e-newsletter of the
Construction Industry Coalition Council
PO Box 4163
McLean VA 22103-4163
703-734-2397 Fax 703-734-2908
August 2005
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Summary of Construction Industry Coalition Council Meeting August 5, 2005
Location: The Surety Association of America, 1101 Connecticut Ave.
NW, Suite 800, Washington DC (Metro - Red Line Farragut North)
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
The Owner’s Role in Construction Safety: The Compelling Economic Realities Beyond the Moral Obligation
Every day 1,300 construction workers go home injured or ill—and three don’t go home at all. The industry employs seven percent of the U.S. workforce, yet it accounts for 20 percent of the all job-related fatalities. Seventy-five percent of fatalities are laborers most of whom perished in trenches. Safety needs to go from being a priority to being a value—priorities change; values don’t. Society and more specifically, owners bear the economic costs for every occupational injury, illness, and death on their projects—directly and indirectly. Owners of all types and sizes must be committed to reducing costly interruptions caused by contractors with poor safety performance and sub-standard or non-existent safety programs. Ninety percent of all construction companies employ less than twenty workers; the great majority has no formal job safety programs in place. These are small companies with limited resources. It is critically important for all owners—not just the Fortune 500 corporations, to lead by example and hire contractors that are committed to providing a safe and productive job site to their workers and for their clients.
Speaker: Michael A. Youngblut, Vice President, Hess Egan Hagerty &
L’Hommedieu,
MYoungblut@hessegan.com
Differing Expectations Regarding Site Safety Roles
The federal OSHA standards and documents issued by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) all differ significantly in the roles they assume owners, designers and contractors will play regarding site safety. AIA, AGC, and ASCE stress safety as a fundamental responsibility of general contractors while OSHA standards focus on the responsibility to the employers. ASCE, which entered into a formal alliance with OSHA in 2003, has a formal policy and an unofficial initiative to encourage design professionals to consider the safety of construction workers during the design stage. This initiative is being pursued in collaboration with several national contractor organizations and construction trades organizations. For information on ASCE’s construction site safety policy and its alliance with OSHA, go to
http://www.mmtmagazine.org/page/?id=48.
Speaker: Professor T. Michael Toole, P.E., Bucknell University,
ttoole@bucknell.edu.
ANSI/ASSE 10.34-2001 Standard
OSHA and their state program equivalents focus only on the employer/employee relationship. A recently developed ANSI standard takes construction safety a step further and talks to safety and health of the public. This presentation focuses on the contractor's responsibility to protect the public on and around their construction sites. It provides a brief overview of the ANSI/ASSE 10.34-2001 standard.
Speaker: F. Robb Altenburg, Construction Safety Specialist, Smithsonian Institution, 202-275-0740,
AltenburgR@si.edu