OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION
THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON CONSTRUCTION SAFETY AND
HEALTH (ACCSH)
Frances Perkins Building
Room N3437 A-D
Department of Labor
200 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C.
Friday, March 16, 2001
P R E S E N T
Employee Representative:
Stephen D. Cooper, Executive Director
International Association of Bridge,
Structural & Ornamental Iron Workers
Suite 400
1750 New York Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20006
Larry A. Edginton
Director of Safety and Health
International Union of Operating Engineers
1125 17th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036
Robert Krul
Director of Safety and Health
United Union Roofers
Waterproofers & Allied Workers
1160 L Street, N.W.
Suite 800
Washington, D.C. 20036
Manuel Mederos
Director, Safety and Health Department
International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers
1125 15th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005
William C. Rhoten
Director, Safety and Health Department
United Association of Journeymen &
Pipefitting Industry
of the United States & Canada
901 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
Employer Representative:
James Ahern
President
Ahern & Associates, Inc.
5725 Kanawha Turnpike
South Charleston, West Virginia 25309
Stewart Burkhammer
Vice President & Manager of Safety
And Health Services
Bechtel Corporation
5275 Westview Drive
Frederick, Maryland 21703-8306
Felipe Devora
Safety Director
Fretz Construction Company
P.O. Box 266784
Houston, Texas 77207-6784
Dan Murphy
Vice President Risk Control
St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance
385 Washington Street
St. Paul, Minnesota 55102
Owen Smith
President
Anzalone & Associates
12700 Foothill Boulevard
Sylmar, California 91324
State Representative:
Kevin Beauregard
Assistant Deputy Commissioner
Director of the Division of
Occupational Safety and Health
North Carolina Department of Labor
4 West Edenton Street
Raleigh, North Carolina 27601
Public Representative:
Thomas A. Broderick
Executive Director
Construction Safety Council
4100 Madison Street
Hillside, Illinois 60612
Jane F. Williams
President
A-Z Safety Resources
4901 E. Kathleen Road
Scottsdale, Arizona 85254
Federal Representative:
Marie Haring Sweeney, Ph.D.
Chief, Document Development Branch
Education and Information Division
National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health
4676 Columbia Parkway
Mailstop C-32
Cincinnati, Ohio 45226
Designated Federal Official:
Bruce Swanson
Director
Directorate of Construction
200 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Room N-3468
Washington, D.C. 20210
Committee Contacts:
Robert Biersner, Esquire
U.S. Department of Labor
Also Present:
Keith Goddard
Assistant Commissioner, Maryland
Mr. Davis Layne
Acting Assistant Secretary
U.S. Department of Labor
Ms. Veneta Chatmon
Program Specialist
Office of Public Affairs
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
MR. KRUL: I know that many of you
planned on this being a national holiday and have
to work on the even of St. Patrick's Day, but we do
have an agenda that will go to noon time. We hope
to adjourn the meeting by noon. The Secretary will be here this morning
to address us. Mr. Davis and Mr. Swanson have gone
down to her office, and I suspect she'll be here
around 9:30ish. When she comes in we'll try to
finish whatever business is on the table and
recognize the Secretary and have her address us. One announcement on the -- we're making a
change on one of the workgroups. We're going to
have Tom Broderick switch or replace Mr. Jim Ahern
on the -- we're saying English as a Second Language
Workgroup. We will change the name of that
workgroup, I believe. But Tom Broderick will be
assisting Marie and Felipe on that workgroup. Keith Goddard, are you here, sir?
MR. GODDARD: Yes.
MR. KRUL: Okay. Before I bring Keith
up, Keith was going to address us in a public
comment period yesterday. He could not make it. And I say again to those in the audience
who would like to make any public comment, if you
would submit your name, your affiliation and any
subject that you wish to address and see that the
Chairman gets it and we'll make a provision for
time for public comment at the end. Keith is with the Maryland Secretary of
Labor, Mr. O'Connor, who's a member of this
committee's, office. And yesterday he had
requested five to ten minutes in the public comment
period to -- and I hope I get this acronym right --
OSHPA?
MR. GODDARD: OSHPA.
MR. KRUL: It's the Occupational Safety
and Health State Plan Association. Why don't you
come up, Keith? Grab a microphone so we can hear
you. And please state your name and your
affiliation for the record.
MR. GODDARD: Okay. Thank you for the
opportunity to address the group. My name is Keith
Goddard. And I'm sort of sitting in for one of
your new members, John O'Connor, who's my boss. I
want to apologize for John's absence. We're in a
critical time with our legislator being in session
and he, as Secretary of Labor, he's fiercely
guarding his budget. Extremely important matters
before the General Assembly this year. I'm the Assistant Commissioner for the
Maryland Occupational Safety and Health Program, so
I administer that program. But I'm here to -- I
asked for a few minutes to address the group on
behalf of the 24 state plan state the Occupational
Safety and Health State Plan Association, which I
serve on as chair for that association. That is a very active group that's
controlled and governed by laws on a set of elected
officers. And just sitting in here yesterday
listening to a lot of your conversation what I'd
like to do is share some of the significant
differences that state plan states operate under as
far as the differences between federal, OSHA, and
state plan states. And for your newer members,
sort of share some of the issues that are on the
table before OSHPA and give you some sense and
encourage you to engage OSHPA in some of the, say
the Wansantee (ph) committee. Every single committee that you
mentioned, the crane committee yesterday, we
discuss those at our meetings and we have a lot of
states that are actively pursuing agendas with
gathering fatality statistics, dealing with cranes,
almost every (unclear). Kevin Beauregard's representing OSHPA.
His position here is he's your contact point. So
he's not just here from North Carolina, he brings
committee reports back to our meeting, and we'll
have a meeting in June. But you talked about, yesterday, about
engaging other entities. I think I'd like to
encourage you to engage OSHPA in some of your
discussions as far as your committee work is
concerned. For the information of the newer members,
I'm sure most of you -- quite a few of you operate
in state plan states. I think there's a member
over there from Arizona. So we have quite a bit
going on where we have a representative from
Arizona right now sitting with BLS on the C4 Codes
Revision, which is going on right now. They're
sort of parallel with your 170 committee. But
there's an individual in the BLS program in Arizona
that's going to represent OSHPA. So we are family. There are a lot of
issues going on that I think it would behoove to
sort of talk and at least share issues on. Just for the new members, I'd like you to
know that state plan states operate under statutory
authority in states. State law is a little bit
different. We have different programs on federal
OSHA. And this committee needs to be aware that
states are not just laboratories for
experimentation. But we have Washington State with an
ergonomics standard now that's been in place. It's
being challenged in the legislature right now. We
have one in California. And we have issues that
might come through the federal pipeline where we
have a six monded (sp) option period. But we do
amend federal regulations and standards as they
come through to the state plan states. State plan states do 40 percent plus of
the total national inspections, so it's not an
entity that you want to ignore if you want to
capture 170. I'll come back to the 170, I'm sorry.
I'm not targeting your committee but it's not a
group that you want to ignore if you want to
capture the right information. We do do things differently. An example,
a very current example is the OSHA 1 form where
state plan states have historically been put in a
check box about employee interviews and employee
walk-arounds. That has not been historically a
requirement on the federal 1 form, the OSHA 1 form. So state plan states, I would sort of be
bias in saying that we are the leading edge. A lot
of what we do sometimes we are not burdened by a
lot of the federal requirements for rulemaking.
And so one of the things that we're looking at that
might be -- that would be of interest to this group
also would be the adoption of SNRAC. You know, there are few states that
automatically adopt federal standards. It's
written in their law that they adopt federal
standards verbatim when it happens. Most of us
have to go through a hearing process. And many of
amend those standards to be more stringent, and
sometimes to be more effective. But we go through
a hearing process that's important. So it's not --
and you're talking about half of the country doing
things differently. So I just want to introduce us and
introduce Kevin Beauregard as not just -- he's not
North Carolina on this committee, he's representing
OSHPA. So any questions that you have to him,
we've tasked Kevin with bringing back to OSHPA the
reports that you discuss at this meeting. So
please feel free to engage him on our behalf. And I'm offering you, as Chair of OSHPA,
the opportunity to invite us if you want at any
point to address the group on any specific issue
that you might have. There are multiple issues out
there from a state plan state perspective that are
different than federal OSHA. And when we meet in
OSHPA we engage for OSHA to discuss some of these
issues and differences because we all have one
common agenda, which is protecting workers and
doing it in a most effective way. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. KRUL: Thank you, Keith. Questions? Owen and then Steve and Jane.
MR. SMITH: Speaking now not as a member
of this committee but as a member of let's say the
organized sector of the construction industry, we
have a lot of heartburn with the way the
recognition of these certificates, you know. We
spend millions of dollars each year training our
people to get a certificate. But if we cross a
state line you guys say, "No. You've got to get
our certificate." And all you really do is give a
test for what we've already done and charge us $100
or $75 or whatever it is. And it's especially true
for lead and asbestos and things of that nature. And from my point of view, and my people,
and there's a lot of us, we feel that it's more a
revenue enhancing scheme that really has nothing to
do with safety, because we've already done our
training. We have a certificate. We feel that if
a guy takes a test, takes the training, takes the
test, it ought to be good anywhere. We don't care what the -- we don't care
what the regulation or what the rules are, just
give us a standard, we'll train for it. But we
don't want this other rigmarole. And since you're talking to all those
guys, tell them that it's a big concern for us.
MR. GODDARD: Those two issues that you
bring up are sensitive to me in Maryland as an
administrative operand. Because lead in
construction standard was way ahead of any federal
OSHA standard or guidelines that came out, as well
as our confined space. But what I want to share with you is that
those two issues, lead and asbestos, are interwoven
into our Maryland Department of Environment
Regulations. So what you find with lead and asbestos,
and we have seen some real challenges in terms of
smaller contractors, lead abatement contractors,
people who are dealing masonry pointing and
resurfacing, refurbishing old buildings, is an
extreme challenge for us because of the regulatory
mandates that the environmental department and EPA
impose in those two areas for lead abatement and
treating asbestos. And a lot of these smaller contractors,
beyond the fee for the testing, I think there's a
burden of what does it cost you to capture that
water blast material, put it in drums, label the
drums. This is a discussion that I'm having with
the small contractors that do that abatement in our
state.
MR. KRUL: Can I interrupt for a second?
MR. GODDARD: Sure.
MR. KRUL: Let me try to pinpoint where
he's going, and its reciprocity.
MR. GODDARD: Yeah, yeah.
MR. KRUL: And it's frustrating for
contractors. This area is probably the best
example; a contractor in Maryland, Virginia, or the
District of Columbia has to go through three
certification processes for both lead and asbestos.
So that's six licenses that an individual has to
get just in this area, as an example. That if a
contractor is paying for that training he has to do
that six times every time somebody goes in. And I think the question Owen is asking,
to you and to Kevin, is that -- or is it Keith?
MR. GODDARD: I'm Keith.
MR. KRUL: You're Keith, he's Kevin. Is that you when you guys get to your
next meeting, if the word reciprocity -- if there's
a standard that says here's what you have to learn
in order to be licensed to remove asbestos or lead,
or any hazardous substance where there's a
licensing requirement, why does each state, other
than -- and we haven't had an answer other than
it's a revenue generator -- why does each state not
recognize another state when the training is
exactly the same? There ought to be reciprocity so
that we don't have that. And I'm taking up too much time here, but
that's the point I think Owen's trying to get to. Steven and Jane.
MR. COOPER: Owen, this advisory
committee has every opportunity and is required, to
advise OSHA. There's a state and federal program
office in this building that governs state -- the
24 state plans. The state plans are funded half
and half normally, 50 percent by the federal dollar
from this building and 50 percent by the state
dollar. This board can take any action it would
like to advise the state and federal program people
here, to advise the states. And all these state
plans meet, I don't know how often, quarterly at
least. And a person -- if the chair or Mr. Swanson
or whoever or Davis Layne -- could very easily have
a representatives from this committee or through
some of the department here address that particular
program that -- which is -- and you're absolutely
correct -- which needs to be looked at very heavily
because of duplication. I love that word
"reciprocity" too. But that really should be done
through this committee, your problem.
MR. SMITH: Thank you.
MR. KRUL: Owen, you've already won.
Steve agrees with you.
MR. GODDARD: Mr. Chair?
MR. COOPER: You made a very good point
in that we all forget, all of us do forget that
there's 24, I think it's 24 state plans, which is
almost half of the country. Right? And they do a
lot of business, and we're always talking about
federal OSHA and that's one of the best points I
think you made. And the point I'd like to make. I know
John O'Connor. And you tell him that Steve Cooper
says that I understand that he had to watch the
Maryland game yesterday.
MR. KRUL: Keith, did you want to respond
to something?
MR. GODDARD: I just wanted to make a
point to Mr. Smith here that I'm going to put that
on the agenda for discussion at our next meeting. But the point I was making is that a lot
of these licenses are interwoven with environmental
departments and Maryland Home Improvement, which I
have no jurisdiction over, which no state
occupational safety and health program has the
jurisdiction over to manipulate. But it certainly
is an issue, a big part of the discussion on the
financial burden on contractors. It wasn't the licensing so much. It's a
current issue that we have with some of these
smaller contractors. It's a burden of processing,
the storage, disposal requirements of huge volumes
always, or maintaining medical surveillance
programs. A lot of these little contractors that
are doing lead abatement in historic houses that
have high profile jobs have paint from the 1700s
that's packed with lead and have employees with --
they don't have lead medical surveillance programs.
And we're in there trying to provide compliance
assistance to them, and it's a huge financial
burden. But I hear your point and we're going to
put it on the agenda. And maybe we can come back
through Kevin to say to you here's where -- one of
the real challenges that we have in OSHPA is that
you're dealing with 24 different statutory
authorities that have different concepts, different
stakeholders in each state. West of the
Mississippi is different. And then you have
California.
(Laughter)
MR. KRUL: That was a good one in 50 shot
there, Keith.
MR. GODDARD: But I'm encouraging this
committee, I'm available. If you want I'm offering
you to put us on the agenda if there's an issue
that you'd like. We're going to put this on the
agenda; we just did for our next meeting. We meet
three times a year and we have more meetings
scheduled before those meetings. We're very
active. And I just thank you for the few minutes
to introduce OSHPA to you.
MR. KRUL: We have a couple questions.
Jane and then Kevin.
MR. GODDARD: First of all, sir, I really
appreciate your comments. We have discussed state
plan concerns within the 170 group as recent as
this week. I totally will commit to you, based on
my schedule, if you would let me know at any point
in time those meetings would come with the
discussion of 170 I would be more than willing to
share with you our progress to date and where we're
going and what our intents and hopes are for the
success of that form. So I certainly welcome that
information and will participate as best I can.
And I will do so, as I understand from your
comment. It would be best for me to go through Mr.
Beauregard. And I'll make sure he has all my
access numbers so he can contact me. Thank you.
MR. GODDARD: You're welcome.
MR. KRUL: Kevin.
MR. BEAUREGARD: I just wanted to quickly
kind of follow up on what Keith said. When Owen
was talking about reciprocal agreements, we
certainly would be interested in looking at that.
But I can't speak for the other states but North
Carolina; all those certificates are administered
out of the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources. And if this group wants to get some
type of reciprocal agreement you're going to have
to bring them to the table. And not only North
Carolina's (unclear) but you're going to have to
bring all 26 states. They're all housed in different areas,
like Maryland's housed in a different area. And
then you have to bring probably the federal
Department of Environment and EPA into it because
they all, like you were saying, OSHA gets funded
from feds. Well those programs get funded from
federal EPA and federal Department of Environment. So I think something can be worked out.
But it's a little bit more complicated when you're
dealing with 26 state plan states. And I think the
concern of most states, the same with OSHA, would
be are the requirements that are out there -- some
states have more stringent requirements. And the
state that has more stringent requirements is
probably less likely to beg off. And North Carolina would be more than
happy if everybody met North Carolina requirements
to reciprocate that agreement or license. But if
there was another state out there that had less
stringent requirements that's where you're going to
run into some problems, I think.
MR. KRUL: Owen.
MR. SMITH: This problem occurred because
I had a call from the Brotherhood, I think it's New
York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, some bridges.
And these guys were getting hit with these
certificates from each one. I started with OSHA. OSHA and EPA have
an agreement. And Jim Boom was kind enough to send
me a copy of it so that I could give it to my
people. Because I was so irritated that next month
when our legislative people hit the Hill. If
they're welcome we're going to see if we couldn't
get one. I've got to tell you, I feel that our
pockets are being picked.
MR. GODDARD: You know, I just want to
say that those states, those three states you used
as an example, is interesting because they're all
essentially federal states. You know, New York state plan is just
public sector. A brand new member to OSHPA, New
Jersey, is just public sector. And Pennsylvania is
public sector. So all the federal private
employers that would be involved in those three
states under federal OSHA jurisdiction. So it's
just -- I just need to tell you that you have be
aware of all these intricacies because I would have
no jurisdiction to bring that out -- it'll be a
federal OSHA issue. That's not a bureaucratic dodge, you
know, to escape the conversation, because it
happens in Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. as well,
which is a sort of split jurisdictional metro area.
But that's interesting, because those three states
should be able to. But I still think it's not under the OSHA
jurisdiction only. You get the Departments of
Environment involved and that's a complicating
factor.
MR. KRUL: Keith, we want to thank you.
MR. GODDARD: Okay.
MR. KRUL: You generated some
conversation here that will cause the Chairman to
take some action for another workgroup here. We
appreciate you coming. And I give you a small apology for not
paying too much attention, even though I live up
that way, to the traffic problem that you couldn't
stay till the end of the meeting yesterday. So my
-- the Chairman's apologies to you. I understand
how plugged the BW Parkway gets. Thank you for
coming.
MR. GODDARD: Okay. Thank you very much.
MR. KRUL: I'd like to make a suggestion
or make appointments. I think this subject matter
is a little bit complicated right now. The lead
issue is an EPA issue, but it's being -- there's an
attempt to toss it off completely to OSHA. And I
don't know if we should get too involved in that. But I think it would be worthwhile to
have a workgroup that would look at the state plan,
the requirements for licensing, and make some
recommendations back to OSHA. And Owen, Kevin, and Steve, if you would
serve on that workgroup I think it would be
beneficial?
MR. SWANSON: Three more volunteers,
right?
MR. KRUL: Three more volunteers.
MR. SWANSON: I'm here to announce a
coup. I was going to bring back the Secretary.
MR. KRUL: And?
MR. SWANSON: I have an Assistant
Secretary instead. And this is my boss, the Acting
Assistant Secretary for OSHA, Davis Layne. And he
was going to make a few comments anyhow. And we'll
bring you up to speed on why I am sans Secretary
here. Okay?
MR. LAYNE: Well, thank you, Mr. Swanson
and Mr. Chairman. I'm Davis Layne, currently the Acting
Assistant Secretary for the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration. And my day job is the
Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration. I must say, Stewart, the term "acting"
these days means much more to me than it used to.
(Laughter)
MR. LAYNE: Yes, I appreciate that
"acting" part. Let me bring you up to speed with the
Secretary. Mr. Swanson and I just came from her
office. She is -- an issue has come up that she
has to deal with at this time. However, she's quite a lady. She says,
"Bring them down." And she has extended an
invitation to the committee. If you would be
willing to come to her office for an informal
meeting at 11:30 when you adjourn, if that would be
acceptable to the committee.
MR. KRUL: I think that's a very gracious
invitation.
MR. LAYNE: I thought you all may be
willing to accept that invitation.
MR. SWANSON: And Steve can't make it.
(Laughter)
MR. KRUL: Well then let me go through
the exercise, at least for your benefit, of
introducing myself and especially the newer members
of this committee to you as the Acting Assistant
Secretary.
MR. LAYNE: Thank you, sir.
MR. KRUL: I am Bob Krul with the Roofers
International and Chairman of this committee.
MR. BIERSNER: Bob Biersner, advising
attorney.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Stu Burkhammer.
MR. EDGINTON: Larry Edginton, Operating
Engineer.
MR. SMITH: Owen Smith, Painters.
MS. WILLIAMS: Jane Williams.
MR. MURPHY: Dan Murphy.
MR. SWANSON: Dan, why don't you take a
couple minutes -- the new members, if you'd be so
kind. Just a couple minutes and give Davis a feel
for who you are and why you're here. You, in
particular.
MR. MURPHY: Certainly.
MR. LAYNE: This is not part of our new
targeting program.
MR. MURPHY: My name is Dan Murphy. A
little bit about my background. Quite a number of
years ago I got a master's degree in this stuff
called safety and entered into the work environment
in the mining industry. And from there I went to
the power plants. And from the power plants I
worked for one of the larger contractors in the
southwest. And that was up until about 12 years ago.
And then I went to work for a company by the name
of St. Paul Companies out of Minneapolis, St. Paul.
And my job there is to help the numerous
contractors that we provide insurance products to
deal with the element of risk.
MR. LAYNE: Okay. Well welcome, Dan.
MR. MURPHY: Thank you.
MR. AHERN: My name is Jim Ahern. I'm a
Heavy Highway Contractor from Charleston, West
Virginia. The Heavy Highway Industry represented by
the American Road and Transportation Builders
Association is always concerned about the dual
effort of morality and cost as it relates to safety
and accidents. With the T21 funding expanding to
spending in highway construction by approximately
40 percent during the current six-year window,
there will be many, many more man-hours spent out
on the highways. And we're concerned about
reducing the frequency and the absolute numbers of
accidents and not be paralleling the increase in
funding. And that's why I'm here, to represent the
highway industry to achieve that goal.
MR. LAYNE: Well, thank you. Welcome,
Jim.
MR. BEAUREGARD: I'm Kevin Beauregard.
I've known Davis for a long time. I can't get away
from him. He used to be the Region 4 Regional
Administrator, so I knew him back then. He's a
great guy --
MR. LAYNE: Why, thank you, Kevin.
MR. BEAUREGARD: -- and I look forward to
working with you.
MR. LAYNE: I appreciate that. I've
enjoyed it as well.
MR. RHOTEN: Good morning. I'm Bill
Rhoten with the Plumbers and Pipefitters
International.
MR. MADEROS: Good morning. I'm Manny
Maderos. I'm the Director of Safety and Health for
the International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers. I started my career in California 39
years ago working for a utility company in
construction and then went to work for the local
union. I started getting involved with outside
line contractors. Came back to Washington, D.C.,
as an international representative in our
international headquarters. I became a Director of
Safety and Health a little over five years ago. I'm involved with the National Safety
Council and the Labor Construction Utility
Divisions. I'm on several ANSI standards
committees and ASTM. As I told the committee yesterday, our
organization got started over 110 years ago when
one out of every two electrical workers were being
killed on the job. And that we look forward to
improving the conditions of our member's lives.
MR. LAYNE: Well, thank you. Welcome,
Manny.
DR. SWEENEY: I'm Marie Haring Sweeney
from NIOSH. Thank you for coming.
MR. DEVORA: Felipe Devora, Fretz
Construction Company, Houston.
MR. BRODERICK: My name is Tom Broderick.
I'm the Executive Director of two non-profit
organizations: the Chicago Lane Construction
Safety Council and the Construction Safety Council. I was a construction worker for many
years, since the late '60s. In the late '70s got
into occupational safety and health in the
construction arena. I went back to school and got
a graduate degree from the same alma mater as Dan
Murphy; several years later, as a matter of fact. And it's a distinct honor on the part of
my organization, and for me personally, to serve on
this committee.
MR. LAYNE: Well, welcome.
MR. KRUL: And the Chairman took just the
opposite road that Mr. Broderick took. I went to
school and then dropped out and joined the Local 74
30 years ago. But served in several capacities,
Chairman of the Building Construction Trades
Department on ANSI A10 A14 committees. I also
served for the Division of the National Erectors
Association and National Maintenance Agreement
Policy Committee and co-chair on their Safety and
Health Committee. So it's something for my years in the
trade both working at the International and at the
Local union level, especially as an Apprentice
Instructor Coordinator of Safety and Health has
been very near and dear. And I appreciate serving not only on this
committee but the honor of being the Chairman as
well.
MR. LAYNE: Very well. Thank you. Welcome all of you. I would also like to
thank our members who have been with us for a while
for the hard work that all of you have done, many
of you over the years, serving on the committee.
You provide a very valuable guidance and assistance
to the agency. Those of you that are new to the
committee, I want to thank you for your willingness
to participate. I mean it is not an easy thing to
do. I know there are often times conflicting
priorities back home. But all of you play a very,
very important role in assisting the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration in improving the
workplace for the construction industry. Also, I want to thank you in advance, the
new members, for the hard work that's coming your
way. I assure you Mr. Swanson is not hesitant to
call upon the committee and the various
subcommittees of ACCSH. I can assure you, as long as my tenure is
here, whether it's one day, one month, one week,
one year, or whatever it is, you will continue to
receive my support. And many of you I've gotten to
know over the years I consider as friends. So I
want to thank you for that. Right now we are in a period of
transition with the agency. I've had several
opportunities to meet with the Secretary to talk to
about occupational safety and health. She has
expressed to me, expressed publicly in her comments
concerning President Bush's budget in her welcoming
ceremony here in the Department of Labor where she
addressed the DOL employees as a group, she has
assured us of her commitment to workplace safety
and health along with the other responsibilities
she has in the Labor Department. My experiences on a personal level with
her and her team that she's putting together have
been very positive. They're eager to learn about
workplace safety and health issues. And to the
person they have been very, very interested in
focusing -- that the Department's resources are
focused on improving workplace safety and health. So I'm very, very pleased by her public
support of the agency. Right now where we'll be going in the
future I'm just not real sure in terms of the
leadership of the Agency, the Assistant Secretary's
position is currently vacant. And that will be a
Presidential appointee that is confirmed by the
Senate. Until that time I'm charged with the
responsibility to carry on. And I will do my best
to serve you well. But I really, really want to
thank the committee for your support. And you
know, and some of you I know come from California,
Texas, and it's hard for you to get in. And
there's a lot of work that goes on in the
subcommittees that you put into helping us. And my
real, real purpose here today is to say thank you
very much for your hard work. I will come back up around a few minutes
after 11:00. Maybe we can arrange a photo op as
well, if you all would be willing. I don't know.
I haven't said a word to her. I don't know the
answer to that, okay? But I just want to give you
a heads up. I don't know if we can pull that off.
But if you'd be willing, that would be nice. Any issues, Mr. Chairman? Questions?
MR. KRUL: Steven.
MR. LAYNE: Mr. Cooper.
MR. COOPER: We didn't hear your
qualifications.
(Laughter)
MR. LAYNE: How about, the only one left.
(Laughter)
MR. COOPER: I can tell you, Davis, it's
a pleasure to be working over these past few years
with Davis. But he came up, Mr. Chairman, the same
way you did, as a CSHO, which was nice to have
someone who did that work. Knowledge is acquired
in the field of endeavor, sir, and area director
and regional administrator. And my only question to you this morning
is I don't know how you -- what you did to have to
be Acting, because that's a lot of extra work, and
no more money. Those SES's, you know, are all
about the same; three or four levels and then
you're done.
MR. LAYNE: Hey, this is one of my
favorite people right here.
MR. COOPER: But you do have a lot of
stroke. And any time any of these department
heads, you know, get a little funny with you --
although you're just acting -- you can IGA them out
to any place you want to.
MR. LAYNE: Where should I start?
(Laughter)
MR. COOPER: Well, I'll tell you this
just for fun this morning. Bruce has -- either
he's got us trained or we have him trained. But
the Directorate is working very closely with us,
and we do appreciate it.
MR. LAYNE: Well, thank you very much.
MR. COOPER: And I hope you don't have to
be acting for very long.
MR. LAYNE: I thank you, Mr. Cooper. I
share your hopes.
(Laughter)
MR. KRUL: Anyone else? Owen?
MR. SMITH: I'd like to say that I'm
really pleased to be a part of this committee.
It's been a very interesting few years that I've
been here and I look forward to my continued
service. What I'd really like to say is that when
I first came I had one opinion of OSHA and its
people. And I must say that I have been very much
impressed by the caliber of people working for the
government, the dedication of all of them, and the
cooperation that I've gotten. When I've needed
something for people in the field I just call and
ask them for it and they send it right off. And
they seem to be on top of everything and are much
more sensitive than I had ever anticipated. It gives me great joy when go out and
speak to my people -- and I see a lot of them, let
me tell you -- that I can tell them what my opinion
of the job that you guys are doing. And I
congratulate you and I really want to make OSHA
much more user friendly. And I'm dedicated to it.
And thanks a lot.
MR. LAYNE: Well, thank you, Owen. I
really, really appreciate it.
MR. SWANSON: If you feel the urge you
can do that again at 11:30, Owen.
(Laughter)
MR. KRUL: Stu Burkhammer.
MR. LAYNE: And will share with you that
the Secretary in my meetings with her and her
transition staff have been very, very complimentary
as well of the OSHA people. And she has experience
in the federal government before and I think values
the civil servant. And I've been very, very
pleased with that.
MR. KRUL: Stu?
MR. BURKHAMMER: You know, Davis, you can
look at Acting as a glass half empty or a glass
half full. It's half full because you get to work
with a lot of talented people --
MR. LAYNE: That's true.
MR. BURKHAMMER: -- and a lot of class
acts. And it's half empty because you get to use a
lot of Excedrin bottles along the way.
MR. LAYNE: Stewart, I took an approach.
A number of people asked me. They said, "Well, are
you going to bring down an Acting Deputy?" -- a
number of the senior managers in the agency. And I said, "No, I'm not. You are all my
Acting Deputies." So that's the way I feel. It
makes my job much, much easier. I have a lot of
internal support. Thank you.
MR. KRUL: Well, Davis, we thank you for
coming down and sharing those remarks.
MR. LAYNE: All right.
MR. KRUL: I'd like to say, as well, that
even though the term "acting" is attached to it,
this gentlemen here who -- on my left, Mr.
Burkhammer -- who did such a great job as the
Acting Chairman of ACCSH, and the gentleman to my
right, I do have to say we've made a couple
references, historical references over the last day
regarding ACCSH, its goal and its ability to work
within the agency to do the advisory and counseling
job that it was intended to do. And I can say that
Mr. Burkhammer and Mr. Swanson have done yeoman's
jobs of getting this committee focused back on what
its intention and purpose was. My dealings with Bruce over the years
have taught me that he's a straight shooter. He
doesn't dance people around.
MR. LAYNE: Right.
MR. KRUL: Just good. Because if you ask
my wife, I'm a terrible dancer. And I like that. I just like when
somebody tells you what can and can't be done and
there's no fluff attached to it. And I think
that's the way this committee is destined to
continue to function with the spirit of cooperation
from labor, management, and the public sector. And we thank you for the opportunity to
serve. And we thank you for the gracious
invitation to come see the Secretary.
MR. LAYNE: Maybe, Mr. Swanson, it would
be more appropriate just to, after you adjourn, to
come down to the Assistant Secretary's office. And
we would leave collectively down there. Would that
be all right?
MR. SWANSON: Fine.
MR. LAYNE: Okay. Mr. Chairman, thank
you very much.
MR. KRUL: Thank you very much, Davis.
MR. LAYNE: Committee members, thank you.
It was nice to see all of you again.
MR. KRUL: Thanks for coming. Oh (unclear) and Kelly Green, are you
ready to give your report on the procedures and
guidelines for the committee?
MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I would like to compliment the committee
on all the St. Patty's attire in recognition of
this Irish gal. Mr. Chairman, we began the Advisory
Committee guidelines almost two years ago. It
became apparent at our meeting, as we were re-chartered, if you will, that each of us had our own
ideas as to what we were to be doing and how it was
to be accomplished. But none of us truly, except
some of the folks that had been here for a while,
had a true understanding of what the criteria was
for us to be responding within our limitations
and/or abilities. So what we did, after making a few
blunders, it was determined that we really should
go back to what our charge was and explain to all
of our members what we should be doing in response
to those requirements placed upon us, fulfill these
functions. So myself and Mr. Cooper and Mr. Swanson
and Mr. Burkhammer started meeting and having
various dialogues as to what we were doing within
our workgroups, what the workgroups could and could
not do, and the products, how they would be
delivered from the workgroup and the decorum of all
of our meetings what should and should not occur. As a result of that is the document in
front of you, which went through six revisions.
And that really was necessary to bring in all the
do's and don'ts and understandings that we had to
be responsive to. At our last meeting it truly was our
final revision. And what you have in front of you
was adopted with one opened idol (ph). In the back
of the document you will see reference to the
language of 29CFR 1912. And we had several
discussions at the last meeting regarding quorum. So it was determined by the committee
that I would go back into the document and
reference the specific items of 1912 that refer to
our task, and put that reference directly in the
document so that no future conversations of
revising would come forth and it would be very
clear where our charge had come from. That's what
I have done. I don't think -- I'm sure everyone read
these. I will just go down some key issues that
was a learning step for us, if you will. Most of the information, as you can see,
regards the meeting, the decorum of the meeting,
the standards in which it came from. If you go to page 4, Attendance By
Members, that was a key issue for us to be
responsive to. That should a member not be able to
attend the member can turn his or her voting rights
to another member representing their own interest.
They can do that by advising the DFO. And the
Assistant Secretary would determine whether there
would be too many proxies, if you will, on such
matters as to impede the nature of the business. So we put that specifically in there with
references to the 1912 29 because we really got
hung up in the last meeting as to that entire
process. So it's very clear in there now for all
members to read.
MR. DEVORA: Jane?
MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir.
MR. DEVORA: There's just a typo in the
second line there.
MS. WILLIAMS: Where's that?
MR. DEVORA: It says, in the second line,
it says, "manage." I think it should read, "may."
MR. KRUL: The second sentence.
MS. WILLIAMS: Okay. We'll pick that up
in the final docket. The Directorate does, in fact, have these
and we can certainly have them review them with me
again to make sure -- we went through these word
for word. We'll do that one more time. If you see
any others, please let me know. Page 5 is the quorum that I just spoke
about. It's important for you to look at that.
The rest in that -- Meeting Conduct -- the key
item, if you will, in there is the agenda issues.
Sometimes when the workgroups are informal the
members, the co-chairs can deviate at their
discretion. But it is always appropriate to have
an agenda format of some kind, which is what we've
tried to identify in here. Motions was a key understanding for the
committee. And we wanted to ensure that the person
on the committee making a motion understood that
they would have the right to speak first to the
motion, because that person can often, many times,
give an understanding as to intent of the motion.
And it helps the committee get through the process
of interpreting their intent. The Workgroup Meetings is clearly
identified as to what we should and should not be
doing. One of the key issues was on page 7,
Workgroup Reports. It was important to acknowledge
that only the ACCSH members in attendance at a
workgroup are voting members of actions by the
workgroup. The public is counseled and we
certainly take into consideration their views. That's why we have the workgroups. To
ensure we get as much information into our
determining processes as best we can. But when it
comes down to a vote on any issue, it would always
be the actual ACCSH members who would do that. Another issue that came as a regard, the
workgroup is only issues that are discussed in a
formal workgroup setting that can be considered
business of the workgroup and will come to the
committee. If a chairman had a conversation with a
representative or anyone else outside of an
appropriate designated meeting, those discussions
really could not be entered into ACCSH committee as
part or a product of a workgroup. That's not to
say that the workgroup chairs can schedule various
types of workgroup meetings via e-mail, by
conference call, by whatever nature best would suit
that subject for that workgroup. But most of us have found that it's
better to be sitting in a room and at the table
because our meetings get rather lengthy and
discussion really make it very difficult to
accommodate some of these on the telephone. We clarified the Directorate of
Construction, their assistance to us, our
understanding of patience. Because those folks
have a lot to do, so many times we cannot expect
them to drop their assignments to facilitate us.
But as has been pointed out repeatedly, the
Directorate has been incredibly responsive to every
workgroup that I'm aware of in the three years and
have supported us with staff, with liaison efforts,
documents, anything that we really needed to have
we have been able to be accommodated by the
Directorate, and we thank them. We list under item 6 those types of
activities that they can, in fact, assist us with
upon the chair's request of Mr. Swanson. And he
then will take actions accordingly. If you notice with the Directorate issues
there you will not see any word that says, "he
will" do these things. We made sure all "wills"
were out. Seven, the Introduction Package. I think
the new members have already received most of
these. This document satisfies several of the
items that are intended in there. I would ask you
to really concentrate too on the travel issues, as
Bruce said. When we get through a meeting that has
had no travel conflicts, and this could be one of
those meetings, it's a big accomplishment. And we
do attribute that totally to Mr. Boom as well as
Veneta Chatmon in guiding us all and helping us all
do these.
DR. SWEENEY: Jane, may I interject on
here?
MS. WILLIAMS: Yes.
DR. SWEENEY: I think there's -- on page
10, the fourth paragraph down -- it says, "members
shall return their airline tickets." It's all e-ticketed now. So that might be a moot issue.
The other recommendation I have is that
probably we ought to put the Department of Labor's
rules and guidance's on how vouchers ought to be
done. And the timeframe in which they should be to
the Department and the Department should reimburse
individuals.
MS. WILLIAMS: We were going to make that
part of this. It was determined that it would be a
separate item and it will be covered later on in
the meeting because it could change more easily
than this document would change. And I believe Veneta's going to be
passing either a packet of that information, and
that's why we referenced it rather than include the
information.
DR. SWEENEY: Well how about making the
change that the voucher to the Department and the
repayment be made in accordance to the Department
of Labor travel rules and regulations? Because I
think that's -- there's some issues there.
MS. WILLIAMS: Okay.
DR. SWEENEY: If you don't mind.
MS. WILLIAMS: No.
DR. SWEENEY: Thank you.
MS. WILLIAMS: I will do that. I'll work
with Mr. Boom to ensure that gets in there. The issue, too, on e-ticket. Even though
they are e-ticket, members can, in fact, and have
gotten hard copy of their ticket. Because some
people still have an issue with the e-ticket in the
last minute and get a little nervous. So you can
go -- and it is recommended -- to get a receipt and
it does allow you, if we get out of a meeting
earlier or later, to have more accessibility to
changing flights if you need to. So let me reconsider possibly adding
language that doesn't say that exactly but would
give a clear understanding of the e-ticket process.
DR. SWEENEY: Right. Right. But on the
very line of page 10 it says, "Only e-tickets are
permitted." So you kind of have to go through that
language to make it consistent.
MS. WILLIAMS: Absolutely.
DR. SWEENEY: Thank you.
MS. WILLIAMS: We'll do that. Then, Mr. Chairman, attached is the 29
CFR 1912 that was presented to us for inclusion and
making it a part thereof of this document. I do
not believe we have to have any action as this has
already been adopted. However, it will go on the
record to acknowledge that the requests of
considerations. And if the committee so directs
me, I will make those changes with the Directorate
and we will have another completed document
reissued. And it will be the last one for this
Chairman.
(Laughter)
MS. WILLIAMS: With all respect.
MR. KRUL: Stu?
MR. BURKHAMMER: Turn back to page 7.
MS. WILLIAMS: Seven.
MR. BURKHAMMER: I think it's important
to note here, to the new members of the committee,
the Workgroup Report Section. Over the years we've had a continual
problem with workgroup reports: how they're
prepared, how they're presented, how they're
distributed. And Section B on page 7 was probably
the one section that Jane and Steven and Bruce and
I spent more time on than any because it's
paramount that the co-chairs understand this
section. And especially the part about what you
hand out and when you hand it out. So, please, new members, study this
section, understand this section, and please follow
this section, because you can get in a lot of
trouble if you just willy-nilly pass out stuff. Thank you.
DR. SWEENEY: Mr. Chairman, I might also
offer, if any of the new members or any member has
or would like an interpretation of everything
written, like seriatim or anything of that
(unclear) in nature, please call me and I will be
more than glad to respond to any clarification they
might need.
MR. KRUL: I think that's a good
suggestion. Yes, Marie.
DR. SWEENEY: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to
actually give a vote of thanks and congratulations
to the group who put this together. I know it's
been a hard fight, battle. And every time they
came back there was mountains of changes. And they
really have done it graciously, accepted our
changes. And, really, it's to their credit and
persistence and it's done.
MR. KRUL: Well I'd like to personally
thank Jane for not only her work on this document
but it will certainly help the new Chairman out by
having an advanced copy of this to sort of get the
inner workings of what this committee is supposed
to be doing and, at least in some orderly fashion,
I have something in front of me to go by, a
blueprint to go by. I just leaned over to Bruce and I always
thought the nuns and the priests did a very good
job with my vocabulary. But will someone please
explain to me, on the fourth paragraph on page 7,
what the word "seriatim" means.
MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. What that means
it is a parliamentarian process by which when a
committee report, which can in fact be lengthy and
contain multiple consideration for the committee,
that you can take each paragraph or each subject
matter within the report, discuss it fully,
recommend changes, revision to it, get a consensus
from the committee on that item, go to the next
item, and continue through the report, and then
adopt all changes by one motion. Because after our first meeting we found
us going around the room and having 20 different
opinions on paragraphs that had been discussed
repeatedly. So we felt this could be a very proper
use of our parliamentarian procedures, which we are
governed by by our choosing to allow us to expedite
the conversations and keep them all within the
context of a subject at a time.
MR. KRUL: Thank you.
MR. SWANSON: Let me, if I may, as a
member of the committee, but in the interest of
candor here, and I suspect I will get no argument
from the other committee members. You all suspect
that this committee was a committee of one and not
four. And your applause should be directed at Jane
and not to the other named members.
MS. WILLIAMS: Thank you.
MR. KRUL: Go ahead, Stu.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Another comment to the
new members on understanding concurrence versus
obstruction. A lot of times in workgroups that are
confrontational or difficult, at best, sometimes it
is impossible to reach consensus among those that
are in attendance. Some workgroups have small attendance.
Some workgroups, like Larry's, have up to 30, 40
people come to the workgroup. And with that many
people it's almost impossible to get everybody in
the room aligned and on the same page. So the co-chairs have to exercise
sometimes restraint, sometimes action to move the
workgroup forward. It's very easy to get
stagnated. It's very easy to get caught up in the
words. It's very easy to pound the minutia to
death. So the workgroup chairs really play a
tremendous role in not only facilitating the
workgroup but driving the workgroup to completion
or to success of their goals. And it takes a unique co-chair to do that
because the co-chairs have to be aligned, number
one. They have to be working in conjunction with
each other and cooperation with each other. And
they have to be driving the workgroup in the same
direction and not have separate agendas, or the
workgroup stays bogged down in life forever. So for those of you that are chairing
workgroups for the first time, please keep that in
mind. Also, the third paragraph on page 7 from
the top, "prepares the workgroup meeting notes,"
please make sure that one of the two of you are
given the task of preparing the notes. Please keep
good notes, because the notes end up sometimes
being the workgroup report. And a lot of times words that you take
down -- or don't take down, maybe is a better term
-- don't take, end up coming back to haunt you
later when the public decides to make some comments
regarding the workgroup. So please take copious
notes. Please make good reports. And please
control your workgroups. Thank you.
MR. KRUL: Thank you, Stu. Steve.
MR. COOPER: You know, the only reason
Swanson made that comment is my name is listed
above his as co-chairman. But the reason it didn't
happen over the past year and a half or 18 months
and didn't answer of his calls to my office was due
to the fact that Jane Williams was faxing me all
this information and I didn't have time.
MS. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, when I make
these three corrections what I will do for the
committee, I will just put an asterisk with a
footnote "per this meeting discussions," if that's
appropriate.
MR. KRUL: That would be fine.
MS. WILLIAMS: And then I'll have Mr.
Boom resend these out.
MR. KRUL: That'd be fine.
MS. WILLIAMS: Thank you.
MR. KRUL: I just sent Bruce on a wild
goose chase. Jim Boom is not here. I thought I
gave the revised -- oh, I have the committee
workgroup -- I lied to you. We need to talk about the scheduling in
the next meeting. And within that topic there have
been several comments about whether we can
recommend out of town meetings. There has been a suggestion for a meeting
up at Dan Murphy's place up in St. Paul. There's a
provision for meeting space there. And I'm going
to recognize Tom Broderick in a minute too. He'd
like to talk to you about a future ACCSH meeting
being held in conjunction with one of his
conferences. The other advisory committees that I've
sat on, there was always a discussion about letting
these meetings go out to other cities so that there
could be other participants -- nothing against the
folks in the audience here in Washington, D.C. But
when you just continue to hold meetings in one spot
it deprives other people from labor, from
management, from the private sector, and the public
in general to participate in that public comment
section when you hold meetings out of town. Now I realize that this all revolves
around when the new Assistant Secretary is
appointed and budget considerations. But that will
not preclude this committee from making
recommendations to this Assistant Secretary's
office that those meetings be held out of town. So I'd like some discussion on what
people feel about moving those meetings to St.
Paul. Yes, Stu.
MR. BURKHAMMER: For the committee's
edification -- and, Mr. Cooper, you can speak to
this more graciously than I can. There is
precedent set for the ACCSH meeting other than in
Washington. Early in the '90s they met in
conjunction with the Texas Safety Association in a
session in Dallas. We have met once during my
tenure at the Chicago Inn Safety Conference in
Chicago, we had a session in Spokane, Washington.
We also had an informal session in Hawaii at the
National Safety Congresses Construction Division
Meeting in Hawaii. So, Mr. Chairman, there is precedent for
meeting outside the beltway. I think it
accomplishes a couple of three purposes: one, it
touches more of our audience, more of the people
that we are representing here and more of the
industry, more of the construction workers. There
was a terrific turnout in Chicago. The Acting
Chairman didn't make Chicago, but everybody else
made Chicago. We had an excellent turnout in Hawaii. I
think we had, Steve, 40 some people in the audience
in Hawaii. And I know in Dallas they had 30, 40
people. So it's a big draw when this committee
goes out to touch the workforce and to get opinions
and views from a lot of other sectors than we
normally would get by just staying inside the
beltway. So I think it's a good idea, Mr.
Chairman, and I certainly would vote for the aspect
of moving one meeting at least a year outside the
beltway.
MR. KRUL: Steve.
MR. COOPER: Stu's absolutely correct in
that it is good for public relations for the agency
to get out west of the Potomac. And it's always a
smart, if that occurs, to tie it to a safety
conference of a national concern. Therefore, you
get the other participants that are not normally
here. One of the best things I think that the
agency did years ago was when we were doing coak
oven emissions. And this committee went to the
steel mills and the coak ups and spent two or three
days getting a real education, and came back a lot
smarter. And I think it should be some type of
requirement that we don't sit here and second the
constitution on our lives and try and advise
national regulations.
MR. KRUL: I concur. And reading
previous minutes Bill Rhoten and the acting
chairman, Mr. Burkhammer, that were attempting to
set something up for respirator protection and
hexavalent chromium exposure on stainless steel
welding through some of the UA training programs. And I think those kinds of things, the
coak oven, when this committee would be dealing
with issues, anything that helps to educate us on
the process, those types of demonstrations can be
arranged and be a part of the out of town venture.
It doesn't have to be -- and as Stu said -- it
should be multi-prong, the reasons for going out of
town. Before I forget, let me call on Tom
Broderick just while we're in this discussion of
having meetings out of town. Tom would like to
announce the Construction Safety Conference and its
dates for consideration with the -- I think it's a
natural fit for this committee to go to that thing.
There's a Center to Protect Worker's Rights in the
building trades will be involved in that safety
conference. But Tom can tell you more about it
than I can.
MR. BRODERICK: I'd love to announce the
exact dates, Mr. Chairman, but I believe it's the
20th through the 24th of May of 2002. And as the
Chairman indicated, the Center to Protect Worker's
Rights, many of you may remember back in the early
'90s had a couple of national conferences on
construction safety and ergonomics here in Chicago. And in their most recent five year
funding cycle from NIOSH had indicated that they
would do another national conference. And since
our conference in Chicago has grown, and I think it
was with some of the direction from the safety
directors of the building trades affiliates,
there's a decision not -- certainly not to make the
two conferences conflict. So I got together with Bob Clesher at
CBWR and we decided to do it in Chicago. And
rather than subjecting people to Chicago in
February we moved it to the month of May.
MR. KRUL: Thank you.
MR. BRODERICK: You're welcome. And a little bit of history here. We
started doing it in January and February because it
started off as a local phenomenon, I think we had
maybe 100 local construction people come to the
first one 12 years ago now, and it just kind of
took a life of its own and grew into a major
national conference. And now we get somewhere
between 1,000 and 1,500 attendees coming in from
all over the country. I think this last one we had
44 different states represented. So it has taken a
life of its own. But I think it would be a wonderful
opportunity, since we would be having strong
representation from the building trades and strong
representation from the construction community, to
have an opportunity for them to be having maybe
better, better access from other locations to this
committee. So I would invite the committee to
consider to come to Chicago for that opportunity.
MR. KRUL: What are the dates for that
again, Tom?
MR. BRODERICK: I believe it's the 20th
through the 24th of May, but I'm not exactly
certain.
MR. KRUL: Next year.
VOICE: Excuse me, for the record, what's
the title of this conference?
MR. BRODERICK: The title is the
Construction Safety Conference. And each year
there's a subtitle for it, and we've not selected
that at this point.
MR. KRUL: The next meeting falls within
the fourth of July week, if you go by the -- fourth
of July will fall on a Wednesday, so that Thursday
and Friday following would be the -- and I don't
have my copy of my calendar with me, but I would
think the following -- yeah, the 5th and the 6th of
July fall on a Thursday and a Friday, which I'm
sure everyone would like to stay away from. So the 12th and the 13th of July would be
the dates, or the recommended dates for the next
meeting. I had discussions with Dan Murphy just
briefly yesterday regarding making a recommendation
that we go out to Minneapolis. And, again, I don't
know if Bruce was listening when I said this
conversation about holding meetings. It would just
be advisory at this point until the new Assistant
Secretary and the budget is looked at on when and
if we -- and how far ahead we can plan for this. But I don't think there's anything wrong
with at least making the initial request that the
July meeting be held out in St. Paul, Minnesota, to
the Acting Assistant Secretary at this point. If it's deemed that those decisions
cannot be made, we can hold that recommendation for
a future meeting. I don't think it's too late to -- or I can ask for advice from the Directorate for
this 2002 meeting. I think that would be an
excellent fit for this committee to attend Chicago.
MR. SWANSON: Well 2002, that's way too
far down the road for me to even contemplate right
now, Bob. And we'll have time to squeeze it in
between now and then, some more conversation on
that. I think it's a great fit for this
committee. And obviously there's some policy
decisions tied with that that's the new Assistant
Secretary I'm sure would like a vote in. And we'll
have an opportunity to do that. On a faster track is the July meeting.
And what's the -- I know you would need some lead-time, Mr. Murphy. What's the drop dead date that
you would need from us as to clearance on that if
it were to be forthcoming?
MR. MURPHY: I think, Bruce, as far as
facilities to hold the meetings that probably won't
be an issue because we have a very large training
facility. What I would be more concerned about
would be getting rooms for people, because at that
time of the year the city is a pretty popular place
to visit. Rather than being in the middle of a
blizzard, it's usually fairly nice there.
MR. BURKHAMMER: That's the non-blizzard
week up there, right?
MR. MURPHY: Yeah. That's that one week
we get where we don't shovel. So I would recommend St. Paul Hotel,
which is right across from our training facility.
And it's right in downtown St. Paul. I would think I would have to speak with
Mr. Boom and get some details and at least know
that by the end of April to still make it.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Okay, thank you. That's
something to work with.
MR. KRUL: Larry and then Steve.
MR. EDGINTON: With respect to July --
and I don't remember but maybe somebody else here
does -- I know that ANSI A10 meets either the
second or third week of July. Some of us have to
make -- for that. And with respect to having
anymore group involvement with this, there may be
some conflicts. Does anybody remember when A 10 is
meeting?
MR. KRUL: It's in July. And more than
likely it will be the second week.
MR. EDGINTON: I think it's that second
week.
MR. MEDEROS: The 16th is the -- for A
10. The 16th or the 17th.
MR. EDGINTON: I think we moved that from
the week before or something. I think we
originally had that the week before and we moved
that. I can't remember which one we were going
with.
MR. KRUL: Steve and then Stu.
MR. COOPER: So you've pretty well
settled on proposing that the advisory committee
would meet sometime in July in Minnesota. Is that
correct?
MR. KRUL: It's a recommendation.
MR. COOPER: Well, I think it's just -- I
wonder if I should probably assist Mr. Swanson in
the State of Minnesota. He's probably, you know,
would need some advice on how to get around, since
that's his home state -- that's a joke.
MR. KRUL: And you're volunteering.
MR. COOPER: A10 will be a lot. If
Larry's correct, there'll be some people, including
myself, that will be going to A10 the same date.
So what dates are we really talking about?
MR. EDGINTON: A10's the following week.
MR. KRUL: The following week. A10 will
be the following week following -- if this were to
go -- if it were to go -- it would be -- A10 would
be the following week.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Not to be a killjoy
here. Assuming that by July there is an Assistant
Secretary named, it might be beneficial for this
committee to consider meeting here in July and then
moving the fall meeting maybe out of town. Being
that there would be a new Assistant Secretary,
there would be some new goal for the agency. There might be a lot more benefit to
having the July meeting here, if indeed that
occurred, than having the fall meeting here.
MR. KRUL: How would that translate with
your attempts to utilize your training facility,
and it wouldn't hurt anything either way?
MR. MURPHY: Just remember, don't get too
late in the fall --
(Laughter)
MR. MURPHY: -- or it gets mighty
miserable.
MR. RHOTEN: Mr. Chairman, if it gets too
late in the fall or towards winter, Palm Springs is
still available.
MR. KRUL: Well I don't know that we need
to do anything more that -- I kind of agree with
Stu that it might be a little bit too pushy in
trying to get a meeting to go as early as when the
new Assistant Secretary's in place. And, you know,
just quite frankly maybe too much of a request for
somebody coming in as a new Assistant Secretary to
have a request to have an advisory committee meet
out of town. Maybe meet with whoever he or she is
after they're appointed and sort of introduce this
committee and ourselves to them and maybe make a
request, as Stu has recommended, for that following
perhaps instead of looking at doing something as
quickly as July. Jim.
MR. AHERN: For my personal schedule, the
meeting in Washington, D.C., the 13th, 14th, is much
favorable. And --
MR. KRUL: 12th and 13th? Can we get a -- Stu's recommendation,
does it make more sense to the rest of the
committee?
MR. RHOTEN: I think it makes a lot of
sense. I think we might be a little presumptuous
to decide where we're going next when we're not
sure we're even going to meet.
MR. KRUL: Right. Thank you for saying
what I was thinking.
MR. SWANSON: Well, you know, if we had
another six weeks, I guess, before a drop dead date
with the hotel for Minneapolis -- although I hear
rumors that the wheels are moving faster this time
than they have in the past. Six weeks might not,
and probably won't give us an Assistant Secretary. So the issue would be, without an
Assistant Secretary, would this Administration
allow this group to meet in July in Minneapolis?
And we'd have to make that call some time late
April or May. That's still on the table. They clearly
can pull the plug and say no on that. Or if we
have an Assistant Secretary by surprise by then he
can say, "I'd rather have the next meeting or I can
attend it." In any event this will reach some
resolution by the end of April, it has to, by the
end of April or Minneapolis is out of the
discussion anyhow. So I don't know if, you know, past
experience for OSHA fall has come and gone also
without an Assistant Secretary. I hope that that
doesn't happen again. But it could well be that you have your
July meeting and you plan a meeting for October and
that is when the new Assistant Secretary's going to
get here. So October would not be a good time to
be out of the city either. This will probably solve itself by the
end of April without an Assistant Secretary. I
don't know who's going to make the decision to let
us go to Minneapolis. It would have to go all the
way to the Secretary's office probably. So that
would erase Minneapolis. If there is a new Assistant Secretary, or
one close, chances are that he would want you here
in Minneapolis or here in -- I'm sounding like Tom
now -- here in Washington so he could address you
in July. And it just looks like Washington in
July, but you can let the calendar solve that
problem for you, it seems to me.
MR. KRUL: Seems to be practical. I was
merely attempting to look at what the prospect was
of having out of town meetings. Dan was gracious
enough to say that he would do it. But I think we
have to look at the reality of budget constraints
on the agency and decision making with the
transition of the appointment of a new Assistant
Secretary. So we can just probably figure on having
that discussion at the next meeting, once the
Assistant Secretary, if the Assistant Secretary is
appointed by then. Do you have someone here for a travel
presentation?
MR. SWANSON: Just Veneta.
MR. KRUL: Veneta, do you want to come up
here?
MR. SWANSON: Steve has Veneta here this
morning. As Veneta is distributing her handouts, I
passed around the table something just off the web
page. Apparently there were a couple of questions
from the group as to how to use or how to find the
OSHA web page. And that's that little package that
you have. If you've already found our web page and
don't need that material, that's okay too.
MR. KRUL: Yes, Jim.
MR. AHERN: While Veneta is passing out
her information, from a new member perspective, do
we generally need a meeting not being certain when
the next meeting is?
MR. KRUL: The former chairman will
answer that for you.
MR. BURKHAMMER: That depends. Most of
the time we try to schedule one or two meetings in
advance. But we've had an Assistant Secretary in
the realm of being able to do that. And Bruce is
correct, without one it's catch as catch can. So
once the new Assistant Secretary is appointed and
we have a relationship, it's easy to schedule one
or two meetings in advance. And we try to do that
so the benefit of the committee we know where we're
going to be at certain times.
MR. AHERN: And are there four meetings a
year?
MR. BURKHAMMER: Supposed to be.
Sometimes there's three, but other times there's
four, depending on the spread.
MR. KRUL: And we were all agreed on July
12th and 13th.
MR. AHERN: Okay. Good. Good.
MR. KRUL: I mean that was the date
because that falls right in between
MR. BURKHAMMER: Where is the problem?
Where?
MR. AHERN: Okay. That helps me a lot.
MR. SMITH: Moving right along.
MR. KRUL: Yeah. Moving right along.
And I mean I'd like to Owen, but I don't see the
value in planning. If we can't plan out the May
why keep it? I mean at the next meeting we'll know
a lot more I think. We'll have a better handle on
things. Veneta, for the record, would you
identify yourself, please?
MS. CHATMON: My name is Veneta Chatmon.
I'm a Program Specialist with the OSHA Office of
Public Affairs. And my primary responsibility for
the ACCSH committee is to assist with your travel
needs. I've passed out packages to our
travelers, if you noticed. I haven't given the
ones that live here a package because it's a rarity
that you would be required to travel for the
committee. So that's why you do not have a
package.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Scratch Minneapolis.
(Laughter)
MS. CHATMON: Right. In case you are
required to travel, I will provide that information
to you at that particular time. There's no need to
give you the package and you can't find it when the
time comes to use it because you have misplaced the
papers. Included in the package is information
pertaining to making your travel arrangements. The
policy has changed regarding me making your hotel
reservation. You are to now make your hotel
reservations through Wagonlit. Carlson Wagonlit
Travel Agency. They're aware of this change.
Included in the package is a spotlight sheet
stating further details about this change.
DR. SWEENEY: But, Veneta, would you be
doing room blocks?
MS. CHATMON: No. I will no longer be
doing room blocks due to the policy change.
DR. SWEENEY: Okay. So it's catch as
catch can.
MS. CHATMON: Right. However, if you have a problem with
Wagonlit, please, by all means, call me and I will
do, what's in my power to make those arrangements
for you.
DR. SWEENEY: One of the problems we have
had with Wagonlit is that they don't call back.
And they're not very timely in responding. So my
secretary's pretty good about it.
MS. CHATMON: Okay. If that problem
arises, Marie, please contact me. I will handle
it. I know that there are problems with Wagonlit
all the time. But that's what I'm here for. So if
any problem arises then please, by all means,
contact me and I'll try my best to take care of it.
MR. KRUL: Yes, Jane.
MS. WILLIAMS: Veneta, that does not
preclude us from making our own independent
arrangements anywhere exclusive of Wagonlit, or do
we have to go through them to be reimbursed?
MS. CHATMON: No. The problem is, if you
make your own, and you're not offered the
government rate we will not be responsible for
reimbursement of the amount over the government
rate.
MS. WILLIAMS: Understood.
MS. CHATMON: That's the only problem.
MS. WILLIAMS: That's in our guidelines.
MS. CHATMON: Right.
MS. WILLIAMS: I wanted to be sure we
clarified it. If you go anywhere of your own
choosing you will only be reimbursed what the
government rate is. So there's no conflict with
what our guidelines say for that issue.
MS. CHATMON: Correct.
MR. AHERN: Is there a particular
regional office or any of their franchises across
the country?
MS. CHATMON: I'm not sure. From what I
understand, as long as it's Wagonlit -- we only use
Wagonlit here in the building. But I'm sure they
have other franchises that you may be able to use.
I don't see where there would be a problem. I will
verify this for you.
MR. KRUL: Jane.
MS. WILLIAMS: I've tried that in Arizona
to have a face to face because of the problem Marie
indicates, and they will only do it through the
government Carlson here on the times that I've had
to call them. I've had to come directly into the
building and wait for them.
MR. KRUL: Comment regarding the travel?
VOICE: Yeah. If you want to get
government rates, you're only going to get them
from (unclear).
MR. KRUL: Steve.
MR. COOPER: You have probably noticed,
since you're responsible for acquiring travel
arrangements for all of us who request it, and the
data that comes back for reimbursement occurs, as
you're probably -- no one really has any anger
towards you or you're probably friends with
everyone because you're it. I did want to take
this opportunity to tell you last week you helped
me out and thank you very much.
MS. CHATMON: Thank you.
MS. WILLIAMS: Veneta, I have one
question for you, if I may. We had put it
originally in the guidelines we were to get a
receipt copy upon arrival at the airline. And
quickly reading through your comment sheet you made
for us you're stating here that the Office of
Public Affairs will pick up our ticket receipt. So
may I scratch that we do not have to do that?
MS. CHATMON: Yes.
MS. WILLIAMS: And when our expenses come
in to you you will be affixing them?
MS. CHATMON: Right. I'll already have
them. I pick them up when I take the approved TA
downstairs and they give them to me. So you don't
have to worry about the receipts.
MS. WILLIAMS: So the committee will be
aware then when I work with Mr. Boom on these I
will delete that statement out of our guidelines
that state you would have to get that receipt.
Thank you.
MR. KRUL: Stu.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Jane, I would suggest
you word it in the fact that the travel office
picks up the receipt, so the new members know there
is a receipt but it goes directly to Veneta instead
of them having to worry about it. So it would be
stated in there that the receipt is --
MS. WILLIAMS: I'm going to copy what she
wrote.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Oh, okay.
MS. CHATMON: Any other questions?
Concerns? Gripes?
(No response.)
MR. KRUL: You did a good job.
MS. CHATMON: Thank you.
MR. KRUL: Thank you, Veneta.
MS. CHATMON: Thank you for the time to
address travel issues.
MR. KRUL: We're still waiting for the
workgroup review assignments. And when Stu said to
me that you put all the new workgroups on I said
yes. And I know I didn't include the state plan
workgroup with Owen, Steve Cooper, and Kevin
Beauregard. But we can always write that in if he
can't get it. Are there any other issues? Jane.
MS. WILLIAMS: I just have two items to
clarify. I'll pass this around. On the Sanitation
Report that I gave to you, this sheet with document
the two changes that we discussed. Page 2, we changed the name of Proposed
Rulemaking to Advanced Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking. At the second paragraph from the bottom
of page 2, strike the second sentence in its
entirety and insert, "Co-chairs will recommend
proponents send their questions to the director of
the Directorate of Construction, Mr. Russell B.
Swanson." And that totally corrected the concerns
that were voiced on the Sanitation Report that was
issued to you. And just for the record, on the
guidelines, what I will be doing is striking three
things: should an ACCSH meeting be postponed ACCSH
member shall return their airline tickets and
travel authorizations to the Office of Public
Affairs. That will not be necessary because she
will automatically void the travel authorization
status, so that can come out. And the first paragraph, I'll strike the
entire sentence in the beginning and start with,
"The Office of Public Affairs will fax the travel
authorization and itinerary to ACCSH members." And we don't have to get into the other
issues because her report states that, "Only
electronic tickets will be used, except when other
provisions have to be made." So there is
flexibility, we'll let her report govern and I'll
incorporate that in there instead.
MR. KRUL: Okay. Thank you, Jane. Stu.
MR. BURKHAMMER: This morning Jim Ahern
handed out to us a sheet on OSHA's Targets Midwest
Roads. Jim, about three meetings ago I think,
Susan Marsh of NIOSH made a presentation to ACCSH
on a study that she had lead on highway and road
safety. And if you don't have a copy of that or
haven't seen that you might want to get with Marie
and have her get in touch with Susan so you can get
that. It was pretty well done. I mean
(unclear) and a lot of things that they've done, a
lot of studies. And it might help you a little bit
with this.
MR. AHERN: Well one of the reasons why I
brought that up yesterday with reference to the
coding of the 170 Form, and my recollection of the
reading the articles about a year ago was
inaccurate because I was believing that they were
responding to a history of accidents in those
particular geographic areas. And it's turned out,
in reading the article; it was more in anticipation
of the significant increase in funding and not
having a (unclear) increase in accidents.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Okay.
MR. AHERN: That's basically what the
article said. So it wasn't based on a statistical
analysis.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Okay.
MR. AHERN: But I appreciate your
comments about how to hand things out. I
understand that better now relative to these --
MR. BURKHAMMER: Okay.
MR. AHERN: But I wanted to follow
through. I found that on the Internet last night.
I thought it might be of interest.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Thank you.
MR. AHERN: I guess I would be a little
bit curious if it would be appropriate at a future
meeting to get some feedback from that regional
office on this focus program whether it had an
impact or not.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Yeah. We talked about
that before and I don't think that's out of line at
all. I think we can ask the Chair at the next
meeting to have Mr. O'Connor or one of his people
to come in and share with us his information or his
concepts or ideas on this. So if you'd pass that to the Chair as a
recommendation for --
MR. AHERN: I'll wait for their sidebar
discussion to end.
(Pause)
MR. KRUL: We're trying to get -- you
guys can all go down to the Secretary's office,
we're trying to straighten out this workgroup list
so that you can take a copy home with you. Salt Lake City Construction Advisory
Workgroup. You're the passwords for this
committee, is what you basically end up being off
the website. Is that correct?
MR. MEDEROS: I'm trying to do that.
MR. KRUL: There were no public persons
that had expressed an interest in addressing
anything. But since we have time before
adjournment I will cautiously open that up to the
public. If anyone wishes to comment on anything
briefly.
(No response)
MR. KRUL: No?
MR. COOPER: One last thing. Everyone on
the committee has been making note of who has
assisted them in the past and how nice everyone is.
I just was sitting there thinking that Jim Boom
does a lot of work for this committee under the
direction of Mr. Swanson. He's the guy that makes
all the calls and assists you in any matter. And I
think it would be nice to recognize that Jim does a
lot of work that may very well go unrecognized. Mr. Swanson, thank you.
(Applause)
MR. SWANSON: Thank you, Steve. I will
make sure that's relayed.
MR. KRUL: Jim?
MR. AHERN: Mr. Chairman, during your
discussion there we had a little sidebar discussion
about the Engineering News Record article about the
Region 5 initiative to pay closer attention to
highway safety. And I asked Stu if it would be
appropriate. And if I understood him correctly he
said it would be to request that possibly at one of
our next meetings we get a little feedback
information on how that initiative is going and
whether it is having any impact on hopefully a
reduction in injuries in spite of the increased
funding.
MR. KRUL: Since Mr. O'Connor is in
charge of that, I don't what the, you know, if at
the next meeting if he can give a report in person
or if we can have something in writing.
MR. SWANSON: The Region owes us a report
anyhow, which we are waiting with bated breath for.
So I certainly anticipate it within the next 90
days and would be happy to share. And perhaps even
Mr. O'Connor's or someone on his staff would come
in and make a report on it. And, I'm sorry. I didn't recognize it
yesterday when you brought it up.
MR. AHERN: Well I was pretty vague about
what I was trying to make reference to.
MR. SWANSON: It's a Region 5 local
emphasis program. And it is in effect in each of
three federal jurisdiction states in Region 5 out
of Chicago. So Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin all
have that local emphasis program.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Mr. Chairman.
MR. KRUL: Yes, Stu.
MR. BURKHAMMER: A couple of items. I
think also, a future agenda item that would be
worth hearing would be the lead bridge program in
New York and New Jersey. I think it's a
combination of those states. They're doing all the
bridge painting, cleaning, and scraping and fixing.
And there's a special emphasis program out of New
York on lead that I think we should hear a report
on. Also, it was at two meetings ago I think,
we had OTI here with us. And I think there was a
resolution or discussion among the members at that
time of having OTI present at each meeting so they
could give us an update of where they are on their
training program. And I think it would be especially
beneficial to the new members to have a report from
Des Plaines on what they are now and where they are
in some of their programs and some of their new
programs. And give the new members kind of an
overview of Des Plaines and OSHA training.
MR. KRUL: OSHA Training Institute? Larry.
MR. EDGINTON: I guess I would ask the
other committee members to refresh my memory.
Because it seemed to me at one of our meetings when
we were having conversations with OTI did we have
any -- were we talking about a group to work on
improving the security associated with evidence of
training and that sort of stuff and how to make --
were we talking about that here or is that
someplace else I was talking to somebody about
that?
MR. RHOTEN: Maybe on another issue of
sorts. In Chicago last year there was some
stakeholders and carpenters that had made some
recommendations. And I think that they had some
communication with that center. In regards to
better tracking of the OSHA 10 Hour Cards and a
whole new system and, you know, it was pretty heavy
recommendations but I think it's going to take some
cooperation with the Center, actually, to see if
they can go in that direction. And I understand too that they're going
to delegate out or franchise out some of the
responsibilities that they have because they, in
fact, don't have enough resources to do -- to keep
up with the demand for training now. And I've
heard some rumors to that effect, but I don't know
how valid they are. The consortiums form that will take over
the responsibility of issuing out the OSHA 10 Hour
Cards, for instance. I think that's been discussed
somewhere. And maybe we need to get an update to
see.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Can I make a response?
MR. KRUL: Sure. Hang on, Owen.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Bill, I think when they
were here last -- and I may have had a senior
moment at the time -- but I think I remember.
There was some discussion about combining some of
this new innovative things that we had talked with
OTI about into your training workgroup. And we
expanded a little bit, I thought -- and maybe I'm
missing something somewhere. But I think the
training workgroup that you and Owen have accepted
a little bit of that responsibility to work a
little closer with them and include it. I think we
did do that two meetings ago or something.
MR. RHOTEN: We did.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Have you done anything
on that with them since?
MR. RHOTEN: No. I haven't had any
communication with them at all on it particularly.
I've been kind of hoping that some of the
stakeholders that had some interest would have
contacted us on the committee. And I'll make an
effort to contact them.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Okay.
MR. RHOTEN: And then I'll make an effort
-- I'll contact the OSHA Training Institute and
then see how we can work with them better.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Mr. Chairman, why don't
we add that as a potential topic for the next
workgroup meeting.
MR. SMITH: Bruce, I had a question.
MR. KRUL: Yes, sir.
MR. SMITH: We had, after the meeting in
Chicago where we went to the training center, we
had recommended that you had that satellite
training program that you link all the offices
together and you have the same message everybody at
approximately the same time. Has there ever been
any progress on that?
MR. SWANSON: I honestly can't answer
that, Owen. I believe that the answer probably is
that there has not been. But certainly there has
been nothing that has been shared with me. This is perhaps an appropriate time for
me to say that, you know, the Institute is going to
have a bit of a problem that's similar to what
Marthe Kent had last evening. The Institute may or
may not have a better idea as to what changes they
are going to be making by July meeting. They might
not have that direction yet. They also have a number of initiatives
that they would like to go forward with that;
again, like Marthe Kent or myself, they're not
going forward with them until there is somebody to
talk to about getting clearance. So just a heads
up.
MR. KRUL: Bill.
MR. RHOTEN: I recall that we did have
some conversation on this long distance learning
scenario. What we had offered, and the offer's
still three, is that we've got four training
facilities around the United States that are, in
fact, set up for long distance learning, because
we're getting into that whole area ourselves. And
those are available at no charge to the Training
Institute. And we verbally told them that. And if
in the future they want to get in that area we
would be glad to give them our facilities.
MR. KRUL: Yes. I figured the way you
were looking at me you had something else.
MR. COOPER: The Institute is really
important to this advisory committee for obvious
reasons, and then training CSHOs in particular.
And we did go up, Owen and myself and many others
in this committee, last time in Chicago. And we
wanted to evaluate their national commitment and
training and discuss -- one of OSHA's larger
problems is their travel budget to take these CSHOs
across the country and train them for weeks in
Chicago and talk about using the procedures to
train these through audiovisual means, to transport
to regional areas. One thing that I just might want to get
on the transcript, the National Building Trades,
for instance, and other places I do feel that in
the particular trades that are represented by this
committee. In construction each trade is
independent in the manner in which they do their
work. And the Building Trades -- and I certainly
can't make a commitment for them because Mr. Krul's
the Chairman, but I do feel that individuals should
go up to the Institute and teach for one or two
days at the Institute and help them in the training
of their particular -- their CSHOs as it relates to
their particular craft. Now anything that comes up here with us,
those of us in the construction industry, we know a
little bit about each area of concern, whether it
be carpentry or steel erection or, very little
about electrical maybe. But we can really help the
people at the Institute by helping them with our
training programs, whether they want to use that
particular program or not. We have millions and
millions of dollars involved in training. And
that's one area that all of us at this table, but
it's basically the building trades safety
directors, and get up and assist them in the
training. And it's always been kind of a problem.
And we're not talking about funding here, Mr.
Swanson, voluntarily getting up there, giving them
two or three days of our own particular expertise.
MR. KRUL: And that would be a strictly
voluntary thing. I can't speak totally for the
Building Trades department but subsidizing, which
is an excellent thing for the CSHOs, is to have the
experience of people who have a lot of experience
in the construction industry to help them through
the learning process and knowing what to look for
and the specific hazards that are trade specific
and relative to the standards that exist to protect
people. However, given the budgetary constraints
that the Department is now facing, I would see that
as something that maybe could be voiced from the
leadership top down at future general precedents
meetings that those trades could participate in
something that Joe Adam used to do and do very well
in going out to the Des Plaines center and running
those programs for CSHOs. It was an excellent
program. But both the Chairman of this committee
and the Chairman of the Building Trades Committee
will take that under advisement and see if under
the new leadership of the Building Trades we could
have that promoted through the (unclear)
President's staff. Did you want to --
MR. SWANSON: All I wanted to comment on
is just you gave a hardy endorsement to what Steve
suggested. I believe that OSHA compliance officers
would benefit so much in their understanding of
what the construction industry feels is important
on a construction site, safety and health wise, if
they spent more time face to face with experienced
safety and health experts from the construction
community, whether it's, you know, I would
certainly hope that organized labor is able to
participate in this. I invite any of the associations to work
with us to help bring this about, or anyone else.
Just the feel for what's important and what is not
important and how to get on with the day's work and
see more sites, not looking for the gnats on some
of these sites would be such a benefit to our --
particularly our young compliance officers.
MR. KRUL: Bill, did you want --
MR. RHOTEN: Well I think that's an
excellent idea myself. And while I can't totally,
all the time speak for my general president, I'm
sure that he would be happy to participate in this
kind of a program.
MR. COOPER: We have discussed -- we had
talked about this among ourselves before and it was
my opinion at that time, and still is, that it
would not be funded only by the organization the
individual works for. But, in reality, the
Institute will have a particular week on, let's
say, cranes. And they'll be being in CSHOs that
inspect our job sites, whether you like that or
not, and those CSHOs come in from throughout the
country and attend that class, for instance, on
cranes. And who would be better than those people
who have spent all their life in safety and health
on cranes, such as Larry in this committee, to be
there with them for a day and teach them at least
what they think is the correct way to go. That's what I'm getting at. As far as
the funding I'm not talking about the Building
Trades funding it or anyone else. Voluntary,
voluntarily.
MR. RHOTEN: Well, if I could, even again
on an issue like that there is long distance
training centers that are set up that are available
for those kind of programs.
MR. COOPER: Well, when we were up there
most recently this thing was not totally funded or
in place. Isn't that correct, Bruce?
MR. SWANSON: The distance learning set
up? Owen just asked me about that. And I don't
know the status of their enhancement program for
distance learning.
MR. COOPER: And in closing let me say
this. There's some -- I'm closing because it's
11:00 and I have an appointment.
(Laughter)
MR. COOPER: Outreach. We just did the
Steel Erection Standard, which I'm sure everyone's
probably sick and tired of hearing about,
especially those in OSHA maybe. But there needs to
be a very large outreach program across the nation
of with the CSHOs to ensure that they understand
all they know about that subject. And this is
going to come up over and over. So that's just
another thing on training that we could assist the
Institute, OSHA, and the industry.
MR. KRUL: Thank you, Steve. And we
stalled just long enough to get the workgroup. Stu?
MR. BURKHAMMER: One final comment on Mr.
Cooper's excellent suggestion about teaching. For
the retired members of ACCSH that's probably a
terrific idea. For those of us that still have a
real job it might be somewhat difficult.
(Laughter)
MR. RHOTEN: If I may.
MR. KRUL: Absolutely.
MR. RHOTEN: The conversation has been
confined to OTI with compliance officers. If we
spend a few minutes thinking outside the box, I'd
be happy to act as a liaison with any and all
regional administrators if we could get a couple of
professionals out of the construction community and
take to a regional office for an all employee
meeting, for example, and spend a few hours talking
about how people who live on construction sites
would visual an OSHA inspection being made. I mean
lets not be tied into just Chicago and just OTI.
MR. KRUL: I'll just point out just one
correction to make -- or an addition to make to
this under the training on the last item on the
last page. Bill Rhoten and Owen Smith co-chair
that workgroup. And if there are any other
corrections?
MR. SMITH: On the area code for my phone
is 323.
MR. KRUL: 323 for Owen Smith.
MR. SMITH: It used to be (unclear) but --
MR. KRUL: You moved.
MR. SMITH: Well, the phone company moved
us and we're still fighting.
MR. KRUL: Kevin.
MR. BEAUREGARD: Yeah. The phone number
next to my name for both the workgroups is not
correct. It's probably somebody else's. I'm not
even sure what 702 is.
MR. KRUL: 702 is Las Vegas. We can move
you out there.
MR. BEAUREGARD: All right.
DR. SWEENEY: It's 919-807-2863. And
there's too many letters in my name too. It's long
enough as it is.
MR. KRUL: That's my chicken scratching
that she was trying interpret.
MR. BEAUREGARD: Just eliminate the first
G.
MR. KRUL: The first G.
MR. BEAUREGARD: Well usually I prefer my
number not be listed correctly.
(Laughter)
MR. KRUL: In most instances.
MR. EDGINTON: Mr. Chairman?
MR. KRUL: Yes, Larry.
MR. EDGINTON: Also, an additional
correction as long as we're making them. On Cranes
DOC staff is no longer Tony Brown.
MR. KRUL: Okay. That came off the old
list. Just eliminate Tony's name from the cranes
subpart N. Steven.
MR. COOPER: I guess my phone number is
my old office number. I certainly hope none of you
call me anyhow. That would be incorrect. And my
new phone is not in, so I'm in pretty good shape.
MR. KRUL: Jim Boom isn't here, but as I
understand it -- Jim. Oh yeah. As I understand
it, on the OSHA site all of our e-mails and
information for the committee numbers --
MR. BOOM: Your phone numbers are there
but your e-mails are not.
MR. KRUL: E-mails are not.
MR. BOOM: I can put them up there if
anybody wishes.
MR. KRUL: Sorry I asked.
MR. SWANSON: Stu, all right. Did we get
you correct on all these committee assignments?
MR. BURKHAMMER: Yeah. I was just going
to bring that up. In reference to Mr. Cooper's
comment yesterday about my name lacking on the
committee list, I would be more than happy to
volunteer to join Mr. Rhoten in the Safety and
Health Program Standard workgroup.
MR. KRUL: Very good.
MR. BURKHAMMER: Not that we're meeting,
but I would happy to join.
MR. RHOTEN: I'm looking forward to you
doing all the work.
MR. KRUL: Without any further burins
before the committee, the Chair would like to thank
everybody. I look forward to working with this
committee in the future. I think it's going to be
an active, progressive committee, as it has been in
the past. I think we can accomplish some good
things. With that, the Chair will entertain a
motion to adjourn.
VOICE: So moved.
MR. KRUL: Second.
VOICES: Second.
MR. KRUL: All in favor signify by the
sign aye.
(Chorus of ayes)
MR. KRUL: Opposed, if any?
(No response.)
MR. KRUL: We stand adjourned.
(Whereupon, at 11:02 a.m., the meeting
was adjourned.)
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the foregoing
proceedings of a meeting for the Advisory Committee
on Construction Safety and Health, held on March
16, 2001, were transcribed as herein appears and
that this is the original transcript thereof.
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