Retrofit Magazine shared the following major construction safety news announcement:
The California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board (OSHSB) has voted to adopt the Iron Workers (IW) safety standard updates for reinforcing steel and post-tensioning activities. California is the first state-approved OSHA plan to work with the IW to reform existing safety standards. The IW Safety and Health Department has been working with the IW Department of Reinforcing Steel and industry stakeholders such as the Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute (CRSI), National Association of Reinforcing Steel Contractors (NARSC), Post-Tensioning Institute (PTI)and the Western Steel Council (WSC) to reform existing standards since 2010.
In 2013, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) updated its A10.9 Concrete and Masonry standard to reflect reforms the IW Safety and Health Department and the industry stakeholders proposed. As part of the 2017 ZERO Incident Campaign commissioned by the IW General President Eric Dean, the IW Safety and Health Department is pursuing updates to the 1971 federal OSHA standard to prevent incidents and fatalities. It continues to pursue new reinforcing steel and post-tensioning standards in other state-approved OSHA plans throughout the country.
Iron Workers International is applying pressure to update federal safety guidelines that date back to the early 70s, that it feels are outdated. Accordingly, the organization cites a direct relationship between lax safety regulations/enforcement and injuries.
Specifically, the 1971 OSHA standards fail to address modern methods of steel reinforcement erection and post-tensioning.
The new California safety standards are due to go in effect beginning in January of 2018.
[Via: Construction Dive]
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