OSHA’s Four-Year Delay on Crane Safety Standard Highlighted in Wake of N.Y. Deaths

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/20/oshas-four-year-delay-on-crane-safety-standard-highlighted-in-wake-of-ny-deaths/

by Mike Hall, Mar 20, 2008

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) estimates that between 64 and 82 construction workers are killed and 263 are injured working around cranes and derricks each year.



The latest tragic evidence of the dangers construction workers face when working on and around the towering cranes that dot so many city skylines—sometime reaching several hundred feet in the air—came March 15. Six construction workers and an out-of-town visitor were killed when a 300-foot-tall crane collapsed on Manhattan’s East Side, severely damaging a 19-story apartment building and demolishing a four-story town house.

Initial reports indicate the collapse occurred as the workers were “jumping” or assembling a new section so the crane could extend higher as the project continued.

But just as OSHA has failed to issue so many vital safety standards during the Bush administration—combustible dust, personal protective gear, diacetyl (a cancer-causing chemical) and more—it has yet to issue a crane and derrick safety standard, despite the urging of both industry and unions.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, took to task OSHA chief Edwin Foulke for failing to protect workers and a “tragic pattern of inaction” on important safety rules. The remarks came at a recent hearing on the deadly Imperial Sugar Co. explosion that killed 13 workers in Georgia last month. (Click here to read Miller’s statement.)

The folks at OSHA Underground—a workplace safety blog run by OSHA employees who post anonymously to protect their jobs—have tracked the nearly four-year delay in issuing a crane and derrick standard.

FULL story at link.