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News Release USDL: 97-238
Tuesday, July 15, 1997
Contact: Susan Hall Fleming, (202) 219-8151

Workers and employers who want training to help them recognize and minimize scaffold hazards can now get it from 12 Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Training Institute Education Centers and various United Brotherhood of Carpenters (UBC) training sites around the country.

The new scaffold user course is a one-day training program specially designed to satisfy the training requirements of OSHA's new scaffold standard, which became effective Nov. 29, 1996. It covers such risks as falls, falling objects, electrical hazards and access to and from the scaffold. The course also addresses proper scaffold use, material handling, maximum loads for scaffolds and other OSHA requirements. Before the new standard took effect, more than 9,500 workers were injured and 80 workers killed annually in scaffold mishaps.

The course was developed by the Scaffold Training Partnership, a joint venture of the OSHA Training Institute (Des Plaines, Ill.), the OSHA Directorate of Construction, the UBC Apprenticeship and Training Fund and the UBC Health and Safety Fund. Both UBC groups are union-management organizations associated with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. The U.S. Department of Energy also participated in the partnership and assisted in the development of the course.

"We are delighted to be able to extend this course to many more construction workers through our education centers and UBC training sites," said Gregory R. Watchman, acting assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health. "By working with labor and management partners, we have created a course that will help both employers and workers work more safely on scaffolds and realize the promise of the new standard in reducing deaths and injuries."

G. Ray Medlin, Jr., executive director of the UBC Health & Safety Fund of North America, said, "This course, developed jointly by our staff and OSHA, shows what great things can be accomplished by government and the private sector working together for a common good. We are very pleased with the partnership we have been able to forge with OSHA on this important safety issue. We hope that others in government, management and labor will join us."

Staff from the OSHA Training Institute, the two Carpenters funds and the Department of Energy worked closely together to develop the program for workers who use scaffolds to perform construction work. OSHA's scaffolding standards, issued Aug. 30, 1996, are expected to prevent about 4,500 injuries and 50 deaths each year among the 2.3 million U.S. construction workers who work on scaffolds frequently.

The Carpenters plan to offer the training at 250 sites. Other union-management groups also planning to train workers include:

• The International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craft Workers,

• The International Association of Heat & Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers,

• The National Training Fund of the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Industry,

• The MOST program affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers and the National Association of Construction Boilermaker Employers,

• The Painters and Allied Trades Labor Management Cooperation Fund, and

• The Laborers Health & Safety Fund of North America.