State OSHA boosts work site safety

By Alexandra Berzon

Saturday, May 31, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Nevada will begin requiring contractors to place temporary flooring or safety netting beneath employees working on high-rise projects, the state Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced Friday.

The ironworkers union had increased pressure on the agency to require the safety measure after the Las Vegas Sun’s recent series of reports about the deaths of construction workers on the Strip.

The requirement, effective Aug. 1, marks the first state policy change in response to the deaths.

“Considering the unprecedented levels of construction that are currently taking place, particularly on the Las Vegas Strip, we are pleased to be able to implement stronger regulations to protect workers,” Tom Czehowski, Nevada OSHA’s chief administrative officer, said in a news release announcing the change.

In the past 18 months, 10 workers have died on Strip construction sites amid the ongoing $32 billion building boom. Two of those were ironworkers whose falls could have been stopped short if decking or netting had been in place.

Federal safety laws enforced locally by Nevada OSHA have long required that employers provide safety netting or temporary flooring to catch workers who fall. Those rules remained official law even after new steel erection standards were adopted in 2001 after many years of negotiation involving labor and industry representatives.

But in 2002, federal OSHA issued a directive that said the agency would not enforce the requirement for netting or flooring if employers required workers to wear safety harnesses, which are attached to cables that workers tie off from above.

Federal OSHA maintains that the two forms of protection are redundant and unnecessary, and Nevada OSHA had abided by the decision in its wholesale adoption of all federal compliance directives.

But in the decision announced Thursday, Nevada OSHA concluded that this particular interpretation had weakened safety standards by increasing fall distances, raising the possibility of injuries from falling objects and making it more difficult for rescuers to reach the upper levels of high-rise buildings in an emergency.

California reached the same conclusion and chose to ignore the 2002 federal interpretation.

Nevada’s decision came in response to several entreaties from the ironworkers union, including a letter last month from Chuck Lenhart, business agent for Ironworkers Local 433, asking for enforcement of the safety flooring requirement.

Last week, AFL-CIO Executive Secretary-Treasurer Danny Thompson and several representatives of the ironworkers union met with Czehowski, who later sought and received the cooperation of contractors through the Associated General Contractors, a trade organization.

At the federal level, the International Association of Ironworkers union has met with representatives of the federal Labor Department and Congress regarding the policy.

Though in Las Vegas the focus of attention has been on the decking standard, the union had also asked federal and Nevada OSHA officials to review a section of the directive that abandoned enforcement of a standard for placement of connecting studs on steel beams. The union says enforcing the standard would help prevent tripping hazards.

On Friday, Nevada OSHA said it would start enforcing the original standards for connecting studs rather than follow the federal interpretations.

“It’s a big deal that Nevada OSHA rescinded these directives,” said Greg McClelland, a safety expert for the Ironworkers Western District Council, which oversees Nevada. McClelland has been involved in the discussions with Nevada OSHA.

“This specific issue has been a fight between the Ironworkers International and the federal government since this compliance directive was first issued. I would hope other states would now make changes too. I hope this is the pebble in the pond.”