Construction Industry Safety and Health

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Every day in this country, construction workers fall. One wrong step and they're tumbling down a steeply pitched roof, sliding or dropping off an unstable ladder, or left hanging from a scaffold. The difference between an unexpected stumble and tragedy is simple: fall protection.

OSHA published a notice in the Feb. 6 Federal Register rejecting Arizona's residential construction fall protection standard. Arizona is one of 27 states and territories that operate their own occupational safety and health programs. 

An estimated 100 protestors walked in bitter cold temperatures Friday night to demand justice in the death of Delfino Velazquez, an immigrant laborer who died in a construction accident at the Dana Ford Lincoln dealership in Staten Island, New York.

A 42-year-old worker fell 16 feet to his death and a 25-year-old co-worker suffered serious injuries because their employer, Roeder Construction, failed to provide either man with fall protection as they worked on a roof, an OSHA investigation has determined.

There is a good reason construction workers are asked to wear hard hats, gloves, safety goggles, and various other safety equipment while on the job; construction sites are dangerous.

A chance to get on-the-job training in construction turned tragic when a Delaware high school student suffered a severe head injury after a one-story fall off an unguarded balcony at a local construction site.

Workers doing renovation at the former Dye Works in Easthampton faced potentially fatal falls of up to 40 feet because their employers failed to provide proper protection, OSHA has found. Agency inspectors visited the work site on July 11, 2014, in response to a complaint about fall hazards there.

In an effort to help roofing contractors provide more on-the-job safety measures for their employees, the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) has partnered with Parsippany, N.J.-based GAF to launch the GAF Commercial Roof Safety Guide (www.gaf.com/safety), a website focusing on low-slope roofing safety.

A roofing worker in Piasa, Illinois fell 27 feet to his death on Aug. 4^th, 2014 because his employer, Mid-State Construction & Roofing Inc., failed to provide fall protection, according to OSHA.

Owners and general contractors currently have no standardized procedure for evaluating potential subcontractors on the basis of their ability to provide a safe work environment for workers. A Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) project scheduled to get underway in 2015 will develop and validate a new publicly available pre-qualification assessment tool for construction projects in order to select and promote safer contractors.