot do outreach--if we do not have a strong effective enforcement. So, we've got to continue with that. And that also means continuing with the standard process, and we are.

And the reg agenda has been reduced because it becomes a -- in my mind, it's a management agenda. It's an agenda that you can count on. And when we say, we are going to get something done in April, it will be done in April. And Bruce understands that very well.

MR. SWANSON; Yes.

MR. HENSHAW: That we are holding managers accountable to those dates. It's no longer a floating date. It's no longer out there that, you know, you can't count on OSHA really addressing it. But, we reduced it to a point where we can do those, and we will do those as described in the reg agenda. And we are holding ourselves accountable to that.

Now, we have other outside influences. We have our attorneys, and we have OMB. Obviously, we've got to factor that in, and we've got to work through that. But, the bottom line is, we are accountable for that. Not OMB, not the solicitors, we are accountable. So, we've got to work through those issues and get all of our partners as we generate these actions on the same page, so we can live up to those dates. And you can hold us accountable for those dates.

Obviously, you know, we are working on the cranes issue. That's a very old standard. Technology has well-surpassed the standard. We have got to have a more relevant standard in respect to cranes. That wasn't on the previous agenda. It is now, in negotiated rule making. I'm a supporter of negotiated rule making, but I'm only supportive in the sense that it puts the right work together and the right people together, and then OSHA follows through with that immediately. Not wait years. We have to take it to the next step.

If we wait, then we lose the institutional memory. We lose a lot of stuff. And I think steel erection may have been an example of what can happen if you wait several years before you produce the outcome. We are not going to wait. In shipyards employment, there is a negotiated rule making where we have taken the next step--and it is on our reg agenda--and we will take it to the next step. In cranes, we will take it to the next step. We will be announcing soon, the committee, the negotiated rule making advisory committee.

The other issue is confined space. We have other partners in this, so we are knocking on wood. I hope this is good wood. But we have other partners in this. But the point is, we have got to live up to those dates, and we will be issuing that soon. The confined space, you know, the sweeper panel, we've scheduled to start that in April in 2003. And we'll live that.

The electric power transmission, the 1926 FRD, that is also scheduled for April of 2003. That's a NAPIM.

The Silica, obviously, an NAPIM. That's also scheduled for November of 2003. And you will be hearing more about the Silica issue. Commercial diving, that's December of 2003. And as a notice of proposal, we are making a hearing conservation in construction. Hearing conservation, I cut my teeth on hearing loss and hearing conservation. And, I know how important it is to preserve people's hearing. And I know, also, the kinds of noise issues that occur in construction.

Now how you deal with that is different than you do in general industry. But, it is still an issue. It has to be addressed, and we will be announcing advanced notice, or reviewing comments on the advanced notice.

You will be hearing some other things, more detail about some of the things that I just mentioned from others this afternoon, I think. Or this morning. Feel free to ask any questions. We will try to answer all of them that we can on all of those issues.

The other one I want to briefly mention to you about is homeland security. That is--and obviously, after 9/11, we sort of had to re-tool, in essence, about what is the value of OSHA--what can OSHA -- how can OSHA contribute to the circumstances that we are dealing with now. And it is different. We have to be different than we were prior to September 11th. The nation needs us. The workers need us. We lost over 2,800 workers at the World Trade Center. Obviously, more lives were lost, but the 2,800 were workers in the World Trade Center. And all of the events around 9/11. They were working people.

Anthrax were working people. They were workers. They were being exposed to risk that we hadn't dealt with before. We have to be there. Our job is not just following OSHA regs. Our job is safety and health. Now, we want to continue with enforcement and continue with the standards, but when we don't have a standard, when we have a new issue, like on Anthrax, we still have to step up. It is our responsibility.

It is our responsibility for worker protection. Not just enforcement and whatever standard comes out. Our job is to protect workers as they need protection. And in the 9/11 case, we had to respond. In Anthrax, we had to respond. We didn't have a whole lot of information. We didn't have a whole lot of data, you know. People asked us what is the right -- what is the permissible exposure limit on Anthrax? Well, we don't know. That doesn't mean we can't respond. We've got to take our best shot at it and protect people.

Now, are we going to be absolutely correct? Probably not. When you don't have a whole lot of data to go with, you're going to take your best shot, but more importantly, you are going to learn every time. Every step you make, you are going to have to document and then learn from that, and improve it as you go along.

So, we are not going to shy away from what we don't know, because there is a lot of things now we don't know. But, we will participate in assuring that workers are protected to the extent we can. The other agencies in the Federal Government support that. They know worker safety and health is our responsibility. So, we will be participating in numerous other activities that deal with worker safety.

We will be providing guidance. We will be providing assistance. We will be providing instruction. We will be providing monitoring. We will be providing risk assessment. We will be providing those kinds of things as we go forward. The rest of the agencies want us to do that. We want to do that. It is our responsibility. We will step up and do the best job we can possibly do.

The details of all the emergency response activities, all the national response plans, and all the things that are going on now, are continuing to be worked on. And we are a player in all of those activities. And as they come out through the Department of Homeland Security, you will see OSHA's position in that. You will see OSHA's role of where we fit in respect to worker safety and health. But, we are not going to shy away from that responsibility. It is ours, no one else's.

With that, I think I've probably said all of the prepared remarks. Obviously, I wasn't using -- I didn't have written stuff down. So, how prepared it was, it was what I believe. And I probably missed a few things. And if I did, please feel free to ask, and I will try to answer whatever I can.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Thank you. First of all, Mr. Henshaw, we would like to thank you. The committee is very pleased that we were able to meet here in Chicago in conjunction with the counsel's meetings here. It certainly has opened us up to the public questions and input, some of which, I think, we will be asking of you, that we have been asked and cannot respond to. But I would also like to make a comment that everyone has noticed your presence and that of Mr. Swanson. The accessibility you have had this week here, all week, and the comments have been very, very positive that you really are demonstrating your desire to make OSHA more attainable. So, this is really to be complimented.

MR. HENSHAW: Thanks. You guys are doing the hard work. So, we've got to be here and participate to the extent that we can. And we will do that.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: We have really been approached, needless to say. You have addressed the one priority one, I think, that everyone has been asking us, what is the status of cranes negotiated rule making? And I believe you stated it would be soon. So, I think that would answer that question for everyone.

MR. HENSHAW: I don't know how many Os there are in soon.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: One, sir. You have a very aggressive schedule, and we all in ACCSH have been made very much aware of your desire to uphold that schedule. And you have just expressed that again. ACCSH is supporting that schedule. We will be talking later on today of a date for our next meeting, and we are proposing the first week of May. But in conjunction with that, as we have done in the past, we would like to have scheduled various workgroups, meetings. We have a great deal of work ahead of us, and we just don't want it to linger out, if you will.

So, you will be getting that from Mr. Swanson's office, what our recommendations will be for various work group meetings. That will be coming to you at the conclusion of this meeting.

In your comments, you said we have multiple workgroups that can assist you in some of those issues, a couple that we don't have that could focus very clearly, and I made a note of those. One would be targeting. And I do believe we have resources on ACCSH that could give you some ideas where we feel how you may be able to select the constructors for that issue and give you input on that. So, that would be one, I think, we can propose to initiate for you.

The other, we do have very active people on ACCSH who have intimate ties to insurance and other entities that you mentioned, as far as getting the word out: how this does -- how safety and health does improve the workers, as well as the economic issue of employers. And that might be something else that we could address.

The last one I made note of is one that we have been talking very heavily about here at this conference, and that is homeland security. Construction sites are being targeted because of accessibility and the size of those. I think that certainly would be a work group that we could constitute and give you some suggestions and ideas of where we see the vulnerabilities of our sites and, at least, have that made available to your from our experiences. And, quite frankly, it's been happening with bomb scares and everything else. So, I think we can really assist you in that regard. And we can add that one.

Your comments on Silica. I know we have a report coming up, but it is my understanding, as co-chair, that you haven't been briefed on that yet. I strongly would like to recommend to you, sir, that we have continual experience with why general industry standards will not work in construction. And, inevitably, we go later, maybe 10 years later, and do a construction standard, such as confined space, because general industry just will not work with our continually changing atmospheres that we have.

We strongly ask you to support a separate construction silica standard to be piggybacked with the general industry. If your time line does not permit that, we will continue our work to support the silica health GI standard that is being worked on now. We have a very aggressive schedule in support of that effort. However, we do like to see a construction standard follow up immediately behind that, and that we not be brought into that general industry compliance at that point it time, because it will be almost impossible for us in our arena to do that. So, we are going to make all of our information available to the work group, and to Mr. Perry and others, and via working with NIOSH, but we strongly ask your support to make sure we have a construction standard for that issue.

Hearing could also be one that could be very economically burdensome to construction if not approached in the proper way that we need that. So, we would also ask your support on that too, and hope that doesn't screw your calendar any.

I think they were most of the comments that I had that had been addressed to myself. I would like to ask the members now, if you have comments that you would like to address to the Secretary? Kevin?

MR. BEAUREGARD: Yes. Mr. Assistant Secretary, I just want to say that the State Plans certainly, support the efforts on homeland security. At our last meeting, there was a little bit of concern noted, however, that if any arrangements were made on a national level not to, or to include the State Plan States, because we have regulatory authority over the public sector responders, and there is a little bit of fear that some arrangements may be made and the states be kept out of the loop. And we want to make sure that we are in that loop because of the position that we are in.

MR. HENSHAW: Yeah, I understand that completely. And they won't be left out of the loop. We will be talking more about that when we can.

MR. DURST: Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here and we look forward to working with the agency.

MR. HENSHAW: Okay. Thanks.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Mike?

MR. SOTELO: (Shakes head negatively.)

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Tom?

MR. BRODERICK: Secretary Henshaw, I just want to reiterate Jane's comments that we are very appreciative that you took the time to come here for the entire conference and to allow us to have the ACCSH meeting here in Chicago. So, thank you.

MR. HENSHAW: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Greg?

MR. STRUDWICK: Greg Strudwick. Secretary Henshaw, we do appreciate your abilities to expose the staff, the OSHA staff, to more of the associations and association meetings. I know that Stew is going to be with us, as far as the National Utilities Contractors Association, in March, in San Antonio. And that's the key. The key is to get everyone out to get them introduced so that there is a person behind the face or behind the phone call, and develop the trust, because we still have a problem between the construction work force and OSHA from a standpoint of compliance and regulatory issues.

So, we are committed. I am committed. If you will make these guys available to us, then I am sure that at some point the trust will start to build the partnerships. The alliances, I think, are a wonderful thing. It's a stair step situation. Partnerships are not popular from the standpoint of a construction site, construction. And the mistrust is a part of that. But the alliance is a very good way to start.

And just from my association in Region Six, with the offices, local offices, there, the more we get to know those folks, the more contractor base gets to know those folks, the easier it is to work with them. And it produces a tremendous amount of rapport between the two. They take ownership, basically, of each others programs. So, we appreciate that.

MR. HENSHAW: That's an effective way to do it. Obviously, we've got to work together.

MR. STRUDWICK: Right.

MR. HENSHAW: And so, we've got to be there and talking to each other, and that trust will take some time to build, but we are committed to build it.

MR. STRUDWICK: Just exposure. The exposure to the two people meeting each other and understanding each has a job to do, and safety and health is a priority. We all know that from a cost, as far as insurance, and experience modification ratings, and all of that. So, it is a positive situation. And what I've seen in how it has developed, is that the more somebody is able to address the personal situation, as far as compliance and initiatives and making it easier to do the outreach and training, is that it becomes more of a cultural advantage from a training standpoint.

We are not training on Saturdays or in the evenings. We are actually taking workdays now. And it comes back as a positive to the bottom line. So, it's a great thing. And the association, whether that's OGC, whether that's NUCA, any number of associations will tell you the same thing. If someone can be present, explain me the initiatives, not just so much that they are our there to cite or to regulate or to create a massive fine situation, but to educate and train, and become part of a team, then it is going to work faster, quicker, and more effective.

MR. HENSHAW: One of the surprises that -- people ask me what's one of your biggest surprises when you came to the Agency? I've been here about a year and a half. My biggest surprise, because I didn't really know that, is the talent of people that we have in the Agency, and the interest, and the willingness to get out and participate. We've got a lot of good people in the area offices, the regional offices, and Washington, and they are anxious to do this. And so, they are enthused about it even more than I really expected. And so, that really speaks well of them.

MR. STRUDWICK: Well, we appreciate the initiative.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Would all members please speak directly into the microphones for us?

MR. MURPHY: Sure. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you. Most of the committee members probably aren't aware, but from a visibility perspective and what you and your staff did yesterday for the 21 students, almost through the lunch hour it seemed like, to take the opportunity to meet the new safety and health professionals that are coming out of the schools, was just fabulous.

MR. HENSHAW: Thank you.

MR. MURPHY: And it took me many years in this industry to ever meet people like yourselves and Bruce and get to the point where I had that opportunity. And now things are changing and students are -- they are still students and they are starting to meet folks and understand more about how all of this stuff works. So, thank you very much.

MR. HENSHAW: Thanks.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Manny?

MR. MEDEROS: Yes. I would like to thank you for your comments also, particularly in the area of VPP. I was asked to speak before a VPP Association meeting in Dallas on the labors perspective on VPPs, and one of my concerns in that area--they are several--and I usually do the partnerships--there are certain pitfalls, but we support it, at least, from the IBEW perspective, that certain things are met.

However, one of the concerns was that there weren't any for construction at that time. And, the other thing was that it -- they only applied to the so-called good actors at that time, and those that were below those numbers, there was no program for them.

And my question is: if the VPP program is so efficient to reducing the numbers, why can't something be done for those other people that really need the help? And I see that you are going in that direction. I appreciate that.

The Hispanic work force, we have been -- in the contracts I have been involved in, especially in California, we've been putting everything out in Spanish and English at that time. The problem I found out there is that there is not much teeth enforcement if you have a Spanish speaking work force out there, and the only person that can communicate with them leaves them in charge of somebody else, and they are not aware of the standards. And there doesn't seem to be much interest in enforcement in that area.

Also, I was happy to see that finally, Subpart B is on the radar scope, since we've had three stakeholders meetings, three informal meetings over probably the past five years on the subject, with contractors and other people, that there is a real need for that standard to be updated, since, I believe, it's a 1971 standard. And it does cause quite a bit of confusion with the contractors when they are working on particular utilities properties. One poll will be on 1910.269. Another poll would be under the Subpart B standard and is confusing, I believe, for the contractors and also the employees that are working in that area.

So, I thank you for moving that forward.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Mr. Bush.

MR. BUSH: Yes. Thanks. And I am the last around the circle, I guess. So, I thank you again for coming and being so open with us in your comments. And again, your availability, yours and your staffs is tremendous, and it does signal a change. And you should continue that at whatever effort that takes, because it certainly helps us.

And the VPPs, I agree with what Manny said, they are great, but it is not easy. Our industry is not geared to forming good partnerships and we need to learn how. So, you can help lead that. And the alliances are critical. I think your approach to alliances are fantastic.

So, you cannot do it all by yourself. It's time for this industry to step forward and help. Both our labor side and management side need to learn that, and through the alliances and the partnerships we can do it.

So, thank you for your time and your travels and being willing to stay with us for a while.

MR. HENSHAW: Thanks.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Mr. Swanson.

MR. SWANSON: Yeah. Thank you, Jane. Just an addendum. As John said several times during his comments, you know, you guys are doing the heavy lifting. We are not lifting all of this by ourselves. As I look around the table, you know, what is happening with the partnership out in Boise is we've got to remember the other side of that table is the AGC. They are here on a committee with us and are working with us on this and on many other things.

On the steel erection, the Brotherhood of Iron Workers. Unfortunately, Frank can't be here today, but those educated contractors who are working with us, I'm doing a commercial for the NEA here, because, you know, they are doing part of the lifting for us. Now, he is also back there mining, so I am getting some help here.

You know, on the Hispanic work force, many people around this table and in the back of the room are working with us on partnerships, alliances, and in trying to solve the many problems that Manny mentioned. And we are all aware of on the Hispanic work force. And I just want to make sure that the record hears them by name: St. Paul Companies, NEA, AGC, ABC, NEHB, whoever else has stepped up to the plate in helping us solve these problems.

MR. HENSHAW: And there is -- unfortunately, I cannot mention all of the good work that is being done. And if I don't mention it, it doesn't mean it's not important, or I don't know about it. So, I appreciate you clearing that record. And there is probably more that we've missed.

MR. SWANSON: True.

MR. HENSHAW: That we didn't mention. So, the heavy lifting is being done by all of the people around us, and that is very much appreciated, very much appreciated.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Mr. Secretary, this Chair would be very remised if we didn't acknowledge your comments regarding training. The directorate provided ACCSH members a tour of the training facility here, and it is absolutely incredible. We were able to meet Mr. Payne, of course, and say hi to him. Mr. Sadauskas was our grand tour guide, who did an exceptional job.

That is such a stride in reaching out to your folks, showing them what kind of training is available through you. And the level of training that you are offering in the workshops and labs were absolutely incredible. We were all in awe, and certainly did enjoy that response from them to take us. We thank you for your efforts in that regards.

MR. HENSHAW: Well, the effort has just begun. I mean, that's a facility. The result is how many people we train, how effective that training is.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: That is correct. Are there any other comments for the Secretary?

(No response.)

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Sir, we thank you for your time. We thank you for being with us all week long, and we hope you have a safe journey home.

MR. HENSHAW: Thanks.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: At this time, we will take a break until 10:00 sharp. Excuse me 9:00.

MS. SHORTALL: What time is it?

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: I'm in the wrong zone.

MR. SWANSON: You're in Chicago, Jane.

(Laughter.)

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Ten o'clock. I was right the first time. Thank you.

(Whereupon, the meeting was recessed at 9:45 a.m. and resumed back on the record at 10:00 a.m.)

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: We are missing two members at this time, however, we will reconvene. Our next guest is Mr. Stew Burkhammer of the office of the Directorate of Construction. Stew.

CONSTRUCTION PARTNERSHIP UPDATE

Mr. Burkhammer: Thank you, Madam Chair, and committee.

In December, I came before you and gave you a presentation on partnerships and alliances. And you have all heard of the Michilin Man and the Marlboro Man, and the Shell Answer Man, Well, I'm Construction Partnerships and Alliance Man.

So, I'm here to answer the questions that you all had for John that, you know, what partnerships and alliances do we have? Where are we on some of these? And where have we progressed since December when I briefed you on the beginnings of our efforts here?

Of course, you both are aware, all are aware, of the AGC and the ABC national template. As John indicated, most of the current partnerships are in construction. I think we have a total right now of 98, all together. These -- most of these are aligned through the ABC and AGC Chase and Platinum Partnerships through the chapters.

We have a relationship with the NCCCO, The National Commission for Crane Certification Crane Operators, to promote the certification of crane operators. And that agreement was signed by John early last year, in the middle of last year.

Of course, Bruce talked about our steel erection training partnership with the NEA, the iron workers, ABC, OTI, and DOC, which has been highly successful in training over 135 compliance officers in steel erection. And the thing that is so neat about this partnership is the fact that we are giving the COSHOs real hands on experience. And Atlanta is a good example.

We had some of them out there climbing steel columns. We had them laying decking. We put a harness on them and lifted them up with a rig, so they could get a feel of what it is like to hang, if you fall from a building. And this is an experience that they've never had. And we are giving them this experience. And I think it is a terrific way to train.

We've gotten very, very high marks for this training. And Bruce and I are in discussions on looking to find ways to expand this training. And as I go through the alliance and partnerships lists with you, I will touch on some of those.

The Board of Certified Safety Professionals is pretty well along. We've read their draft. We've commented on their draft. The draft is going back to them for rewrite, and we are -- this alliance is going to revolve around promoting the safety training supervisor and the construction safety and health technologist certifications in the construction industry.

We are working with Gilbane Contractors to do an alliance on promoting safety and health training in the work force. And that one is in draft. Jack O'Donovan, the Safety Director for Gilbane is drafting that up now. We've discussed it and we've got some points we want to bring out in that. So, I think that's got the potential.

The Industrial and Electrical Contractors is signed. That's a finished one. That's, again, promoting education, training, and outreach for electrical contractors in the industrial sector.

We are talking to Scott Schneider in the laborers union about their work zone safety, and their work zone training and education programs. That's in the early discussion stages. Scott and I talked while we were here, and then I see some real potential there.

The National Electrical Contractors' Association. We met with Dave Potts earlier this year. We were kind of drifting back and forth between a partnership and an alliance, which one we thought would be really beneficial to that association. And we settled on an alliance. And again, they are drafting that up now. That will go before their board before it comes to us for review and comment.

The American Society of Civil Engineers. We met with them toward the end of last year. They've drafted one. It's been through their executive committee. It's approved. We have it in-house. We are reviewing it now. And this is kind of neat, because I think this is the first concept we have ever put together where we are going to take a look at safety in design. And we've all talked about that for years, and years, and years, and, I think, we've hopefully found a mechanism now where we can talk to the civil engineers in the design and the architectural stage about designing some safety concepts into the beginning stages of a project.

American Society of Safety Engineers, John mentioned, is signed. That is a training and education alliance. We have a -- I guess I would be remiss since I worked for Bechtel for 40 years, if I didn't have a Bechtel alliance. And we are certainly close to signing the Bechtel alliance. And that's got a little different twist to it too. We are looking at working with colleges on safety and health education and construction curriculums. And that's got some neat ideas with it. So, I'm excited about that.

Our Clark Construction, we've been dragging this one out a little bit for some reason. It keeps going back and forth, because we always have a problem in the end. But we are close to signing with Harry Galer on Clark Construction on Ergo, best practices alliance.

Clark is going to share with the industry some of the things they've done to reduce their musculoskeletal disorders and soft tissue injuries. And they've done some neat things. It's and interesting program. And we are looking forward to getting that one signed and start sharing those with the industry.

The Construction Management Association of America is signed. That is one we are talking education and training in the construction industry through their membership. And their membership is a lot of large and medium large contractors. And we hope to be working with them to get the message out.

We are going to do a little outreach there too, do some promotion material with them, exchange some talks at conferences. And I think that's going to have the potential to get the word out also.

The Construction Users Round Table, CURT, we have been talking with since last July, when Deputy Assistant Secretary Gary Visscher and I made presentations to them. They are interested in outreach through the owners. You know, we've spent years talking about, if we could get the owners in the game, we've got a better opportunity to get their contractors in the game.

So, hopefully, when we can finalize the CURT one, which is difficult to finalize, because you are not only in CURT talking to owners, you are talking to contractors also, that are members of CURT. So, we are trying to strike a balance of what the owners would like to have in an alliance, versus what the major players from the contracting industry would like the owners to do. And we are a fine line there. And we're struggling with that one, but I hope to have that one done by the end of the year.

And you say, holy smokes, the end of the year is a long way off. But we've been working on this one for about eight months now. And I would like to say we are a little further along in the eighth month than we were in the first month, but we are struggling a little bit again on how to find that fine line of where that is.

The Hispanic Contractors' of America is signed. We are looking forward to working with them. We have done some things with them on the Hispanic web page, as John mentioned to you. And we are looking to do some things with them now in the construction aspect of the Hispanic Contractors' Association.

The Washington Group is signed. That is an alliance that we worked on to develop a mentoring program for new COSHOs in Region Eight and in Region 10. And we're developing a draft of the template of the lesson plan. We've conceptualized how we want to do it with Brad Giles in the Washington Group. And they are now coming to us, hopefully, by the end of next month with their draft template of their program, of how this two-week or three-week rotation period with some new COSHOs would work.

And I am excited about this one, because part of the mentoring is that they go to a job site, and they take their mentoring training, not only as part of the Washington Group to learn about how we bid jobs, and how that kind of stuff works in construction, but also take them out to a site and let them kind of mirror a safety rep for a while, or follow him around and see what they do in the -- and we are looking for jobs at different stages, civil mechanical, electrical, so he can get a different perspective of the work.

So, this one, I think, has a real good opportunity.

The Carpenter's Union. Mike Buchet and I have been in discussion with Joe and others about scaffolding training. And Michael and I are going out to the training facility in April, I think, Joe, it is, and we are -- Michael and I are going to sit through their course, and look at ways that we can take the standard and work with the Carpenter's Union as we've done the Iron Workers and NEA, to put together a similar type package where we can teach some COSHOs about scaffolding erection and let them do real hands on work and go out and erect scaffold, like we've done steel.

And the neat part of the steel erection course is they -- we have these two mockups of steel columns and parts, and we divide them into groups, and we set them off, and they erect this thing. And it is really interesting. You give them a blueprint and tell them to go. And the record is seven minutes, and that was set in Oakland.

You don't race or anything. It just happened that this particular group did it in seven minutes. It's kind of ironic because we, when Mike Anderson divided up the groups, we put all of the engineers in one group, and all of the regular guys in another group, and the regular guys made seven minutes, and the engineers were still working at the end of the day trying to figure out how to get it together. But, we figure they would have finished sometime during the course.

I mentioned earlier the Hispanic Contractors's Association. When we signed that alliance in March, they had about 42,000 to 45,000 contractor members of the group, and since then, part of that has splintered off. And I think I mentioned to you in December that there is a new group now called the United States Hispanic Contractors. And we are working with them now on an alliance. And the draft is completed, and they are circulating it through their executive board, and hopefully, that will come to us fairly shortly.

We've talked to Mike Sotelo about doing some work with the AGC Safety and Health Committee on ergo. And Mike has set up a work group. And we are going to be working with them to come up with some kind of an alliance or some kind of mechanism to, again, take not only just Clark stuff--single the alliance with clark-- but take the overall AGC contractors that are doing a lot of best practices in ergo, and get that out, again, to the construction community so we can show that there are cost effective ways to do it and there are safe ways to do it. And we can protect workers from soft tissue injuries because of it.

Carolina, AGC, Steve Cloutier, of our group is going to be talking tomorrow, Tuesday, with Chip Murray and some others in the Carolina AGC. I went down there and talked to them last year about an alliance. They've got several neat ideas for an alliance, and we are going to be formalizing that with them, hopefully this year.

ARTBA. We've been in discussion with Brad about work zone safety and working with the laborers and ARTBA, either jointly or singularly or other ways to promote work zone safety. One of my goals is, and it may be kind of peculiar to me, but, you know, I've seen for years these people that work on highways, and you all have seen them, and you're experienced, a lot of you do that kind of work. And even though the sign says 20, or 25, or 30, standing out in a work zone with some cones or orange barrels filled with sand or plastic bags, and the cars go by doing 80 or 90, and those barrels fly all over the place and hit the workers, or the workers actually get hit by the vehicles is not a pretty sight.

And I think we need to find a better way to do that, and hopefully some of this work zone safety stuff will -- we can do some alliances with these folks, and get us to where we want to be and get more safe roadways and work ways out there for us.

Asphalt pavers. We are working with them currently, Rick Reinhart of Bruce's group, on a milling operations partnership. We have a very successful asphalt fumes partnership with them. It was NIOSH, the operating engineers, the laborers, and OSHA, and ARTBA, to come up with some neat engineering revisions to their machines that allowed them to cut down greatly on their fumes.

And now they've asked us to work with them on their milling operations. See, they go around and they cut the stuff up and get the exposure there.

Last week, John and I had an opportunity to go to Cincinnati and sign the Turner VPP pilot mobil work force partnership. I think that is going to be a great one. It's the Cincinnati Business Division.

They've got a phenomenal program there. They've got a tremendous management commitment. And I think that VPP is going to show great dividends for the industry.

South Dakota School of Mining and Technology. We've been talking to their professor of construction, and again, working with them on getting safety and health in the curriculum. And you know, that's where you've got to start, folks. You know, we've got to get these curriculums to where they have safety required courses, whether you are in civil engineering, mechanical, electrical, industrial. Pick one. And right now, a lot of the colleges do not require them to take a safety and health class.

And we are talking to some of these schools. And I think this alliance is a great way to do this, where we can really push this and get something going. And I see Dan eyeing me there. Maybe we can also talk to some schools that Dan is affiliated with to do this too.

I have had some initial discussions with Bob Krul to come up with an alliance with the Building Instruction Trade Safety and Health Committee. It's kind of a generic alliance for the overall committee. And we are in very early discussions on that, and we've got to conceptualize that a little more.

Of course, when you get the Washington Group and Bechtel in alliance, the third one to kind of follow along is Fluor Daniel. And they've called me up and said, you know, I guess we're last. So, you know, what can we do to get in the game?

And, you know, that's kind of the neat part of these alliances. When somebody gets one, somebody else wants one. And the word spreads, that well, gee, this guy is going to be able to bid better because he's got an alliance. So, I want to get one too, so I can bid too.

And we are also working with the Homebuilders. And we are in early discussions with them to do some pamphlets, some brochures, and training. And also do some things in multi-employer, that I think we have a great opportunity to work with them.

And we are also talking to ABC. Bruce and I met with them a couple of weeks ago to also talk about multi-employer. So, we've got a lot of things going. A lot of things have signed. A lot of things are close to signing. A lot of things are a little further away from signing. A lot of things are just in the early discussion stages.

So, if any of you have any ideas on alliances or anything that you think would be a good alliance that I haven't talked about, or a group that would like to have an alliance, please let me know. That's what we are in the business for, is to get alliances and partnerships and help John reach his goal.

But, it's not only reach the goal, but it's also reach the industry. And that's the key to these things. You know, we want to get out there and we want to talk to them. And the more people we touch, the more people we get the word, and that's the name of the game.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Stew, you mentioned multiple projects that these groups are working on. Lesson plans and things like that directly coincide with many of our workgroups. Would it be possible to use you as our liaison to those folks to start attending our work group so we don't have a duplications of efforts going into the directorate?

MR. BURKHAMMER: I will defer to my boss.

MR. SWANSON: Yeah. I'd be happy to personally be the liaison for this group to the Directorate of Construction.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: And by that, Bruce, would you help us to invite them to get their products in so that we could be working maybe together with them or would that muddy your waters?

MR. SWANSON: I'm not sure this is a discussion to have on the record here, Jane.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Okay.

MR. SWANSON: But, I'd be happy to follow up with you. You know, our office, Stew's shop, is doing a lot of things that he just shared with you, an update, a report. And if Stew will report to this committee whenever this committee has a meeting, and give you an update as to what progress he is making, but he feels he has the license to go forward and complete these missions without coming to the committee, and I agree with him.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Thank you. We will look forward to you working closely with ACCSH work groups to help us where we can have access to those reports.

Any other questions from the committee to Mr. Burkhammer?

(No response.)

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Any other comments, Stew?

MR. BURKHAMMER: I am out of here.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Have a safe flight. Thank you.

MR. SWANSON: Thanks, Stew.

CHAIRPERSON WILLIAMS: Our next report will be a Region V update by Mike Connors.

REGION V UPDATE

MR. CONNORS: Okay. Well, my name is Mike Connors. And first I want to welcome you to Chicago, and hope you've enjoyed your stay here. It isn't often that we get such nice weather in February for you. But, you know, you are welcomed back any time. Hopefully, you've enjoyed the conference.

And I want to congratulate Tom Broderick and the folks at the Construction Safety Counsel for another successful conference. We've been proud to be a part of the conference since the very beginning. And Tom is a great resource for us here in Chicago. And we sometimes maybe even abuse the resource, but we appreciate all the help we get, and love to see a good conference every year.

(A showing of slides.)

MR. CONNORS: Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about what we are doing in Region V, just kind of an overview on both enforcement, outreach and training, so you know where our region is going.

We are about 18 to 20 percent of OSHA's field program by size here in this region, the six states around the Great Lakes.

(Change of slides.)

MR. CONNORS: It is pretty typical statistics that are going on. About 38 percent of our workplace fatalities in the region were related to construction. To give you an idea, last year we had 175 OSHA fatality inspections conducted, and 63 were in the construction area.

Those figures are down slightly from fiscal year 2000, where we had 188 total investigations and 73 in construction. Knock on wood. The trend is down, but, frankly, we do see the numbers fluctuate from year to year. We try to look for three or four-year trends before we'll make any real statement on that.

Number of inspections. About 47 percent of our inspections are in construction, and that is generally around 3,100 inspections a year, in that ballpark. We do about 6,300/6,4000 inspections. And that is pretty typical. It has been running that percent for about 10 years.

On significant cases, last year we did 24. Five of them were in the construction And, area. we also had two cases that involved criminal activity; one on falsification of records, and the other dealing with a couple of fatalities on high voltage transmission lines. And, so we do see a pretty good mix on those.

Just to put it in perspective, we see about a 30 percent, roughly, incompliance rate when we go out on all types of inspections. And that's a soft figure, because, obviously, that has to do with your targeting and how many complaints and other things that you get.

(Change of slides.)

MR. CONNOR: Now, some people have mentioned--and I guess it's a good thing--that the boss or the other people from the national office mentioned some of our programs, because if they didn't, then I wouldn't have been feeding them the information correctly. So, you will hear a little bit about these.

Back in the early 90s, we developed a program out of Cincinnati called the MASTER Project. And that stood for Mobilized Alliance1 for Safety Teamwork Education and Results. Basically, what we were trying to do is provide a program that recognized that we had some good contractors that could not get into the VPP program because of the rules at the time. The job was only a year long, or less than a year. And they didn't meet all of the criteria.

We went ahead and put a program together, and, basically, it follows the guidelines of the VPP program. It needed a good safety and health program, teamwork, in that OSHA, and the contractors and labor would get together and do training and join audits of the site, and make sure that a part of it was the recognition that the responsibility for safety and health on the site rested with those people on the site, and that we should be a resource.

So, what we tried to do was, again, say we know that we have good people on that site. They are taking care of it. We are not going to target that for inspection. So, we moved it down the list. We couldn't move it off of the list because of some regulations, but it was down on the list.

We turned complaints, such as phone and fax and things like that, over to the site for joint investigations, rather than go out and site. We built in training requirements for, like the, 10 and 30-hour course for most of the people on the site.

And then, of course, we measured results to see where we ended up on these jobs.

(Change of slides.)

MR. CONNOR: And this was a real success story. I was talking with Steve Spalding yesterday--it was probably more of a success than we knew--that on this site, they ran an LWDI rate of .95. At the time, the national rate was 4.0. More importantly, I guess, or as important, we didn't have any fatalities or serious accidents on the site.

And in addition, we learned that about $5 million was saved in comp cost. And since this was a joint project, working with the city, and county, and private sector, they were very happy and we got some good stories coming out of the safety at this site.

So, we were encouraged by this program and a couple of others like it, and we have moved on to other high-visibility sites. And what we've done is, we've actually moved off the MASTER Project, because they fit into the partnership agreement so well that what we are doing is calling them a one-site partnership, and we are not developing a separate program, like the MASTERs right now.

(Change of slides.)

MR. CONNORS: Soldier Field. Some people mentioned that we have one of these partnerships here. And in this one, again, we have the contractors, the unions, OSHA, and we added the consultation program. This is the OSHA-funded program that does free on-site consultations typically for small employers. We have used them to help us do verification inspections. It helps them get their people up on the construction operations. They focus on helping the small subcontractors solve some of their problems, and we think we all benefit from this.

This project is on a short time frame. They essentially wanted to do it over the space of one season. And believe it or not, we in Chicago do want the Bears to return to Chicago, and even after the last season. And, we have seen about 2 million man hours worked, about 1,100 workers on the site right now. And the rates are good. They are at about 2.3, with the national average of 3.2. We've seen no serious accidents. The steel shell is pretty much complete. They are on time.

And this job has really been working round the clock. And I'll tell you, we were a little worried about the schedule they had set, but everything seems to be going very well here and we're real happy with it.

We are seeing on these large jobs that the general is really taking control of the site. And in these three jobs that I am going to refer to, they also have a mechanism to enforce their rules with their subcontractors and have done that.

Yes, sir?

MR. STRUDWICK: Is that an owner-controlled insurance policy? Are they --

MR. CONNORS: Yes. Right.

MR. STRUDWICK: Because we find that there is a lot of mutual work, as far as safety is concerned in the --

MR. CONNORS: Yes. In fact, we heard from --was it Dan Zewleski from Kennedy Construction yesterday, was telling me about that. And I think that reinforced what you just said, that they really do get a better emphasize on, they pretty much leave the OSHA standards behind, say what kind of performance they are looking for, and we do see increased performance overall. So, we like it very much.

(Change of slides.)

MR. CONNORS: And, all right, so we did Soldier Field. I have to give Lambeau Field some, you know, reluctantly. But, this is another project involving OSHA, the contractors, the consultation program, and labor, at the site. We did, on this one as with most, have 100 percent fall protection in place. And fortunately, we did, because this is an actual picture of somebody that fell and was caught by the fall arrest system.

We had two situations like this. Fortunately, both people were protected and are still working on the job. We had one other incident where because they were strictly adhering to the rules where the rigging wasn't done properly on a section of flooring, and it fell and crashed down through a concrete floor, and did collapse. And normally, we would have six people working under there. But again, we had the discussion that we wouldn't have anybody working under any suspended loads. They followed that rule, and no one was hurt on that, what could have been a pretty severe accident for the six workers that were normally in the area.

This one, again, the rates looked good. We have here 55 contractors, 1,100 employees. Sixty-five percent of the employees had received a 10-hour training course. And all contractors had at least one individual that had completed the 30-hour training course on the site.

So, we are seeing the increased education, the increased awareness. And I think it has been said a couple of times today, and the people on site recall taking care of the job themselves. And we service as a resource. And that is what we would like to see.

(Change of slides.)

MR. CONNORS: And I think I covered that with you. Stew just mentioned the mobile work site demonstration projection. And, I guess John mentioned it too. This is a project that is going on. It's a pilot project in Southwestern Ohio. And, when we signed a partnership agreement with the contractors' association down in Cincinnati, we had a little talk about recognition programs and VPP. And that was all they needed to start pushing hard to get some kind of a pilot going to be able to get into the VPP program.

What we did was, rather than set up a whole new program and go through Federal Register Notices and get regulations, we had this mobile work site demonstration project already on the books. And while it's not an exact fit for construction, it could be made to work. And what we have agreed to do is look at five companies over a three-year period and evaluate the ability for us to, number one, bring them into VPP and evaluate one program at either the business center for Turner, which is the Cincinnati office, or the corporate offices, as in the case of Century, and then apply the VPP to multiple sites.

So, this would be truly recognizing the construction industry. If this pilot is successful, it could open up the program to all construction, essentially. There are still some issues that would have to be worked out. There are issues of the application and the amount of paperwork still. There will be issues dealing with the jurisdiction in terms of will it just be related to an area office, a state, or a region, and we'll have to try and wrestle with those before we go forward.

Right now, we have two very good companies in Century Construction, which is a general contractor, as well as Turner, which I am sure everyone is familiar with. We have room for three more. John was a little overly optimistic. We don't have five yet. We've got a couple more in the works, but we would like to get some more good candidates so we can give this a real good evaluation and make our recommendations to Washington on how to move forward with the project.

We have a number of partnerships as you have heard talked about. There are 31 partnerships in the region and 21 of them are in construction. But, I think this is a real success story. I think we are beginning to see the kind of trust build that was mentioned this morning. It is important for us to form these relationships and to work together to solve some problems.

(Change of slides.)

MR. CONNORS: Now, the AGC and the ABC. Virtually, we have the region covered in the six states, which in and of itself was a learning experience. We first went out and did individual agreements, area office by area office. Well, the contractors don't follow area office jurisdictions when they are going out there and work. So, when we had variations in the partnership agreements, some confusion resulted as to what requirements they would follow and which jurisdiction.

We have gone back and tried to make this a little more consistent as they come up to the renewal time. We just signed in Ohio one master agreement for all of the AGC sites. So, they will be dealing with, essentially, one OSHA and see one OSHA program and follow one set of agreements.

Now, there is still going to be some, you know, overlap between the multiple organizations that contractors belong to, such as the Cleveland Contractors' and Employers' Association. Many of them are also AGC members. And there may be slight differences because we are flexible on how we develop these partnerships.

The same with the ABC, we pretty much follow the national templates. In Wisconsin, we started out based on what we had learned, with one statewide partnership, again, for consistency, and those seemed to be serving as well. I think it was important for us to step back and learn that people want to see one OSHA, and we've got to work on that consistency. And our area jurisdictions don't really mean anything to the business community in that sense.

We have a number of other partnerships going from single sites to multiple employer associations. A couple of them, the Construction Employers' Association out of Cleveland, we are beginning to see some results. We have 30 members that have qualified for that program, and the recognition that they are top performers. They cover about 2,000 employees. Of those, 460 have been trained in the 30-hour course, and 565 in the 10-hour course. And the incidence rate for these 30 participating members has dropped by over 32 percent in the couple of years they have been in the program. So, that's the kind of data we like to see coming out of partnerships, where we set the goal and we see these reductions occurring in the programs.

In the Cincinnati area, the allied construction industries, which was a group that was responsible for supporting the mobile work site demonstration program, along with the ABC, we have 24 partners there. They have most of their people trained in the 10-or 30-hour courses. And of the 24, only eight companies have reported any OSHA reportables this year. So, we are optimistic that we are getting some good results.

Other programs we have are made up of a wide variety of groups in different areas. In Toledo, we have a program called the Partnership for Safety and Health Success, and that is made up of the Construction Contractors' Counsel, the Mechanical Contractors' Association, the Toledo Electrical Contractors' Association, as well as the Northwest Ohio Building Trades. So, large groups are coming in and saying we all want to work together. And we actually think there is a lot of merit in those. We could have shut those down and counted a lot of different ones, but I think if we got everybody working together and doing the same thing, we are happy to take them at any size we can get them, and they seem to be working for us. So, we are going to continue to move on those.

We don't have any formal alliances as yet, but we have a whole lot of informal ones, where we are talking to people and seeing whether they want to get together. When we talked about our Road Builder's Program, you'll see an example of an informal relationship that is working very well for us that would fit the alliance mode. Whether they want to sign a piece of paper or not, really doesn't matter that much to me. It's the fact that we are working together. Well, it maybe matters a little more now that John's counting them actually, so I probably will pay attention to that.

(Change of slides.)

MR. CONNORS: In Columbus, this is one that we are real happy with, and we just started out. We had a compliance assistance person who came out of the IBEW, and he went back to his roots and tried to get a partnership going with the National Electric Contractors' Association, EBEW. And you can see from the slide, that what we were looking at and trying to get at were the injuries occurring to electricians on the job, and that many of the injuries that are occurring are related to arc blasts, and not someone directly coming in contact with the line or grabbing a live wire.

That 80 percent of the accidents occurred where the work was being done energized. And what we did was get together. And they worked out an agreement where they would follow the NFPA 70E standard, which basically says that before a person works an energized line, they will go through a checklist and get it approved to do it that way.

The intent is to work de-energized wherever we can, not work electrical lines hot, unless we have really done everything else we can and only as a last resort do that, and then do it with the proper training and personal protective equipment. We developed a checklist. And one of the things we also knew that we had to do was make our compliance officers more familiar with these rules and how to do this kind of work.

So, the first training was given to the first -- was given to 35 compliance officers in the Ohio area, so that they were knowledgeable about the program, and the requirements under this program. And now we're going out and working with the contractors and electricians to do other training, and move forward from there. Six other area offices have contacted us around the country and are interested in looking at this agreement and seeing if they could get something going in their areas. So, we've got very high hopes for that, that it will reduce the number of injuries around the country -- around that area, and particularly, it will spread to the rest of the country.

(Change of slides.)

MR. CONNORS: The next partnership that we are real happy to be dealing with is a pilot that we are running for the country. And it deals with the tower erectors. And, of course, with the cellular networks that are being established, the high-definition television, the number of towers going up in the next number of years is phenomenal. It's in the 100,000 range. This industry, though unfortunately doesn't have many workers, but it does have a very high fatality rate, among the highest that we are aware of.

For about 10,000 workers, maybe 7,000 to 10,000, we are seeing over 20 fatalities a year. It is much higher than the rates in other industries. The industry as a whole, looking at the growth of the National Association of Tower Erectors, the NATE group, it has grown from 50 members to 600 members in five years. The NATE group covers about 90 percent of the employees in the industry. So, we thought this was a good group to partner with and to try and work out some issues.

Now, the first thing that we found that we had to do was work out what standards we would be using with this group, because there aren't a lot of standards that apply directly to this industry. And there were some very difficult issues, issues such as, can you hoist personnel up with the crane, and how far, and when can you do it?

We worked out a series of procedures and got agreement that they would do things like use certified hoists that are certified for personnel lifting. For the first year, we said that in most cases the towers--I think we found about 80 percent of the towers were 200 feet or less--we decided that we would implement the procedures over 200 feet and see how well that went, rather than routinely lifting all of the people in the industry up and down.

The preliminary data we had--by the way, we worked with NIOSH also, and they did a number of surveys across the whole industry for us--came back such that if we use the certified hoisting devices, we took the precautions and they followed the directive that, in fact, we would let them ride the lines up and down; that there were issues involving ergonomics and climbing up in this kind of weather would tire you out, and be just as dangerous as doing something like that, if you took the right precautions.

So, we did put a directive together. We trained our compliance officers, and we started to try and do an outreach and education program along with some inspections. Now, in this region, we've done about 80 inspections in the past two years. Seventy-five percent of them still did involve some kind of fall violations. But, we did see the fatality rate drop from three in the areas where we've got this program, down to none this year to date, and we are hoping that's the beginning of some activity, or positive activity.

The problem with some of these, and I don't know if--from the industry standpoint it's not a problem, it's from our standpoint-- it's hard to find these jobs. If the slab is poured and the preliminary work is done, these jobs go up very quickly, and we don't often run into them. So, we are looking for ways to try and work with the people who approve the towers, or may be the owners of the towers so we get built into the contracts an agreement that they will follow these procedures that we've put in place, and then try and make sure that the people who bid on them are bidding safety and health into the job.

So, we are going to continue to work for that. We've said we would look at this program for at least a year. There are already two other regions that have approached, or been approached, by NATE where they want to expand it. And I would say in the near future, this will probably become a national program.

Right now out of the NATE membership, we have 40 companies that qualified for recognition in the program. And what recognition means is that we've looked at their safety and health program. They are following the procedures and they've reached a certain level of performance.

If we go on site, they will get a streamlined inspection. Again, it's a partnership, so they don't get a complete exemption like under the VPP, but they are moved down the list. And when we do go on site, it is a much different inspection than a full blown inspection that we would do on other sites. This is one that we -- as I said, we have high hopes for, and I think it is in an area that it is really needed.

(Change of slides.)

MR. CONNORS: Just some of the things that we talked before about, some of the things -- one of the things that I did not mention was that we did make this a true regional partnership. We went out to the State Plan States in Indiana, Michigan, and Minnesota and asked them to participate also, so that the entire region would be focusing on this issue and be alert to problems with it. And, fortunately, they all signed right up. And I think that's something we will be doing in the future, is advocating that the states join with us or in some cases, Michigan was actually in this program from the very beginning and were a little bit ahead of us. And we caught up and have decided to work together. So, I think it's a good program.

(Change of slides.)

MR. CONNORS: We talked a little bit about the emphasis programs, and these are enforcement programs. These are the areas that we feel we do need to continue to focus on, for reasons of the fatality rates, and other things, in order to meet the goals we've met under the strategic plan.

We did about 1800 fall inspections last year. We think we've got to continue with this program. Basically, we are treating fall inspections somewhat similar to trenching inspections. If a compliance officer drives by a site and observes somebody working at risk, they are told to stop and then conduct that investigation, looking at the fall hazard.

We have not come up with a good way to target in the construction industry. So, we've told our people--and it appears to be fairly effective--is that when we go out, look at these operations. If you see something, then stop and, in fact, look at it. About 95 percent of our inspections result in serious willful repeat violations under this program.

Again, that's kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. If you see the violation from the roadside, and you go in and get it, you're going to get a fairly high rate. Now, where the others would occur might be employee misconduct issues and things like that, where we didn't issue citations.

Tower erection. I think we have talked about. We are still doing inspections there. And that's really in support of the partnership to keep the visibility on.

I'll talk about road construction in a minute.

Gut rehab is not really a medical term for intestinal problems. That's gutting rehabilitation of buildings in the -- usually, in major cities, but, in particular, in Chicago and Milwaukee, we are looking at that. And here is where we run into just about all of the problems that you can imagine. Fortunately, I have a success story later on that I'll talk about.

But we are seeing a lot of immigrant workers in this area, Hispanic, Polish, Russian. In Chicago, we get kind of a pretty good mix. They tend to disappear when we show up on the site. And so, we are trying some education programs and things like that.

When you go in you find structural issues. You find silica, possibly; if they're tuck pointing or sandblasting, you get lead issues. I mean, virtually the whole gambit of construction activity in this area. And there have been problems with building collapses and other things in the area. So, that one was put together as a result of a series of accidents that occurred.

Inspection scheduling. We are trying some things in Ohio and some other places to try and improve our ability to schedule, so that, number one, we get to a number of work sites, and not just the big sites, because we know that there is a lot of activity at the smaller sites that needs to be looked at, but also to cover the geographical areas. Because sometimes in the counties--when Peoria covers 88 counties in S