U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR PRIVATE

	OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION

	ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON

	CONSTRUCTION SAFETY AND HEALTH (ACCSH)

	Thursday, November 29, 2012

	Frances Perkins Building

	200 Constitution Avenue, N.W.

	Washington, D.C.

	Diversified Reporting Services, Inc.

<PHONE_NUMBER>

COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:

EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATIVES:

Erich J. (Pete) Stafford, Chairman

 Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO

Roger Erickson

 International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron

 Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers & Helpers

 AFL-CIO, MOST Administrator

Walter A. Jones

 Laborers' Health and Safety Fund of North America

EMPLOYER REPRESENTATIVES:

Kristi Barber

 Glenn C. Barber & Associates

Kevin R. Cannon

 Associated General Contractors of America

Thomas Marrero

 Zenith Systems, LLC

William E. Hering

 SM Electric Company, Inc.

Donald L. Pratt

 Construction Education and Consultation

 Services of Michigan

STATE REPRESENTATIVES:

Charles Stribling

 Kentucky Labor Cabinet, Department of Workplace Standards

Steven D. Hawkins (telephonic)

 Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration

COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:  [continued]

PUBLIC REPRESENTATIVES:

Letitia K. Davis

 Massachusetts Department of Public Health

Jeremy Bethancourt

 Arizona Construction Training Alliance

FEDERAL REPRESENTATIVES:

Matt Gillen

 Deputy Director, Office of Construction Safety

 & Health, CDC/NIOSH, Office of the Director

DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIALS:

Jim Maddux

 OSHA Directorate of Construction

Ben Bare

 Deputy Director, DOL-OSHA Directorate of Construction

COMMITTEE CONTACTS:

Damon S. Bonneau

 OSHA, Directorate of Construction

COMMITTEE COUNSEL:

Sarah Shortall, DOL, Office of the Solicitor

	A G E N D A

											 PAGE

Opening Remarks/Agenda Overview -

 Chairman Stafford	5

Directorate of Construction Regulatory Update -

 Jim Maddux, Director, Directorate of Construction	11

On-Line Training Issues - Dr. Henry Payne,

 Director, Directorate of Training and Education	61

NIOSH Update - Dr. Christine Branche, Principal

 Associate Director, NIOSH	90

Training and Outreach Work Group Report	147

Injury and Illness Prevention Program (I2P2)

 Work Group Report	162

Backing Operations Work Group Report	172

Health Hazards/Emerging Issues/Prevention

 Through Prevention Work Group Report	179

Assistant Secretary's Agency Update and Report -

 Dr. David Michaels	198

Diversity Work Group Report	239

Public Comments	254

Adjournment	287

MOTIONS - Pages 151, 152, 153, 153, 156, 166,

          178, 192, 193, 235, 248, 249, 252

	P R O C E E D I N G S

		(8:00 a.m.)

	OPENING REMARKS/AGENDA OVERVIEW

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  We are on the record now.  We have a quorum of
ACCSH members.  Welcome, everyone.

		My name is Pete Stafford.  I'm an employee representative on ACCSH and
chairman of the committee.  I would like to welcome my fellow ACCSH
members and all of you for being here this morning.

		Right out of the gate let me say before I forget and Sarah will
probably remind me one or two times again during the day, this is an
open public meeting.  We have a full agenda, as usual.

		If you would like to make any comments to the committee, there will be
time at the end of this afternoon between 4:00 and 4:30 for public
comments.  There is a sign-in sheet in the back for that purpose.  We
will also carve out the last half hour of tomorrow morning's meeting for
another public comment period, from 11:30 to 12:00 tomorrow.

		With that, again, welcome everyone.  Let's start by doing
introductions of ACCSH members.

		I would like to remind the ACCSH members and for anyone in the
audience who engages in the conversations, please state your name and
organization for the benefit of our recorder.

		With that, Ben?

		MR. BARE:  Ben Bare.  Deputy Director, Directorate of Construction,
DOL-OSHA.

		MR. PRATT:  Don Pratt, Construction Education and Consultation
Services of Michigan.  I am here representing employers.

		MS. DAVIS:  I'm Tish Davis.  Director, Occupational Health
Surveillance Program, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and I'm
a public representative.

		MR. BETHANCOURT:  I'm Jeremy Bethancourt.  I'm with the Arizona
Construction Training Alliance.  I am a public representative.

		MR. STRIBLING:  Good morning.  Chuck Stribling, Kentucky Labor
Cabinet, Department of Workplace Standards.  I represent state
government.

		MR. MARRERO:  Tom Marrero, employee representative, Corporate Safety
Manager, Zenith Systems LLC.

		MR. GILLEN:  Good morning.  Matt Gillen, Deputy Director from NIOSH
Office of Construction Safety and Health.

		MR. JONES:  Walter Jones, Assistant Director of Occupational Safety
and Health with the Laborers' Health and Safety Fund, employee rep.

		MR. ERICKSON:  Roger Erickson, employee representative, Boilermakers
AFL-CIO and MOST Program.

		MR. CANNON:  Kevin Cannon, employer rep.  Associated General
Contractors of America.

		MS. BARBER:  Kristi Barber, employee rep, Glenn C. Barber &
Associates.

		MR. HERING:  Bill Hering, employer rep, SM Electric, a large utility
contractor in Canada and the United States.

		MS. SHORTALL:  Good morning.  I'm Sarah Shortall, ACCSH counsel.

		(Introduction of audience participants.)

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Ben, do you have any comments?

		MR. BARE:  Welcome, everybody.  We had a really good discussion and
information from the work groups.  I congratulate all of you and keep up
the enthusiasm.  It was really great to see the participation.  Looking
forward to the discussion today and tomorrow.

		The Assistant Secretary will be here at 2:00, looking forward to those
comments.  If you have any questions for him, feel free to participate
with him and have an exchange with him.

		The last thing is emergency evacuation, always important, in case we
get an alarm or something catastrophic happens.  Damon will kind of
explain the emergency evacuation procedures for the building.

		MR. BONNEAU:  Good morning.  We hope it never happens, but if it does,
we want to be prepared, like Ben said.

		In the event the alarms go off, we have a very sophisticated PA system
in here, and if they start making announcements that we need to leave
the building, you need to attach yourself to one of the DOC members,
which is Ben, myself, Jim, Paul, or if you happen to be outside of here,
in the rest room or some place else, report to the Construction Office,
which is here on the third floor, Room 3468.

		That way we will hang around and wait for anybody that is not in here,
and we will take you to the rally point.  The rally point is outside
this building, around the corner quite a ways.  We don't want to try to
tell you how to get there and get lost.  Just follow us.  We will get
you there safely.

		Make sure you sign in.  There is a sign-in roster going around.
Please make sure you sign in.  That's going to be the only way that we
will be able to verify that we have everybody assembled and in the right
place.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Thank you, Damon.  Sarah?

		MS. SHORTALL:  A couple of public participation notes.  First, all of
the exhibits, reports, the transcript from today's meeting, are going to
be put in the public record for ACCSH.

		The docket number is OSHA-2012-0011.  If you just type in "ACCSH," all
the material will come up.

		You will notice the microphone for teleconferencing.  We will be
having at least one member who will be participating in that way.  I
also want to let people know, if they contact Damon Bonneau, because
they can't be here physically but would like to listen in, he can give
you the passcodes so you can participate and be with us at this meeting
by teleconference.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Thank you, Sarah.  Again, welcome, everyone.
Thank you.  I'd like to start by ditto'ing what Ben said earlier.  We
have been meeting for the last couple of days and I would like to thank
all of our ACCSH members and the co-leads and a lot of you who have been
with us for the last couple of days.

		From my perspective, we have had very informative and some productive
work group meetings.  We will be hearing from several of our work groups
today and a few more tomorrow as we wrap up.

		First, as usual, we are going to have a report from the Directorate of
Construction, to give us a regulatory update on everything that is
happening at DOC.

		With that, Jim, welcome, and thank you for being here.

	DIRECTORATE OF CONSTRUCTION REGULATORY UPDATE

		MR. MADDUX:  Thank you.  To add on to that, I think the work group
meetings were all great.  For the last couple of days, we got a lot of
great information.  I think we had some really good robust discussions
about a lot of the issues that are facing the Agency.  I hope you guys
learned as much as I did.  I thought it was pretty exciting.

		I also wanted to make sure to welcome our four new members to the
committee.  Jeremy, Don, Kristi, and Roger were just recently appointed.
 This is their first meeting.  Welcome.  If there is anything we can do
to help you out or answer any questions, please just ask me or anybody
on the DOC staff.  We will be happy to try to give some resources for
you.

		I'd like to start out by kind of going through some of the
recommendations from the last few meetings, kind of giving a little bit
of a status on where things are at.

		At the last meeting, we had a recommendation to develop model
guidelines to help Federal Government assist with their contracting and
pre-assessment of construction work.  There was a discussion of that in
one of the work groups.

		We now have a draft, sort of a check list, and we had some folks from
the Department who came to help with that.  I think that was very
productive, and we are moving forward with that.

		There was a recommendation that we develop construction sanitation
guidelines for separate facilities for men and women.  We have a fact
sheet, a draft fact sheet and a draft web page that the group is
reviewing.  I feel that is moving forward pretty well.

		A recommendation for injury and illness prevention programs.  There
were three separate parts of the recommendation, and all that is moving
forward.

		I think the most important one is in the construction sector, that
programs be employer specific and site-wide.  Things need to be
coordinated on a construction site when you have an injury and illness
prevention program.

		Recommendations on posting some of the Alliance Roundtable fact sheets
on prevention through design.  On our web page, we are creating a link
to them.  We have completed them.  There is still an outstanding issue
of whether or not they should be turned into actually OSHA branded
products.  We are continuing to take a look at that.

		A lot of our publication resources, of course, are busy with the falls
prevention campaign and crane issues, but it's on our list to do.

		There is a recommendation on a direct final rule for head protection
to update the consensus standards.  That rule has been published since
that meeting and is now completed.  That is a completely done activity.

		Now we have the most recent consensus standards for head protection
reference in our construction standards and our general industry
standards.

		There was a couple of recommendations on a backing operations' web
page, some are specific on content.  We have done that.  That was posted
earlier this week.  That is a completed item.

		Recommendation on including profit fit of PPE in the SIP IV
rulemaking.  We are planning to do that.

		We included the chimney stack variance in the SIP IV rulemaking.  We
are continuing to look at that and see if it is a reasonable fit for
that project.

		A guidance document for mast climbing.  We have not started on that
yet.

		That is some of the recommendations from the last several meetings.  I
just want to make sure people know that we take these recommendations
seriously and we are moving on them with the resources and other
priorities that we have.

		In terms of just an update, we now have fatality data for 2011, just
published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics about a month ago, I think.
The preliminary data showed we have a small reduction in fatalities in
the construction sector.

		This data is preliminary.  The final data won't come out until some
time next year.  The data are likely to go up a little bit.  I think it
would be pretty surprising if it got back to the 2010 levels.

		I think this is very good news.  Hopefully, we can continue to keep
this pressure going on these rates, as the economy continues to slowly
recover, and we have an increase in construction work.

		Falls dominate, 250, almost a third of the fatal injuries in
construction are due to falls.  We also have quite a number of "struck
by" cases and electrocutions.

		Let's get into a little bit of our rulemaking work.  We have the
committee chatting quite a bit about the SIP IV process, and we have had
several recommendations from the committee for different things we could
include in SIP IV.

		The purpose, of course, is to remove or revise duplicative,
unnecessary, and inconsistent safety and health standards, without
reducing worker safety or health or imposing additional economic burdens
on employers.

		These rulemaking's include a large number of relatively small fixes to
the standards that probably would never be big enough to get on the
regulatory agenda by themselves.

		We are working really hard on this.  I think right now we have a total
of 80 potential candidates that we have assembled.

		We will be ultimately publishing an RFI.  That is just approaching its
last stages of clearance.  I think that RFI could publish maybe in the
next two or three weeks.

		We also have several final rules we are working on.  Three of these
are follow up rulemaking activities from the crane standard.  We will be
talking quite a lot about the crane standard today.

		One of them has to do with the application of the cranes and derricks
standard, digging and underground construction and demolition.  We
issued a direct final rule on this a couple of months ago, took
comments.

		We wound up with really no comment on the underground construction.
We are going to move forward with a Federal Register Notice that will
announce that is completed and going into effect.

		We had one comment on demolition that discussed potential ambiguities
in the regulatory text that we used.  What we are planning to do there
is to re-open the record for 30 days to get additional comments on that
ambiguous language, and see if we can actually make it more crystal
clear.

		Ambiguities in regulatory language are very rarely a good thing.  It
should be a relatively easy fix.  That could publish also probably a
little bit after the SIP IV Request For Information, but certainly
within the next five or six weeks.

		Cranes and derricks.  This is a rulemaking to resolve a lawsuit that
we had with the Edison Electric Institute.  This has to do with digger
derricks are used to set up poles, and sometimes they are used to set
transformers and that sort of thing.

		We have issued a direct final rule for this.  I think it was about
three weeks ago.  The comment period is still open.  We are taking
comment on this exemption, and that is moving forward very nicely.

		We also have a number of corrections that we want to make to the
cranes and derricks standard.  There were things that were accidently
left out of the standard that are discussed in the preamble.  There is
an error in one of the hand signal charts that we would to get repaired.

		That is just doing some clean up on that.

		The last one and certainly the most important is the final rule for
confined spaces.  We have been getting a lot of good work done on that.
It is coming together nicely.  We are now trying to put the last touches
on one last final session.  That is approaching getting into the
clearance process.  That will have a full OMB review.  I'm sure that
won't be published until some time next year.

		Backing operations.  We have a backing operations work group, Meghan
and Paul briefed the work group on the good work that is going on there.
 Dr. Teizer, I think, had a great presentation of some of the new
technologies that are available to try to help protect workers from back
over's.

		There are a tremendous number of fatalities.  I think last year it was
78 or 79 workers who were fatally injured by being backed over by a
vehicle.

		There are a lot of things that can be done to prevent these horrible
fatalities.

		This is one where Paul and Meghan have been doing some leg work,
getting out and doing some site visits.  We have had some very good
contact with several construction companies that have shown a
willingness to share some data and their experience with trying to
prevent back over injuries.

		One, for example, has done some very good experimenting with mounting
cameras underneath the dump trucks.  This has been one of the really big
concerns, if you try to put back up cameras on construction equipment,
it's a very rough environment, will the cameras be able to take that
rough environment and survive and do the job they need to do.

		This particular company is having some success with that.  They have
actually created it turns out with the experimentation they have done,
the best place to put the camera, directly under the dumper.

		You get it underneath the vehicle where the bed is actually protecting
the camera, and then they created a welded steel box to mount the camera
in, and have a screen inside the cab so the driver can see to the rear.
They are having some success with that.

		I think we have some really good work going on here.  The next step in
this project, of course, will be to continue to try to get out and do
site visits and collect data, but we also are going to hold two public
stakeholder meetings after the first of the year.

		These will probably be announced in the next week or two formally
through a Federal Register Notice and a press release and so forth.

		We will be having one meeting here in Washington, D.C. in January, and
then a second meeting in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area in Texas in February.

		People that are interested in this back over issue or have
data/information to contribute, this will provide a really, really nice
opportunity to continue to keep the conversation going on back over
operations, try to see if this is worth getting into rulemaking and what
a rule might look like, and how it would really work.

		In the same RFI where we announced the back over project, we also
announced and asked for comment on reinforcing and post tension steel
construction.

		Of course, rebar is in a tremendous amount of the concrete that we use
on construction jobs, and concrete is one of the materials of choice for
construction.

		This is a very, very common problem.  It is really everywhere in
construction work sites.

		We do have standards that set some requirements for dealing with rebar
and post tension, but we have been petitioned by the Iron Workers Union
to improve those rules and try to do some additional work.

		We received about 80 comments in response to the RFI.  There were a
large number of them that were sort of a form letter type approach.
There were really only 15 unique comments.  They were from a nice
variety of stakeholders, people in both large and small companies,
insurance, people who actually were providing concrete, some equipment
manufacturers, the Iron Workers, of course, some foundation drillers, a
good variety of comments.

		We are taking a look at those.  That is certainly in the mix as we
continue to have our discussions with our political appointees about
which standards we are going to move forward on and how we are going to
kind of prioritize our agenda.

		We also have a number of directives under development.  We have been
putting a lot of work into the cranes and derricks' directive.  We do
have a full draft of the directive, and we have been holding regular
meetings, so we try to get together two or three times a week with our
crane team and walk through that.

		We are hopeful some time shortly after the first of the year, we will
get that out into our clearance process.

		Directives go through a clearance process that involves sending them
out to all of our regional administrators and to various directorates
here in D.C., to make sure it is making sense and it doesn't interfere
with other directives and other policy statements that are out there.

		We also are working on one for personal protective equipment.  The
directive here is really sort of a press forward PPE standard that we
put out several years ago.

		What it really deals with more than anything are the PPE payment
requirements, and of course, some of the court decisions that we have
had around PPE and kind of the limitations of the PPE standards that we
have.

		We are also just getting started on a construction chapter to the
Field Operations Manual, and revision of our directive on excavation and
trenching, and this is fairly small, just to try to make sure we have
collected the correct evidence for a couple of the paragraphs that are a
little bit tricky.

		We are also working on a directive that deals with communication
towers.  We have a directive right now that allows people that are doing
construction work on communication towers to be hoisted using a drum
hoist and a lift system, which is fairly scary business.

		Some of these are several hundred feet in the air and they are using a
drum hoist.  It is important that all the equipment with that drum hoist
and personnel lift and so forth match and be properly maintained and so
forth.

		Of course, what has happened is the big push on building communication
towers has kind of ended.  What we have now is a lot of communication
towers scattered all across the country, and there is a tremendous
amount of maintenance work that goes on, and work to put up the new
generations of transmitters and receivers that are being used as we go
to 3G and now 4G, and whatever the high speed cell phone service of
tomorrow is going to have.

		The question on this one is whether or not we should expand and
include maintenance activities in that directive.

		I want to talk a little bit about the crane standard.  Of course, we
are now two years since we published the crane standard.  We are trying
to get a little more data on how it works.

		I thought the committee might be interested in a little bit of our
most frequently cited paragraphs and requirements in the crane standard.

		Signal person is the number one problem we have had.  Signal person is
not qualified.  Materials not being rigged by a qualified rigger.
Failure to have documentation from the signal person.

		Annual inspections by a qualified person are a problem.  I think these
annual inspections are really, really critical.  There are several
different types of inspections that are required, shift, monthly, and
annual.

		The annual inspection is the one that really takes a good hard look at
the gear to make sure it's operating properly and there isn't wear and
tear that can cause a safety concern.

		This is one that I think is fairly troublesome.

		Power line safety.  No determination that the working radius is within
20 feet.

		Operator manuals, load charts and so forth not in the cab.  People are
operating the cab without even the load chart.

		Determination for safety is not made by a competent person after
deficiency was noted during an inspection.

		The requirement is if you do an inspection and you find a deficiency,
you need to determine if it's going to create a safety hazard.  If it's
going to create a safety hazard, then you need to fix that before you
operate the crane.

		Requirement for monthly inspection results, same problem.

		Missing labels supplied by the manufacturer.

		We have enough citations that it is worth taking a look at what the
most common problems are.  Of course, this is helping us to guide kind
of the heaviest focus as we are drafting the directive.

		We have also been completing a fair number of letters of
interpretation for the crane standard.  I think right now we put out
somewhere around 20, maybe a few more than that.  We are at a point
where the letters of interpretation are kind of coming in at the same
rate they are going out.

		We still have about 20 that we are working on.  We are getting to
where we are dealing with a lot of the more difficult issues.

		Some that we have put out are the hours of equipment operation versus
the practical exam, when people go in for a re-certification, operation
of cranes that have been de-rated by the manufacturer for one reason or
another.

		The crane standard also applies to a vertical mast forklift used with
hoisting arrangements.  This was a very difficult one.  It took us quite
a while to kind of figure out exactly how to deal with this.

		The crane standard can apply to a forklift using mechanical means,
move the load vertically up and down or horizontally, either side to
side or front to back, then the forklift is covered by the crane
standard.

		We also had the issue of the mast climbing scaffolds.  Those are also
covered by the standard.

		Several questions for identifying the work zone and working near a
power line.  This is actually a pretty nice letter, it has several
diagrams and walks through the various options that employers have for
identifying a safe working zone when they are close to an electric power
transmission line.

		Apprentice programs used to qualify riggers and signal persons.  We
had several of those from a couple of the Unions.

		We are still continuing to work on future FAQs and interpretations.
We put out 25 FAQs earlier this year, which helped to resolve a lot of
the issues, and perhaps not resolved one very important one.

		We are continuing to work on extended reach forklifts that are being
used as a crane, as a hoisting device.

		DC voltage, articulating knuckleboom crane questions.  The most
difficult one we have been dealing with, which is the crane capacity
question around operator certification.

		The standard includes, in my opinion, very unambiguous language about
the fact that certification is required for cranes by type and capacity.

		I looked at this photo.  It's a very dramatic photo where a crane
company has used one crane to lift a smaller crane and then done that
several times, so that all three of these cranes are up in the air, each
one lifting the next.

		It highlights this capacity problem where kind of the basic question
is should the person who is certified to operate the smallest crane in
this series, should that certification also allow them to operate the
largest crane in that series.

		This wound up being a very difficult issue.  There are four crane
certification bodies.  Two of them have certifications by both type and
capacity and two of them do not.

		The two that do not are issuing certifications today that do not have
capacity on them.

		In 2014, when that requirement kicks in, if there isn't some sort of
change or some kind of a solution to the problem, those cards are not
going to be valid.

		We have had a number of conversations with the crane certification
community, with the different groups that are involved in the crane
world, the SCRA, the operating engineers, groups like that.

		We recently received a letter from the operating engineers encouraging
us to go into rulemaking on the issue.

		This is going to continue to play out where we haven't found the
answer yet but hopefully we will pretty soon.  Certainly, we want to
make sure we have properly certified crane operators when that
requirement goes into place.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  If I can understand this real quick, is it OSHA's
position that if you were certified in the largest crane, you would
still have to be separately certified in the other capacities as well?

		MR. MADDUX:  The standard is actually very clear that if you are
certified on a large crane, you are also certified to operate any crane
with a lower capacity.

		For example, with this photo, if the person had been certified on the
largest crane in this series, they would have automatically been
certified to operate all of the smaller cranes.

		This is actually another photograph.  This is a crane collapse that
happened in Houston, Texas with three fatalities.  This is a very large
crane, actually took out a second crane as it came down.  Tremendous
life injury and property damage.

		The operator of this crane was not certified or qualified to operate
this device.  There were a number of root causes that came into play
with this accident.  That is certainly one of them.

		This is before the crane standard came in.  We issued a citation to
the employer for this problem, and that citation has been upheld through
the Review Commission level for not having a qualified crane operator.

		I'd like to shift a little bit to the falls prevention campaign.  Dr.
Michaels will be talking about this this afternoon.  It has been a very
successful campaign.  We have been very, very pleased with it.

		We have come out with a number of different products.  We came out
with a poster in English and Spanish.  We came out with a four page fact
sheet that focuses on the three areas where the greatest number of fall
fatalities take place, ladders, scaffolds and roofs being the three.

		That has been translated into several languages now, and we are
continuing to work on more translations.

		One of the most popular products we have produced has been the toolbox
sticker.  This was a very nice idea that Eric Harbin came up with, who
used to be in the Directorate of Construction and since moved down to
work with Region VI as the Deputy Director.

		They have been just tremendous.  When I go out and do speeches around
the country, I'll typically grab a roll of these and throw them in my
backpack and take them along.  I have yet to bring a sticker back.

		I actually brought a roll.  Jeremy had asked for some yesterday.

		I also want to put out an open invitation to the members of the
committee or for that matter, to people who are in the audience today,
we do have a lot of these materials available still here in the
building, if you need more materials for the falls prevention campaign,
which will be re-launching next Spring for the second year, please talk
to somebody on the DOC staff and we will connect you up with the right
people to make sure you can get the materials that you need.  You can
either take them with you or we will be happy to ship them to you.

		We also have produced a number of products on residential construction
falls protection.  In late 2010, we issued a directive that brought
residential construction under the same falls protection requirements as
other types of construction are required to follow.

		That has been a long process.  We have gone through a number of
different phase-in's.  We published a very large number of fact sheets,
I think nine of them, on different types of residential construction
activities, giving people information about how to provide falls
protection.

		One of the recommendations of this committee was all those fact sheets
be translated into Spanish.  We have made some good progress on that.

		We had this little event up on the East Coast, the storm called
"Sandy."  We have been putting in a lot of effort into trying to get
some guidance materials up to the people that are doing clean up work
and demolition removal and construction work up in the New York and New
Jersey effort.

		Several of those required some translations into Spanish and
Portuguese.  We sort of shifted our resources to make sure we were
getting the materials to those people that are in such need of safety
information and other services right at this time.

		As soon as that effort starts to kind of slow down a little bit up in
the New York and New Jersey area, then we will complete those
interpretations and get all of those in Spanish.

		We also had several guidance products under development, a roofing
document, a couple of video's from the State of Washington that showed
some nice techniques.  I think the video approach is always a very nice
way to try to get guidance out to the public.  It's very powerful.

		We also are working on a revision of our general falls protection
guidance document.  That is in its last review with our Solicitor's
Office.

		One of the things we found and talked about with our training and
outreach group was doing a gap analysis of our existing publications and
outreach materials.

		One of the things we discovered fairly early on in the falls
prevention campaign is that we had very few products on ladders and
scaffolds.  We have been working on six fact sheets, three for each one
of those topics.

		We have three of them on ladders, one for extension, step ladders and
job made ladders.  Those are along in the clearance process.  We will
definitely have those ready probably next month.

		Three of them are on scaffolds, they are just getting ready to go into
the clearance process.

		What we are trying to do here is kind of reload some new materials so
that when we re-launch the falls prevention campaign in the Spring, we
will have some fresh publications that meet the needs for people to get
a little bit more safety information on these important topics.

		I put this slide in.  This is the web page that houses video tools,
what we call V-Tools, that have been produced by our sister Directorate,
the Directorate of Science, Technology and Medicine.

		In late 2010, we published 13 of these video's.  One of them is a live
video that has to do with trench safety and primarily with doing the
soil test, to try to determine the types of trenching safety
requirements that would come into play.

		Twelve of them were animated video's.  Each one of these animated
video's is based actually on one or more fatalities that have occurred
in the construction industry, and shows what happened, how the fatality
occurred, using an animated video clip, and talks about what could have
been done to avoid the fatality.

		These are extremely powerful training tools.  Low literacy.  Available
in English and Spanish, and a version that does not have any voice over
at all, so if people want to download it, they can do their own voice
over in whatever language they need.

		Those have been enormously popular and we think they have been very
helpful.

		I just wanted to let you know that the Directorate of Technical
Support is working on two new ones.

		One of these is going to deal with a scenario where a worker swings an
extension ladder into a power line, which is a fairly common fatality
scenario that we see in our fatality reports, and I'm sure some of you
may have heard some of these.

		The second one is going to be on commercial sky lights on a flat roof.
 This is also a continuous problem.  We see several fatalities per year
where a worker goes through one of these flat roof sky lights.  It is a
big problem.

		I just wanted to put up the nail gun guidance document.  We published
this very early this year in English, had a very big roll out effort.
This is a joint document with NIOSH and OSHA.

		When we rolled out the English language version, Christine Branche and
I put together a fairly big outreach program using e-mail blasts and
phone calls and so forth.

		The document has been enormously popular.  I think we are pretty close
to half a million downloads now.  It is also the only OSHA guidance
document that I know of that has been picked up by Amazon and is
available for your Kindle reader on Amazon for $1.99.  No, I am not
getting a cut, unfortunately.

		We just recently launched the Spanish language version.  This is now
available in Spanish as well.  Christine and I worked together to do a
second sort of roll out for the Spanish language version, to not only
announce and try to get more attention to the Spanish language version
but also sort of reemphasize the English language version.

		We are really looking forward to seeing the injury data come out.  I
think the emergency room visits for nail guns in the past has been
somewhere around 30,000 per year.  We will be very interested to see if
there are any changes to that number as we go forward.  This guidance
document may help avoid some of those injuries.

		MR. JONES:  Walter Jones, employee rep.  What do you attribute the
popularity of this document to?

		MR. MADDUX:  I'm not sure we know for sure.  We do have some ideas.  I
think one is it is now just such a common tool in the workplace,
everybody that has a nail gun recognize these are a dangerous tool and
of course, a very useful tool.

		Almost everybody in the construction industry knows somebody that has
been hit by a nail using one of these tools.

		This is a very dramatic kind of an x-ray of an injured worker that
really has drawn attention to it.  That is one of the things we are kind
of trying to continue to study and take a look at, what was the draw to
this document, for lessons learned to use for future guidance documents.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Christine?

		DR. BRANCHE:  Christine Branche, NIOSH.  One of the things we have
heard is it doesn't look like most Government documents.  We really
tried to make it so the document was easy to read, that it is low
literacy, has a lot of visuals, a lot of white space, and has
information -- it's hard to have a document that has useful
information but isn't verbose, and we worked really hard to make sure it
is all those things.

		We also have reached out in the Spanish version to the medical
community.  Again, as Jim said, it's an opportunity to reinforce the
fact that the English version is available, but in this one, we have
deliberately reached out to the medical community in this version.

		We are conducting some telephone follow back's with a few of the
people that Jim and I have reached out to to get their take on it.  We
weren't able to do that when we released the English version.  We are
making a few calls to get the take on the Spanish version.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Thank you.

		MR. MADDUX:  We also have copies of those available if anybody wants a
few of them.  We still have several cases here in the building, both
English and Spanish.

		At least from my viewpoint, and I think Christine would agree with me,
I think this and the falls prevention campaign have some wonderful
examples of some cooperation and collaboration between OSHA and NIOSH to
develop some products, to develop a campaign, to combine the research
capability of NIOSH with what I kind of call the brand name of OSHA, and
come up with products that are technically sound, written in a way that
is helpful to the community, and then to get those out and get them into
the hands of the people that can do some good with them.

		We are continuing to look at different kinds of things where we can
work together and collaborate on different issues like this.  I think we
will probably have several more projects coming up over the coming
years.

		That's all I have today.  I would be happy to take any questions or
talk about any issues people have.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Thank you, Jim.  You sure have been busy.  It is
always good to see OSHA following up on the recommendations that comes
from this group.  We appreciate your work and the rest of you.

		I would be glad to open it up to the committee if there are any
questions or comments.

		MR. CANNON:  Kevin Cannon, employer rep.  Yesterday during the injury
and illness prevention program work group, there was quite a bit of
discussion on the focused inspection policy.  You mentioned you guys had
just started working on the construction chapter for the FOM.

		Is that something that will be or could be included in there?

		MR. MADDUX:  It certainly could be, at least reference it.  It is very
construction specific.

		MR. CANNON:  Laying out what the specific criteria is.  I think it was
Tom Shanahan who stood up and kind of read the memo.

		MR. MADDUX:  I think there was actually a very interesting discussion
yesterday, and there was some discussion about whether or not we should
sort of go in and take a look at the materials that were produced for
the focused inspection policy back in the mid-1990s.

		I think there was a memo from James Stanley who sort of announced it
at that time, and whether or not we should go in and take a look at the
materials and sort of re-launch that focused inspection program and try
to raise awareness of it.

		MR. CANNON:  Yes.  That was my thinking, try to raise awareness.

		MR. MADDUX:  Certainly, our people in the field are aware of it.  It
is still a very active policy.  When construction employers ask for a
focused inspection, we have a routine that we go through.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Tish?

		MS. DAVIS:  I know your staff is aware, is the construction community
aware of it, is there a mechanism by which we could --

		MR. MADDUX:  I think that is the issue Kevin is raising and Tom
Shanahan raised yesterday, should we do something to highlight that and
make sure the construction community is more aware of that option.

		Certainly, one of the goals of that whole policy was to try to
encourage people to develop more robust safety and health programs short
of having a regulation that required that.

		I think re-launching it and re-publicizing it would probably have some
value.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  I think that is a good idea in the context of our
discussion on I2P2.  I don't know what the criteria was, and maybe an
evaluation that this contractor had a good program.  It would be
interesting to revisit as a part of this discussion.

		MR. MADDUX:  We will get together printed copies of the materials that
came out in 1994 for the focused inspection policy and make sure that
everybody on the committee has that.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  The construction chapter in the Fields Operations
Manual, I'm assuming that is kind of internal work within OSHA, as
opposed to getting any kind of outside input.

		MR. MADDUX:  Directives are usually more of an internal thing.  I
think there is some confusion on this sometimes, on the part of the
public.

		Our directives are really not designed to try to give guidance to the
public.  They do serve that function as sort of a secondary function but
the real purpose of our directives are to give guidance and direction to
our field staff.

		They really are sort of internal documents where we are trying to tell
our field staff how to enforce a particular standard, or in the case of
the Field Operations Manual, the exact sequence of steps they will go
through as they do an inspection, as they collect evidence, as they get
the information into our computer systems and so forth.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Thank you.  Don?

		MR. PRATT:  Jim, I'm concerned about what you had said
about -- maybe "concerned" is not the right word -- I'm questioning
what you said about the crane and derrick standards being applicable to
forklifts and certain kinds of forklifts.  I understand not all.

		In construction, as you well know, forklifts are being used a lot all
the time.

		Is it the intention of the standard to have the crane and derrick
standard the same for a forklift as it would be for a derrick crane or
some other type of commercial type of crane?

		MR. MADDUX:  Yes.

		MR. PRATT:  Why?

		MR. MADDUX:  I'm not sure a large portion of the construction industry
really knows this, as we were going through the rulemaking process, that
the rulemaking was very clear that it could apply to many, many
different types of devices that were being used in lieu of a crane.

		MR. PRATT:  My mason who has a laborer running a forklift, if it's the
right kind of forklift, is going to have to get the crane and derrick
certification and card.

		MR. MADDUX:  That is some of the questions we are working through
right now because kind of the problem here is the way the crane standard
is written, it does apply to certain types of forklifts, and we hope one
day can basically be used to hoist equipment that is being suspended
using a rigging or a hook.

		We also have requirements in our powered industrial truck standards
that have specific requirements to forklifts.

		What we are trying to sort out right now kind of in our FAQs and in
our enforcement directive guidance to our field staff is how are those
two sets of requirements going to mesh, when are the powered industrial
truck training requirements going to end and when the training and
certification requirements of the crane standard are going to begin.

		MR. PRATT:  I would like to suggest that OSHA please consult with
employers and with labor on the different types of applications for the
forklifts in construction, and to see how we can work together to try to
make that whole area safer rather than just having a bunch of
regulations that nobody is going to follow anyhow.

		MR. MADDUX:  I think you raise a good point but this is a regulation
that is final.  It has been published.  It is in effect.

		What we are trying to deal with right now is trying to do the best job
we can of making some reasonable interpretations of what's on the books.

		This is one of the most common questions that we have had coming into
the Agency as a result of the crane standard.

		In the last batch of FAQs we issued, we issued one FAQ on the vertical
mast forklift and we have a set of five or six more FAQs that are
nearing the end of the clearance process right now that we are going to
issue to try to answer some of these follow on questions.

		Technically, our field people probably could be issuing citations for
forklifts on construction jobs for some of these things now.

		It is very important that we get out as much direction as we can about
how to deal with this.  This is the same problem.  The crane standard
has a very general definition in its Scope section.  It talks about a
piece of equipment that can mechanically raise and lower and
horizontally move a load.

		There are a lot of pieces of equipment that can do that.  That's why,
for example, on these mast climbing scaffolds, a lot of the mast
climbing scaffolds now have a hoist that is attached to them that can
raise and lower and move it horizontally so you can land the material on
the scaffold.

		It winds up technically being covered by the crane standard, and we
have to figure out the most rational way to implement that.

		MR. PRATT:  Thank you.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Any other questions or comments?

		(No response.)

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  I just have one question for you, Jim, before I
let you go.  You had mentioned you had not yet started working on the
mast scaffold guidance document.  Are you planning to do that?

		MR. MADDUX:  It is something I would like to do.  I think it would be
a worthwhile project.  At least right now with some of the other things
that are going on, it hasn't gotten a high enough priority level to kind
of start applying some resources to it.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  I appreciate that.

		MR. JONES:  You mentioned during your remarks about response to Sandy.
 What role was your department playing in response to Sandy or do you
have a role or was that led by the region?

		MR. MADDUX:  We haven't had much of a role in the Directorate of
Construction, a few technical questions, if certain situations arise
that come in from our field staff.  That has been kind of the limit of
our involvement.  Most of that is handled by the folks in the region
that are actually on the ground dealing with the day to day issues.

		What we do here in D.C. for the most part is we just try to make sure
that when they need something, we are getting it to them as quickly and
efficiently and of highest quality we can to help support their effort.

		A lot of that is actually managed by our Directorate of Technical
Support and Emergency Management.  Amanda Edens is the Director there.

		If there are issues, for example, issues of trying to coordinate with
FEMA at a national level, Mandy will take care of that here in the D.C.
area while Bob Kulick, Regional Administrator in New York, is dealing
with people at the local level.

		We also brought in to try and help with that effort in New
York -- regions have sent COSHOs to New York City.  We are rotating
people through New York City on details that have safety and health
experience so we have an additional number of people that actually have
boots on the ground to try and get out and make sure people are working
safely.

		We have all seen the debris piles and so forth out on the street.  Now
there is an issue that is starting to develop that has to do with mold.
A lot of flooding and mold issues.

		They are trying to figure out how to deal with that, do we need some
additional guidance.

		We can't accept, for example, donated PPE and hand it out.  What we
have done is kind of help coordinate between people who are willing to
donate PPE and local organizations that have the capability to
distribute it to the workers.  We are trying to make those connections
where we have the opportunity.

		There has been an awful lot of work in Region 2.  They are working
unbelievably hard right now to try to protect the workers that are
trying to do all this work up there.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  What are you seeing, Walter, from the laborers and
through the building trades?  We are trying to get a handle on some
hazardous waste or training needs.  We are not getting a lot of
feedback.

		MR. JONES:  I can't speak directly for the laborers but just for the
network of occupational safety and health groups, the concern right now
is the mold concern and the respiratory requirements, and where we are
going to go with that.

		There is no PEL or no requirement for respirator use pro se in clean
up efforts with mold, but now there is concern that because there isn't,
how are we going to handle that whole area.

		Folks are looking to you guys for guidance.  That's what I'm hearing.
I thought maybe you or Dr. Michaels would speak to that.

		MR. MADDUX:  Dr. Michaels might know more about it.  I just heard
about the mold concern yesterday.  I have seen several news clips where
people were using at least like an N-95 respirator while they were doing
some of the demolition work and so forth, to try to address the concern.

		MR. JONES:  The hazards assessment associated with that, like some
folks are getting a hazards assessment that says go ahead and wear them.
 They are being allowed to wear them without the medical testing
requirements.

		Someone is going to have to jump in and wade through it at some point,
I would imagine.

		MR. MADDUX:  People are working on wading through those issues right
now.  Issues come up and we get people on top of them, trying to figure
out what the right thing is to do.

		MR. JONES:  I would just suggest getting your message out as well,
like all the things you said, all the stuff you guys are doing down
there.

		MR. MADDUX:  There is a tremendous amount of work.  The Secretary and
Jordan Barab, our Deputy Assistant Secretary, are traveling to Staten
Island today.  There is a very real concern for worker issues in the
area, for worker safety issues, also from our sister agencies on wage
and hour issues and things of that sort, the Department of Labor.  We
have boots on the ground out there.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  It has become very complicated typically in terms
of FEMA, some is Davis-Bacon, some is not, those types of issues.

		Jeremy?

		MR. BETHANCOURT:  Jim, you had mentioned you are going to be
re-launching or re-initiating the falls campaign in the Spring.  I was
curious what kind of efforts  there have been or success in reaching out
to the state programs where they may not be fitting under the same
jurisdiction as OSHA.

		MR. MADDUX:  We have reached out to the state programs.  Maybe Chuck
could talk to us a little bit better than I.  I think all of the states
are participating.

		We made a huge effort.  Scott came out and talked to our state plan
association and I have talked to our state plan association.  We send
out regular e-mails/blasts to them when we have new materials or new
launches.  We include both the state plans and the consultation plans.

		We have also done a fair amount to reach out to state Workers' Comp
and compensation agencies and to the state and territorial
epidemiologists that Christine works with.

		We have been doing a lot to try to reach out to a lot of state and
local people that we have relationships with and to include them.

		MR. BETHANCOURT:  Thanks.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Kevin?

		MR. CANNON:  I have a question regarding the type and capacity issue.
You mentioned there were two of the four that OSHA at this point deems
not to be compliant with the certification requirements.  You also
mentioned unless some progress is made, come 2014, some of those
certifications will be invalid.

		That is going to penalize contractors who thought they were being
proactive.  How are you considering dealing with that?  Grandfathering
in folks?

		MR. MADDUX:  There are probably a number of different things that we
can do.  I'm not sure what we are going to do right now to resolve it.
I'm sure we will resolve it.

		It's going to be taken care of but at least for right now, the road to
taking care of it is not entirely clear.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Any other questions or comments?

		(No response.)

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  One last thing.  Is Kentucky, for instance, doing
Focus Four?

		MR. STRIBLING:  Kentucky does not do a Focus Four inspection program.
We found from a resource standpoint when we send a compliance officer to
inspect a site, they just go ahead and inspect the site.

		MR. MADDUX:  Especially on a construction inspection, taking the time
to actually evaluate the safety and health program that is in place at
the site is a fairly time consuming effort for the inspection staff.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Don?

		MR. PRATT:  First of all, I can assure you that in Michigan, they are
doing as good a job as they possibly can in falls protection.  We have
had nearly 100 seminars put on by My OSHA over the last year.  They are
doing a superb job in getting the word out.

		The problem is we have to get somebody to listen to us.  That is a
real challenge.

		Secondly, with Focus Four, Jim, I don't think you know this but this
year at the International Builder show put on by the National
Association of Home Builders, we are actually going to focus on the
Focus Four in the display area, and we are actually going to give awards
out for people that go around the different stations and learn about the
Focus Four program.

		I was going to announce this to you when you got there, but I'll do it
now.  We are looking forward to the impact that may have on our building
members.

		MR. MADDUX:  I think that is a great move.

		MR. HERING:  Listening to the reports and everything on Hurricane
Sandy, our company is a restoration power company, a big utility
contractor, so we were called in with the other utilities.

		We had about 170 linemen and 70 vehicles.  I had a staff of about 20
safety professionals managing to visit every site as we tried to rebuild
Seaside Heights, all the way up into Long Island, down to Cape May.

		The camaraderie of the line people that came out, and really the
different line companies, Mississippi Power, Alabama Power, they were
flying line truck bucket trucks in on KC-10s to McGuire Air Force Base
from California with crews.

		I have to say the safety work and the expertise was phenomenal.  I
just wanted to mention that.  When you get out there and you go into a
neighborhood, and the wires are still sparking, it's dark and wet, there
is a lot of danger.  It was quite an event.

		It was really a phenomenal experience for five weeks, three conference
calls a day between our safety teams and our management teams, and then
we had to interact with all the other power companies.  It was
absolutely phenomenal.  I've never seen anything like it in my 45 years
in safety.

		MR. MADDUX:  I think the OSHA staff that are working up there feel the
same way, very, very rewarding work they are doing to try to contribute
to worker safety during such a difficult time.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Thank you.  Chuck?

		MR. STRIBLING:  Like I said, we don't do Focus Four inspections but an
employer has to have a written and documented safety and health program.

		Even now, when a compliance officer goes out, they do that.  If you go
to a site and there is a written safety and health program -- they are
letting the subs participate and doing the same thing -- you know it's
going to be a good site.

		I want to do that inspection.  It would make my job pretty easy today.
 I know I am going to go see a good site.  If you take care of those big
cranes, everything else seems to fall in line.

		When I say we don't do it, we don't formally do the Focus Four program
any more, but those are sites that our compliance officers like to be
at.  Those are the employers that get it.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  I look at it in two ways, as opportunities.  If
you went out to do a Focus Four and your first step is to look at the
written programs and they don't have a good one, why not share good
information on what we think a good program ought to look like as a
starter.

		Chuck, back to your point, I thought one of the purposes of it was
just contrary to what you said, that if you went out to a site, they
obviously knew what they were doing, they had a good program, you
targeted on those four things real quick and you got out and went on
down the road to inspect the other sites that may not be so good.  I
thought that was the intent initially.

		MR. MADDUX:  Yes, I think it had multiple purposes.  That was
certainly one of them.  Just doing a review of somebody's safety and
health program creates conversation that's worth having probably at a
lot of work sites.  What does your program look like, does it really
work.  Always a good conversation.

		I would just like to finish up.  I want to thank Ben and Damon and all
the DOC staff.  There is a lot of behind the scenes work that goes into
preparing for one of these meetings and actually making it work.  I
think everybody is doing a really great job.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Thank you, Jim, and thank your staff very much.

		(Applause.)

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Our favorite topic, OSHA training.  We have Dr.
Henry Payne here with us, Director of the OSHA Training Institute.  I
want to thank you very much for being here.

		MS. SHORTALL:  I'd like to enter a few exhibits into the record.

		Exhibit 1, November 29-30, 2012 ACCSH meeting agenda.  Exhibit 2, DOC
Regulatory Update PowerPoint presented by Jim Maddux.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Thank you, Sarah.  Dr. Payne, I think we are here
to talk about what's going on with on-line training.  Thank you very
much for being here.

		At our meeting last time or maybe two times ago, as you recall, the
committee felt it was important to stay tuned in to what OTI is doing,
and to the extent that stakeholders can give you some advice or you want
to hear from us on what we think about the programs and how we can help
you, that's our intent.

		Thank you very much for being here today.

	ON-LINE TRAINING ISSUES

		DR. PAYNE:  Thank you for inviting me.  The agenda says on-line
training issues.  I suppose you are not really interested in what OTI is
doing.  I think you want to know more about the 10 and 30 hour on-line.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Yes, I think that was the intent of the work
group; yes.

		DR. PAYNE:  That's fine.  Internally in OSHA, we do a lot of on-line
training.  We do what we call webcasts, video and audio, out to the
field, to the Federal and state compliance people, and then we have
audio coming back in where they can ask questions.

		Over the last five years, we have done about 60 of those.  We average
about one per month on various topics.  We use them for updates, items
of interest for the Assistant Secretary.

		We have what I would call traditional on-line learning, where students
can interact with computer based learning.

		We give primarily a blended format.  Students have anywhere from a 3
to a 15 hour up front requirement that they must complete before they
come to the Institute to complete the instructor leg portion.

		That has been very helpful for us, both in terms of getting all the
students kind of on a level playing field before they show up, and it
has allowed us to reduce the course length where people are actually in
Chicago.

		Some courses that used to be a week and a half long, we have been able
to shorten them to a week long by adding this on-line piece up front.

		That has been very successful for us.

		When John Henshaw became the Assistant Secretary,  he asked us to do
as much as we could on-line, both internally and externally.  In the
discussion, he asked us to work and try to get the 10 and 30 hour
outreach program on line.

		We did that.  We did that in a way that we developed requirements and
people who were interested in doing the 10 or 30 hour on-line would
submit an application.  We would go through the review and comment
process back and forth.

		It took about a year of us working with each applicant before we could
get to a point where we were comfortable in approving their training
programs.

		Most of the issues, quite frankly, were content issues.  They just
weren't safety people.  A lot of the people trying to do the training
were good at on-line training but they just didn't have a safety and
health background and didn't understand the importance.

		The requirement was for them to hire outreach trainers in order to do
this, that was part of the year long process and dragging this out.

		You don't know what you don't know when you start something like this.
 We never assumed or expected the people we approved to do the 10 and 30
on-line for construction and general industry and maritime would use
resellers to the extent they had.

		The use of resellers became a huge customer service problem where you
go on-line.  You select what you think is a training provider for the 10
hour construction course.  You register.  You pay with your credit card.

		The first time you have a problem, you find out the person you thought
you were taking the training from actually isn't the person you are
taking the training from, and it may be two or three companies removed
before you could actually get to the person providing the training.

		It created a lot of frustration, a lot of complaints.  We decided in
working with the Solicitor's Office, and in particular, a great
solicitor there, a guy named John Shortall, who we think does a great
job for us, we worked out a way where we were going to compete the
ability to be an on-line trainer, similar to the way that we do the OTI
education centers.

		We drafted a Federal Register Notice.  We put it out.  We got
applications in.  We reviewed the applications.  We made selections.

		Two of the providers who were not selected filed claims in the Federal
Court of Claims, which is where people go to file a challenge to a
contract.

		We argued, "we" being basically John Shortall, Rob Swain -- I argued
a lot louder than they did but probably my arguments couldn't be
used -- that it wasn't a contract.

		We signed a non-financial cooperative agreement.  It means we don't
give them any money.  According to the Justice Department and the
solicitors, one of the three requirements of a contract is you exchange
money for goods or services, and there was no exchange of money.

		The Judge determined that there was an exchange of value rather than
money.  He determined our solicitation was a contract.  It wasn't
written like a contract.  It wasn't meant to be applied as a contract.

		In negotiations back and forth between us with our solicitors and the
solicitors with the Justice Department and the Justice Department with
the Judge, we agreed we would cancel the solicitation, we would revise
it basically into a form that looks like, smells like, tastes like a
contract, but we are still not going to call it a contract, and
re-announce the solicitation.

		We are in the process of doing that now.  Hopefully, right after the
first of the year, that will be announced.  We will again go through the
process and make selections.  Hopefully, award some time by early
Summer.  It is a fairly lengthy review process.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  How many of these are there going to be?

		DR. PAYNE:  I can't really talk about that because we have a series of
proposals, and we don't know what is actually going to be in there yet.

		Our whole basis for competing this was it's a resource issue from my
office.  As I said yesterday, I have two people who do the outreach
training program.  One of them basically only issues cards for the
outreach training providers and the other one handles all the program
issues.

		Ninety percent of Don's time is taken up with on-line training issues,
people calling in to complain, people can't figure out who is actually
doing the training, et cetera.

		What we are trying to do is reduce the number of on-line providers to
a select few so we would have fewer issues and higher quality.

		There are currently 11 total.  It is our hope the number would be
fewer than 11, but whether it is one or nine, at this point it's hard to
say.  We are still trying to figure out what we can do and how we can do
it.

		Of course, we are getting a lot of help from the Justice Department as
well in terms of things they would like to see in this next
announcement, to try to avoid going through the same cycle we just went
through with the challenge.

		It's a very slow, laborious process, but I do believe once we put the
announcement out, it will be a very tight, well constructed announcement
that if it gets challenged a second time, we will be able to withstand
the challenge.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Thank you.  Tish?

		MS. DAVIS:  Will this new solicitation have restrictions on the
resell?  How are you addressing that, which seems to be the driving
issue?

		DR. PAYNE:  We are not allowing resell.  We didn't allow it this past
time.  One of the things we will allow is for people to put links on
their website, but we issued very clear guidance on how that would be
done so as not to appear that I'm actually the training provider when
all I'm really doing is providing the link to the training provider.

		You will know what you don't know when you get into this, and we know
a whole heck of a lot more now than we did then.

		We had very specific language on the linking aspect, but we didn't put
it in the Federal Register Notice.  This is where we had some issues
with the Judge.  We didn't put everything in the Federal Register Notice
because otherwise, the Federal Register would probably have had to be a
separate publication just for this announcement.

		We didn't put everything in.  He says it has to be in it.  The second
time, it is going to be a very lengthy and detailed description of
everything that is going to go on with the program.  We have never done
that in the past.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  It was mentioned the fraudulent cards and wives
taking the training and complaining they can't get the cards for their
husbands and that kind of thing, doing the on-line training.

		What are the specific safeguards that you are building in now that are
going to resolve those kinds of issues?

		DR. PAYNE:  With current providers, anybody can call in or go on line
and register for the training.  Anybody else can take that training for
you.  There is no real way of determining who is taking the training.
That has become an issue.

		As I said yesterday, we know it happens because on at least two
occasions, we have had people call our office and complain they had just
completed the course for their husband and couldn't get the card.

		We know it happens.  We had a requirement in there that the providers
provide some form of what we referred to as random user verification,
which basically means during the training, there is some technological
interruption that requires the learner to do some kind of response that
only the learner can do.

		Some of the things we have seen demonstrated is a very simple voice
print, where when they register for the course, they are required to
call an 800 number and read a sentence.  It gets recorded.

		During the training, their training will lock up.  The 800 number pops
up on the screen, and they have limited time, usually three minutes, to
call the number and give the voice print and have it verified, and then
it unlocks and they can continue.

		A couple of places that we know use it say it's very, very accurate,
even for people who have colds, it's very accurate.

		There are other systems that are out there.  The simplest one is a lot
of computers now come with cameras built in, so you can randomly at
various times take photo's of the person who is doing the training, and
it should match the person who registered.

		There are a lot of ways.  We didn't want to specify a way.  We didn't
feel we should tie everybody's hands.  We didn't want to create kind of
a massive industry for this.

		We are going to have to provide more guidelines and information in the
request around how and what our expectation is for this.

		We were very general in the last announcement.  We will add
specificity but we will not require a given specific technology to do
that.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Thanks.  Tish?

		MS. DAVIS:  This is really an observation which you may or may not
decide to comment on.  It seems given the discussion yesterday and
hearing about kind of workload demand today, that the context for the
training, at least in training programs since 1970, has changed
dramatically, particularly in most recent years with mandatory training,
electronic training, issues with re-certification, a huge number of
issues.

		It would seem to me there is a need for an assessment, I would say,
and I would say an external assessment, and then some real strategic
planning.

		It seems with the nature of the program and the size, that you are
basically reactive to developments as they come along, and you really
need a proactive program that is taking a look at the needs.

		It seems to me this would be an opportune time to do this, and I
understand for you it's a resource issue, you can't take this on with
two people, but I would lay this out for the group.  I think it is a
really important thing to address.

		DR. PAYNE:  As I said yesterday, I would agree with you.  Rather than
being a headache for me, the pain is a little lower down.  It really is
somewhat frustrating for us.

		It started off as a very simple, straightforward program to provide
workers with information about OSHA and give them some general awareness
about the hazards they may be exposed to on the job, and because of the
success of the program, and quite frankly, I attribute a lot of that
success to the adoption of the building trades and the employers in the
construction industry, that the program -- when I showed up at OSHA in
1998, 100,000 cards for the first time.  Everybody thought that was huge
and massive and the program would level off and that would be it.

		Well, this past year, we issued over 700,000 cards.  We still had the
same number of people administering the program.

		You are right, Tish.  Don really is in a reactive mode.  He doesn't
have time to do anything but return calls and respond to e-mails and try
to help students sort through issues so they can get the cards they
need.  Usually, they are desperate because they need the cards to start
a job.

		We are trying to help the workers sort through the issues and get the
card.  Don spends about 90 percent of his time doing those things.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  I think it would be a good idea.  It would be a
matter of resources, but certainly in terms of this committee trying to
guide something like that or working with you on it, we would be more
than happy to do that.

		I think Tish is right.  In the end, as you said yesterday, this has
become much more than you had envisioned.

		Chuck and I talked yesterday after that particular work group, and it
seems to me one thing that this committee could do, instead of reacting
to what's happened in a voluntary program that has taken on such
popularity, whether you intended that or not, the industry looks at OSHA
10 as the gold standard when it comes to the basic ten hour hazardous
awareness.

		It's up to 700,000 a year.  That is a big number.

		DR. PAYNE:  Eighty percent of that is construction.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  These are huge numbers of folks in our industry
being trained.  If we could sit down, ACCSH members and people in the
audience here today could say if we could start over fresh, how would we
build a program, and how would we make it work now that we know what we
know.

		DR. PAYNE:  As I said yesterday, I would certainly support that in
terms of help from ACCSH and the work group.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  That would be great.

		MR. ERICKSON:  Speaking of the large number of cards that are being
issued, out of curiosity, a little over a year ago, a number of the OTIs
started charging a fee, $5.00, for the processing of cards.

		How is that working?  Is that relieving some of the cost that has been
associated, and is this something that is going to stay as far as that
charge?

		DR. PAYNE:  To answer your last question first, yes.  The fee is
something that is here to stay.  As most of you may remember, a few
years ago there were a series of articles that ran in the New York Daily
News that were somewhat unflattering about outreach trainers cutting
corners doing outreach training.

		As a result of that, you tend to get a lot of help from people.  It
was suggested that my office should have somebody at every one of the
ten hour classes that takes place.  There are about 300 of these classes
that go on every week.

		I know Don likes to travel, but I don't think Don would like to travel
that much.

		We sat down with the OTI education centers and said to them look,
whether we like it or not, this sleepy little program that was under the
radar and everybody was happy with is now not only on the radar but
front page news.

		We have to do something to work with the outreach trainers to start
improving the integrity of the program in ways that we can.

		One of the things the OTI education centers did, they formed a work
group.  On their own, they came up with a plan where they would start
doing what we call "records audits," where as outreach trainers submit
records to the education centers for their cards, people review them.

		If something looks odd or out of the norm, it doesn't mean anything is
wrong, but what they will do is usually initiate what we call a "records
audit," and they will have them send in the back-up information and they
review the back-up information.

		This past year, they did about 1,000 random records audits of outreach
trainers.  They are also randomly selecting trainers and they are going
out and doing observations of their training.

		They will contact the trainer and say let me know, send me the next
time and location you are going to be doing a ten hour, and they will
send somebody to actually monitor the training.  We did about 250 of
those last year.

		Part of the $5.00 fee is to offset the cost of them doing this
monitoring.  They have had to hire people to do the monitoring.  Quite
frankly, there is a cost involved with processing the cards.

		The program has roughly 45,000 authorized outreach trainers.  Only
about a little under 15,000 are what we would call active.  We define
"active" by at least twice a year they do training and submit for cards.

		That means over two-thirds of the people either don't do training they
submit for or they do less than two classes per year.

		Some of these people, we believe, are internal trainers for companies
and don't submit for cards because they don't see a need for the card.
They are doing training, they just don't particularly submit for the
cards.

		It is a huge recordkeeping burden and it's a processing burden.  Quite
frankly, we got the okay from the solicitors about five years ago for
the ed centers to start charging for the cards.  They held off as long
as they felt they could before they implemented the fee, and then they
started it.  I think this past Spring they started phasing it in, and I
believe they are all doing it now.

		We will, too.  We just have a longer tail that we have to work through
before we can start charging the fee.

		For the outreach trainers where we at OTI process the cards, we, too,
are going to be charging for them this year.

		MR. PRATT:  Two questions.  Of the nearly 600,000 that were trained in
construction, do you know the penetration that has in the entire
industry, and the second question is how many of those were on-line
trained?

		DR. PAYNE:  I honestly don't know the penetration.

		MR. PRATT:  Are we talking about 50 percent or 10 percent?

		DR. PAYNE:  I don't know, how many construction workers are out there?

		MR. PRATT:  I thought you would know that.

		(Laughter.)

		MR. PRATT:  Right now, about nine million, so a very small
penetration.

		Keep in mind, the outreach card for ten hour does not have an
expiration date.  If you took the training in 1978 and you managed not
to run your card through the wash or have your dog eat it or something
else, that card is still valid today.

		Some people just say you have to have the card.  Some employers say
you have to have the card within the last three years, some say the last
five years, and some states and municipalities have different time
limits for the age of the card.

		For a lot of workers, as long as they have a card, it's good.

		My reason for asking the question is is this going to continually get
larger numbers every year or are you going to reach some kind of plateau
where we are going to level off.

		That has a lot to do with our discussion about what do we do to get
you some help.  Is it going to be short term or is this going to be
something we are going to have to contend with for the duration.

		The other thing was the on-line training, do we have any idea at all
about what kind of on-line training penetration we have had with the
cards?

		DR. PAYNE:  In construction, the ten hour numbers have kind of leveled
off over the last couple of years, but that is probably due more to kind
of the down turn in construction.

		We have seen an increase in the 30 hour in construction.

		MR. PRATT:  Supervisors have more time now.

		DR. PAYNE:  In terms of on-line, on-line construction is not a big
number.  The largest on-line provider we have is a company called Career
Safe.  They are basically providing the ten hour in general industry and
construction to public schools.

		MR. PRATT:  The preference is still face to face.

		DR. PAYNE:  It appears to be face to face.  Construction workers seem
to want to go on line when somebody says to them if you can get a ten
hour card today or tomorrow, you can start work.  They become kind of
desperate looking for a way to get the card quickly.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Kristi?

		MS. BARBER:  I would just like to say that coming from my area of the
nation, which is South Dakota, the on-line training is invaluable to us.
 Trainers are few and far between in my area.  The closest OTI training
center is in Denver, which is about 350 miles away from us.

		The 10 and 30 hour classes on-line for employees is very valuable, and
we are just getting to the point now where in our state, employers and
owners are requiring their employees and subcontractor employees to have
the training before they get on-site.

		We are a little bit behind the times, but we are getting there.

		I can see the on-line training still having a lot of value in areas
such as mine.

		Another question is of the 250 training audits that you performed last
year, what was the outcome?  Was it what you were expecting?

		DR. PAYNE:  The majority of them, the trainers who went out and did
the audits thought the average trainers were doing an acceptable job of
presenting the content to the learners in a way that they could learn
it.

		As we discussed yesterday, there was probably a great deal of
discussion around the two hour intro with a lot of the trainers.

		The issues that came up, very few were quality issues, they were more
process issues, in terms of some trainers not covering the full ten
hours as are the requirements.

		It wasn't the quality of what they covered, it was the amount of time
they kept the people, and some misunderstanding with some of the
trainers on what they thought they could do and what they were supposed
to do according to the requirements.

		That has been a perpetual issue as long as this program has been
around in terms of the trainers really understanding the reporting and
recordkeeping requirements of the program.

		MS. BARBER:  Thank you.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Any other questions or comments?  Tish?

		MS. DAVIS:  I just want to go on record to underscore the importance
of training.  We can talk about it.  I think we all recognize the
importance of training.  It's important to say that.

		I can tell you that in Massachusetts we interview injured workers,
focusing on kids under 18, and 50 percent of those injured say they had
no health and safety training.  It is really important.

		Several things that we have done, we do issue the OSHA 10 cards, and
we were successful in getting required health and safety training, not
ten hours because it wouldn't work in this context, but in our youth
summer job programs.

		That is something I would really  like to see more of, any workforce
development program include some kind of mandatory health and safety
training.

		The workforce development folks who get the contracts for the summer
jobs program have to provide health and safety orientation.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Chuck?

		MR. STRIBLING:  Just to say one thing about the on-line component of
the training, something to keep in mind is a generation that has grown
up on-line is coming into the workforce.  They know on-line.

		I really think the on-line component will continue to grow.  I'm not
saying good or bad.  I just think that's the way things are going.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Any other questions or comments?

		MS. SHORTALL:  I guess this piggy backs on Mr. Stribling.  The
question is have you or are you aware of anyone else who has done
studies that looked at the effectiveness of training delivered on-line
versus in class or any other method, both in terms of immediate
understanding as well as retention over a period of time?

		DR. PAYNE:  Yes.  There is a website you can go to.  It is called "No
Significant Difference."  It lists thousands of studies that have been
done comparing what I would call instructor leg training with you pick
the technology.

		It was correspondence courses, and then we came into computer based
training, now on-line training.

		There are thousands of studies.  The overwhelming evidence of all
these studies is there is no significance difference in the presentation
mode at all.

		If you stop and think about it, training should be designed around
objectives.  If you're teaching the objectives, there is probably not
going to be a huge difference in learning outcome.

		Some of us may be more visual learners.  Some of us may be more
tactile learners.  We might fare a little better in our preferred
learning style.  We all adapt.

		Most of us go through a public school system.  We are not asked when
we go in there what is your preferred learning style, how would you like
to learn.  We are told to sit down, shut up, and pay attention.

		We learn to adapt and while we may have a preferred way we would like
to learn, we can learn by different modalities, so people can learn from
a lot of different modes.

		As Chuck said, the people coming in, particularly the people we are
seeing coming into OSHA, want more of on-line training.  They don't
really want to come to Chicago for a week.  They would rather stay home
and do the training on-line.

		MR. STRIBLING:  They're bored sitting in a class.

		DR. PAYNE:  Some people don't want to go on-line, they want to come to
Chicago.  We are seeing a transition.  It's putting pressure on us to
develop more on-line training as components of our courses.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Walter?

		MR. JONES:  I guess I'm the person that would rather go to Chicago.  I
want to follow up on this idea that if the training is delivered and
it's the same, whether it's on-line or not, what about what appears to
be the big concern, the fraud and fear of fraud on-line, in terms of
incidence or percentages, what is your feeling or do you know exact
numbers?

		DR. PAYNE:  Sarah probably knows this better than me.  If somebody is
really dead set to commit fraud, they're going to do it.  You're not
going to stop them.  That even includes the face to face class.  Not all
instructors ask for a photo i.d.

		If I go into a class and sign in as Walter Smith, take the class, they
issue me a card as Walter Smith.  I just go to Walter and hand him the
card.

		It can happen in face to face training.  If somebody is dead set to do
that, they can do it.  I don't think we are going to stop all of that.

		The kinds of fraud we have been most interested in is the trainers who
are just outright selling cards for cash.

		We did a lot of work in the State of New York where these articles
appeared because they had requirements both in the state and city for
workers to work on certain municipal construction projects to have the
card.

		The New York City Inspector General had been involved in this.  He
called us because he wanted to go through the ten hour course.  He
wanted to know what it was about.

		There is a trainer's website where a lot of the outreach trainers
register, and they list the training, where they are going to do it, the
dates and those kinds of things.

		We referred him to the site.  He contacted a trainer, arranged to take
the training on a Saturday morning.  When he showed up at the address,
it was a vacant lot.  The guy was there.  The Inspector General handed
him $100.  The guy handed the Inspector General a card.

		The Inspector General went back the next Monday and had three of his
people register for the next course with this guy, and they wired them
and video taped the guy, and the guy is now in jail.

		That's the kind of fraud we think we can have an impact with in the
program.  On-line, the issue is -- I don't think people think they are
committing fraud when I come home from work, I'm tired, I register for
this class and I drag my teenage son over who is a heck of a lot more
computer literate than I am, and say finish this for me.  I don't think
people think that's fraud but it is.

		The requirement is that the person who registers for the course is
required to take the course.

		We are going to have to be very specific in the up front information
that we provide people who register for these courses and take them.

		That is why we want to go to some form of random user verification so
people who are doing this and probably not thinking they are de-frauding
the system, but they are doing this, can get stopped and straightened
out and go ahead and complete it.

		This isn't us trying to increase the number of people who go to jail.
We just want to convince people this is the way it is supposed to be
done and you're not supposed to have other people do the training for
you.

		MR. JONES:  Makes sense.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Any other questions or comments?

		(No response.)

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Dr. Payne, thank you very much for coming.  We
will hear from our training outreach work group later, but I am going to
say we will be recommending to the Secretary per our discussion
yesterday that OSHA do away with the two hour requirement for the intro
section.

		I think when we have this discussion amongst the work group, we may
add a recommendation that we do an assessment of what the program looks
like and start with a clean slate maybe at some point and build what we
would like to see as an industry on how the program would work, now that
we are into it.

		Thank you very much, Dr. Payne.

		DR. PAYNE:  Thank you.

		(Applause.)

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  We will go ahead and take a break.

		(A brief recess was taken.)

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Next on our agenda is Dr. Christine Branche, who
is Principal Associate Director, NIOSH.  Christine, thank you very much
for being here.  The floor is yours.

	NIOSH UPDATE

		DR. BRANCHE:  Good morning.  I do wear more than one hat.  I am the
Principal Associate Director of the Institute and have the pleasure of
being the Director of our Office of Construction Safety and Health,
which will be two years old next month, and we have had quite a
productive time.

		I am going to divide my time with my colleague, Matt.  We will be
talking about some developments in the Institute overall, just a few
things, as well as our office, give you a few reminders of what our
office does, talk a little bit more than my colleague, Jim Maddux, did
about the falls prevention campaign, and talk about some efforts we have
been doing on our 15 goals for our sector.

		Matt will cover the nail gun developments in a little more detail than
what Jim Maddux covered.  We want to share with you some of the research
that is going on that is relevant and of interest to those of you here,
and talk about some developments that are underway in our efforts with
green construction, our assessment of green construction.

		As far as NIOSH-wide, we are certainly anxious to know what our budget
is going to be, as are our colleagues at OSHA.  We have no information
on that.

		You have heard me refer to Ms. Pietra Check.  She was instrumental in
helping us get a lot of information done in our first couple of years
here as an office in the Institute.

		It was through her sheer talent and brilliance, we have been able to
get quite a bit done with the products you are familiar with, not only
with the nail gun guide, she worked quite a bit with Matt Gillen, but
she also was quite instrumental in our getting the falls prevention
campaign underway.

		I mention her because she's been squirreled away.  She has been
promoted.  She is now the Deputy Director of our new Office of
Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing at the Institute.

		NIOSH, we now have three offices that deal with the three largest
problems in worker safety and health, mining, construction, and ag,
forestry and fishing.

		I'm giving you two pieces of information.  (a) we have established
this third office dealing with this third high risk problem and Ms.
Check is now the Deputy Director of that new office.

		As a reminder, our mission in our construction program overall at
NIOSH is to deal with conducting research, gathering information, and
then translating as much as we can into products, programs, and
solutions and services for the construction trades and for workers and
their employers in the construction trades.

		Organizationally, the way we have our activities organized in our
construction program is we have intramural research, and again, Matt
will share with you in a few moments some of the current research that
is going on, and then to the far right of the slide, we do support
researchers outside of our organization and outside of the Government to
conduct research, including in construction.

		We fund the National Construction Center and CPWR is funded by NIOSH
to function in that capacity.  Actually, CPWR has successfully competed
for that since the funding was made available first in 1994.

		As far as our own office is concerned, I think we have been doing well
enough that we now have a third person, Lt. Commander Elizabeth Garza,
who is with me this morning.  Liz?  The person in uniform.  She is with
the U.S. Public Health Service, Commission Corps.

		Liz joined us formally in September.  She was working with us on a
detail beginning in May.  We apparently impressed her enough that she
wanted to stay with us.  We are very happy to have her aboard.

		Turning to the falls prevention campaign, Jim mentioned to you before
our evidence based campaign that we launched together on workers
Memorial Day.  Secretary Solis formally launched the campaign, and we
did have a two year span in mind.

		Jim Maddux also mentioned a re-launch is planned for the Spring of
2013, inaugurating our second year in the campaign.  Our focus, if you
don't know or if you have been living under a rock and you have no idea
what's going on with this campaign, it's focused on falls from roofs,
scaffolds and ladders.

		The primary audience of interest is residential construction,
contractors, site supervisors, foremen, and then the tertiary audience
of interest is the workers themselves.

		Stopconstructionfalls.com is the website.  I will give you some more
information about the web addresses in just a moment.

		This has been an effort that has been launched not only by OSHA in
partnership with NIOSH but also with our national occupational research
agenda for the Construction Sector Council, so those members have been
instrumental in not only piecing through it and dealing with the
information that helped us shape the campaign but also in helping us get
the information out.

		We really appreciate those of you here on ACCSH as well as those in
the audience who have helped to get that information out as well.  It
has been a joint effort and we require still your hands in continuing to
have this campaign be successful.

		When the campaign was launched, our colleagues at CPWR also made
available an effort they had underway, which is this fatalities map.

		When you go to the website, stopconstructionfalls.com, which is hosted
by CPWR, then the map from 2011 is also available to you.

		What they did was collect information during the course of 2011 from
new sources, people making them aware of the information, but they were
trying to get information in real time.

		What would be another interesting facet is now that BLS has published
their preliminary data, to compare the effort that CPWR had underway
with what is the official tally from BLS.

		It is certainly nice to be able to get a window into the fatalities in
construction across the nation much earlier than what we were able to
get from BLS.

		Again, this doesn't replace what BLS does.  It does give us a sense of
the severity of the issues in construction as it concerns fatalities.
We really appreciate the effort they had underway.

		I made reference to the web addresses.  There are three, three ways by
which you can get information about the campaign or three sources of
information for the campaign.

		We are indebted to CPWR for hosting the main website for the campaign.
 Again that is stopconstructionfalls.com.  A lot of supporting
information, training announcements, press information, are all captured
at that website.

		There is also a Facebook page which is maintained by a colleague at
the University of Washington at St. Louis, Vicki Kaskutas.

		The campaign posters, fact sheets, and anything that is "Free," is
from OSHA, and their website is at the OSHA.gov/stopfalls website.

		Scientific information, background information about falls in general,
some research that we are doing, as well as a science blog that was
launched in tandem with the campaign are available through NIOSH.

		Also, our colleagues at the Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation
Program are part of NIOSH, our FACE program is probably how you best
know it.  There are data about some FACE investigations that are
relevant to falls from construction, fatal falls from construction, that
we always think are of interest, and we encourage you to go there as
well.

		It is still possible to join the campaign, and that could happen
either today by raising your hand or sending an e-mail to
<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
		There are some interesting outcomes I want to share with you.  I
realize Dr. Michaels will talk about this or is likely to talk about
this in his remarks this afternoon, so I do want to give you some
information that is not going to be part of what he talks about later on
today.

		First, in taking a step back and understanding that this has been a
coordinated effort, I shared with you the coordinated websites and we do
swap out information so that where it is appropriate to duplicate
information across the three web sources, we do.

		Again, it is also important to understand where there are some
differences.  If you want to access the free information, as Jim Maddux
mentioned this morning, you do need to go through OSHA to get the
information.  That is not to say we don't have a stash of them at NIOSH,
it's for the volumes that most of the people are requesting, OSHA is
your best bet.

		We know from our review of the way we have gotten information out
there, over 300,000 people have been touched at least through OSHA by
the campaign.

		We know also for NIOSH, our web visits alone are 1.5 million.  That is
for NIOSH overall.  We know CDC is the second most popular Federal
Government sites.  Only the U.S. Postal Service with their request for
stamps has more visits to web information than CDC.

		When we tried to spotlight this particular topic, and we will again in
2013, we know that it is a little different, a little oblique to us, but
we know we are touching people with our information in ways that are a
little difficult to assess.

		From OSHA, as our colleagues work with them and being able to really
understand what we mean by touching and assessing exactly how many
people are visiting the website and being able to take visits from
views, we know we have at least 300,000 people who have been touched
through the OSHA regional activities.

		From my last assessment, it was 39 organizations.  Where are we now?
39 organizations have joined the campaign formally.  That doesn't mean
that people even if they haven't formally joined, they aren't
participating and being available, people who are helping disseminate
information.

		The other thing I want to make sure we appropriately appreciate is the
fact that we have created by virtue of this campaign an activity,
movement, if you will, where we have labor, state and local government,
and then various organizations and professional organizations and
employers who supported the campaign.

		I think that is not an easy task.  All of us who have a hand in
construction, we know that doesn't happen often and we should celebrate
it when it does.  This campaign has been such an effort.

		Just to give you an example of some of the outreach that we have
solicited, we have encouraged people to talk about the campaign.  For
example, the National Safety Council has done so.

		We know Drs. David Michaels and John Howard were each featured
speakers at the National Safety Council meeting in October of this year.
 Both of them took the time to talk about the campaign, again giving
visibility at the levels they are, and we really appreciate the fact
that even as we go into the dawn of the winter, this is a campaign still
having some resonance with people and we are going to use, as Jim Maddux
mentioned earlier, some of the winter months to be able to tweak,
re-tool and prepare for re-launch in the spring.

		A quote to give you from an ASSE member is from Ron Sokol, where he
says "Planning ahead, identifying risks, providing training along with
the right equipment will help prevent construction worker falls.

		The information from the new falls prevention campaign will be
invaluable.  We urge everyone to share it with their company, friends,
co-workers, communities, schools and more.  We are all part of the
solution to help prevent falls."

		I think this quote is one that really captures what we really want
people to walk away with when they see the campaign and when they review
the materials.

		Another outcome is the campaign has already won an award from a public
relations organization here in the National Capital area.  The campaign
won the 2012 TOTE Award.  It was given here in Washington by the Public
Relations Society of America.

		My colleague, Chris Trahan from CPWR, tells me there are now 48
partners with the campaign.

		We have no upper limit for the number of people who can officially
join the campaign.

		We know people have featured the campaign in their newsletters, on
their websites.  This is just a quick smattering of five, and we
encourage, as we begin to re-launch for the Spring, if people have not
had a chance to feature the campaign in any of their newsletters or
information they disseminate to their members, this is an opportunity to
do so.

		For people who have been so kind as to feature the campaign, there is
another opportunity come Spring.

		Lastly, I am going to talk about that we have 15 goals through our
national occupational research agenda, 15 goals as it concerns
construction research in the United States.

		Again, this is not research just for NIOSH.  It is research for the
nation as it concerns construction.

		Beginning last year, we took a look at those 15 goals and looked at
our progress.  We expect to be asked formally how we are progressing in
our 15 goals.

		What we did in our mid-course review was to categorize our progress
with the 15 goals with respect to whether or not we were ready for
impact.

		We have six of the goals that we call ready for impact, which means we
have sufficient solutions and know what contractors need to do for
impact.

		Falls, silica, disparities, struck by, culture, and prevention through
design are the six goals that we believe we are in a place where we are
ready for impact.

		The seven developmental goals are ones for which we have solutions but
we know we are not quite ready for impact.

		I'm not going to read the full list, but welding fumes,
musculoskeletal disorders and disease, and noise are some of the seven
goals that fall into that category.

		Our last category, which is exploratory, exploratory means it's an
important issue, but we are still defining problems and solutions.

		Two goals fall in that category.  The industry organization issues as
well as engaging the media.

		This assessment has allowed us to do two things, not only get a sense
of where we are with the 15, but also to make certain that we are not
inappropriately or just by sheer negligence shoving any goal to the
side.  All the goals are relevant.  We believe all the goals still have
merit, all 15 are still important and compelling problems in
construction.

		As far as our resources, not only at NIOSH, but across the various
facets of construction in this country, people who are doing research,
it gives us a sense of being able to know how we are going to move
forward aggressively and pointing our resources in places where we think
it is going to make a difference.

		Are there any questions or comments?  I'm about to shift to my
colleague.

		MR. JONES:  I have a question on the falls campaign.  I think it has
been a fantastic job and now you're going to do your second year.  I
know the concern is how do we expand our effort and drive down to reach
every pick-up truck in construction.  I don't know how possible that
actually is.

		Is there any thought of turning the campaign into a public health
campaign, more so than just an occupational or construction falls
campaign?

		If we want to reach like every pick-up truck, we are going to try to
reach the kids of these guys who drive the trucks, turn this into a
campaign like going to the schools and begin to look at change in
behavior besides just touching everybody, but actually trying to reach
out to turn it into a campaign so that when we look at the viewers of
this falls campaign, we will look at it hopefully as we look at
recycling and other efforts, where behaviors change as a result of
campaigns.

		How we could take this falls campaign out of the silo of occupational
safety and health, which is pretty small, and move it to the public
health arena, reaching out to public health departments or schools,
social society about what it means.

		Is there any thought about that?

		DR. BRANCHE:  Yes, quite a bit of thought.  First of all, you
mentioned bridging with public health and learning the ways by
which -- replicating the ways they have been effective in trying to
drive important public health information into the hands of the people
who need it, regardless of their age, being inventive about getting
information out, even if it is through a back door mechanism, to the
people that need it.

		I am glad Tish is here.  The Massachusetts Department of Public
Health, I think, has done some things that are worth looking at for a
broader application.

		We know Tish has been successful in even reaching transit authorities
in the Boston metropolitan area.

		That is something that we are trying to replicate and we are working
with OSHA to do that.

		Some other ideas that have come up, we just had our Sector Council
meeting earlier in November, and there were some ideas expressed there.

		Some of the ideas that came out of that and just before was trying to
get to the places where contractors have to get their licenses or get
permits to do their work, making the information available to those
offices.

		We know for Latino outreach for other things that are going on in
construction, the projects that we are aware of, and there are some in
New Jersey, some in the Chicago metropolitan area, some on the West
Coast in California, just to name a few, where they have gotten
information, important information that speaks to behavior change
through churches, faith based organizations, as well as schools.

		Looking at those mechanisms for a broader effort.

		I do want Tish to make a comment, but the other thing I would want to
say is we are developing a proposal for approaching big box retailers.
That is never an easy nut to crack.  I think it is important.

		Over and over again, we are hearing people say that having the
campaign information available at the contractor's desk for a big box
retailer would be very important.  We agree it would be.

		We are working on a proposal now for reaching out to big box
retailers.

		MR. JONES:  Thanks.

		DR. BRANCHE:  Tish, you have done some interesting things in
Massachusetts.

		MS. DAVIS:  A couple of things.  We have a safety contest poster every
year, and our youth contest poster goes up in June, which is pretty
exciting, in Boston and Springfield.

		For this, we have contacted every transit authority in the state.  We
have five or six of them agreeing to post the posters in the transit
systems.

		We want to combine this with some OSHA outreach that is happening at
the same time in the Springfield area, where one of our big transit
systems is willing to do bus routes.

		That still could be occupational health.  I do think -- NIOSH funds
23 state health departments to do occupational health work.  We have our
annual meeting next week in Florida.  We really should put this on the
agenda.  I think we can reach out to the injury prevention network, the
state highway prevention network.

		There are a lot of other injury prevention networks.  At least from my
perspective in Massachusetts, we could do a better job.

		If you share your slides with me, Christine, I'll bring that.

		One thing about the big box, I wanted to ask if you had any success
because I had a picture sent to me last week from my daughter that the
Home Depot in L.A. doesn't have a fall prevention poster but has one
posted with the fall prevention display.

		We have tried to reach the stores locally.

		DR. BRANCHE:  We are trying to work with headquarters.

		MS. DAVIS:  This was sent to me.  I couldn't believe they had actually
done something.  I was wondering if you have had success with Home
Depot.

		DR. BRANCHE:  Not yet.  Often we hear that people are able to make a
purchase regionally for a particular city.  All those efforts should
continue.  We are trying to get to the headquarters of at least one of
the big box retailers, and that is sort of a delicate balance because my
experience is you can't approach all three of them at the same time.
You have to approach them iteratively.

		Anything that is happening in a city or region and they are successful
in getting the materials to be displayed in that particular big box
retailer, I say go for it.

		If there is anything that can be shared about how they were successful
in doing it, even if there is one retailer in one city and there is a
way to do it in more than one city for that particular chain, I think
that should be explored.

		One of the things that has been critical for this campaign is no one
entity is doing it alone.  We really all have to work together to make
this successful, to keep it successful.

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  Any other questions or comments on the campaign?

		(No response.)

		CHAIRMAN STAFFORD:  I would just like to add one of the components is
the CPWR is doing an evaluation of the campaign to try to see if we can
get a handle on the penetration of impact, and depending on the outcome
of that, it may drive what we can do in the future with this.

		As we talked about in our work group yesterday, not on this issue, but
we are trying to reach a very difficult industry to reach, and we are
talking about small employers primarily in the residential sectors.

		It is something that we have to continue to try to drive but we also
have to understand the best ways to do that.  Hopefully, this evaluation
will shed some light on that.

		MS. DAVIS:  There is one thing I forgot to mention.  We have a stop
falls and prevention work group in the state.  One of the things we have
talked about is some information for home owners.  We have some fact
sheets for home owners in choosing contractors, how to choose a good
contractor.

		It places some emphasis on both the Workers' Comp coverage and safety.

		DR. BRANCHE:  I used to work with the non-occupational injury group at
CDC before coming over to NIOSH.  Exploring again with my colleagues
there how we might work together in getting some additional feed to the
campaign makes a lot of sense.  Also, we just got way too busy.  You are
looking at pretty much my staff.

		Working with the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission, not only
for this but also for the nail gun guide, and getting some additional
avenues for disseminating the information.  We are certainly open to
that as well.

		Without further ado, I'm going to turn to my colleague, Matt Gillen.

		MR. GILLEN:  Thanks.  Here is a little more detail about the nail gun
developments.  We did release the Spanish language version in October
2012.  You heard Jim Maddux describe what we call the "active
dissemination," where we had Christine and Jim push it out there with
e-mails to major groups.

		We had an original list of folks from residential construction that we
felt was useful.  We did some research on what are some Hispanic
construction groups.  There are different contractor associations at the
state level, at the regional level.

		We added some medical folks as well.  We also did the web posting,
tweets, Quick-Takes as well.

		I think one answer to the question that Walter brought up earlier
about the popularity of this, we have to push it out in addition to it
being a good publication.  We are trying to learn how we reach these
audiences.

		We have been pretty aggressive trying to get it out there.  We think
that helps, too.

		For example, in addition to groups like the National Hispanic
Construction Association, we looked at some of the contact information
from OSHA's Hispanic Summit.  Here are some examples of other groups,
many of them are grassroots groups, local and state level, that work
with Hispanic workers, that we sent the Hispanic version to.

		We thought about this because these are the folks that see some of the
injured workers if they do go to the emergency room or one of the urgent
care clinics that you see in a lot of strip malls.

		There is an actual Urgent Care Association of America.  Also, American
Association of Hand Surgery, et cetera.

		We felt the materials could help inform them even when they take a
history of the worker, what the injury is, perhaps ask better questions
about what happened.  It gives them a source of information they can
give to the worker or give to the employer once they have had an injury,
to give them some guidance about gun safety.  We thought that was
helpful.

		Just a little bit about the translation process.  We did just get a
regular CDC translation.  We have a service that does that.  We put
together a team.  We have included Danezza Quintero, Edgar Reyes and Liz
Garza from NIOSH, and we reached out to Javier Aruodas with the Hispanic
Construction Association of Texas.

		They have looked at the translation and helped us with the
construction terminology and worker terminology to make sure it was
appropriate.  We used that final version for the PDF.

		One thing I did want to let ACCSH know is we only made one change to
the nail gun guide, and we made this in the Spanish language version and
we went back and made it in the English version.

		I believe I was at the May meeting where it might have been a motion
or recommendation that the Acknowledgement section of the guidance,
which was pretty short, be expanded to more fully address the roles of
the other folks that have participated.

		Here's the text as it now reads in both the English version and the
Spanish language version.

		"NIOSH and OSHA thank the following for their support in developing
this guidance."

		The first one listed is "Members of OSHA's Advisory Committee for
Construction Safety and Health, who recommended that the guidance be
developed."

		We also recognized Dr. Hester Lipscomb and her colleagues for her
research findings used in the report.  Tom Trauger and Winchester Homes
for providing access for the photo's, and Javier Aruodas from the
Hispanic Contractors Association for helping  us with the Spanish
language version.

		We know have a more complete Acknowledgement section in both versions.

		MR. JONES:  I'll let Liz know.

		MR. GILLEN:  We did send it to Liz.

		A few other developments.  You heard Dr. Branche describe that we are
doing a small follow up survey.  We are working on that.  Liz is working
on that with us, to ask about further dissemination, how people used it,
what they thought about the document, any ideas they have for lessons
learned about how to get this kind of document out.

		In addition, NIOSH is using the same content but we are coming up with
an awareness piece for workers.  It has a lot more illustrations, things
of that sort.  We should be hearing more about that in 2013 when that
comes out.

		We want to keep a spotlight on it to really try to make an impact and
make those injuries go down.

		In addition, the National Construction Center did develop a nice
hazard alert card which you can see there as well.

		That is it for the nail guns.  What we thought we would do next is
just describe a portion of the intramural projects that we have
underway, some of the ones that might have results coming out fairly
soon, for example, and in future meetings, we could describe extramural
research, we could do more of this if you find it interesting.

		Here's an example of a project.  Studies show that 20 to 30 percent of
residential construction worker related injuries are related to
musculoskeletal disorders, and they really do account for a
disproportionate share of total injury costs.

		Jim Albers is working with several partners, Assurance, Iowa State.
They have developed these two page tip sheets for simple solutions for
home building workers.  Each describes a specific problem, the solution.
 How the solution works, employer/worker benefit, and approximate cost.

		A lot of drawings.  Very user friendly.  They want to have
simultaneous release in English and Spanish.  We think that will be a
very helpful publication for the residential construction industry.

		Here's an example of an interesting project. Chris Pan is the
researcher and he is partnering with FRACO and Klimer, they are the two
largest manufacturers of mast scaffold equipment.  FRACO is actually
loaning Chris a mast scaffold which is being set up in the Pittsburgh
NIOSH Lab.

		Other partners include CPWR, ANSI, OSHA as well.

		They are looking at the scaffold safety margins, worker task and
environment interactions.

		This is an interesting picture because it's an L shaped mast scaffold
but just one mast.  You can see how it really needs to have careful
bracing and counter weights for it to be stable to do that work.

		You can also see in the middle -- it's hard to see -- there is an
orange crane.  It's one of those cranes that Jim Maddux referred to
earlier.  That crane is used to hoist up a dumpster for loading the old
removed brick.

		These are great tools.  There are interesting stability issues that
the manufacturers are interested in exploring in more detail with our
researchers.  They are going to be working on this this year.

		I think it would be of interest to OSHA and construction stakeholders.

		One issue is the optimal places to tie off and how that affects
stability.

		Here's another one, a ladder safety application for Smart phones.
Peter Simeonov developed a Smart phone app that allows the user to place
your phone against the ladder and it gives you feedback as to whether
the angle is appropriate.

		There is surprising interest in the potential ladder slippage when
it's not at the proper angle.  When they looked at the data there, it
really does make quite a difference.

		When they compared using this method with methods of trying to use the
chart on the ladder or other methods, they found this is not only
quicker but more accurate.  They developed this app.  It also includes
other ladder information.

		You can see the slide on the right, it will have information about
selection, inspecting ladders, proper use, and accessories, things that
go on the feet of a ladder that are available to help make them more
stable.

		This has gone through its final approval.  We are not quite sure when
it will come out.  We will let people know.  This is really the first
app, I think, that NIOSH has had coming out.  There is a lot of
interest.

		DR. BRANCHE:  I just wanted to add, I have mentioned the app to other
audiences that included many of you, and it turns out there was another
level of review.  We expected the app would have come out by now.  This
additional level of review was unexpected but critical.

		This is the first app that the Institute has ever put out.  We know so
many of you and the organizations you represent or your colleagues are
interested in the app.

		It is going to be great fanfare, and we will let everyone know the app
is available once it is available.

		MS. DAVIS:  Is there a chance it will be available when we kick off
the fall campaign in the Spring?  That would be great.

		DR. BRANCHE:  It would be great but that's not a time table we
control.  Ask the attorneys.

		MR. ERICKSON:  Just a comment regarding the phone app.  As a
boilermaker representing boilermakers, you are not allowed -- the
majority of your contractors don't allow you to have the cell phone in
the work area.  It's pretty common.  Of course, you keep it in your
lunch box or whatever.

		DR. BRANCHE:  Like tablet computers, would that be the same?

		MR. ERICKSON:  A lot of times it's hard enough just to get a radio.

		DR. BRANCHE:  The reason I asked, I realize a phone could be a
distracting device, but a tablet computer may have instructions or
manuals.  We have already been asked about whether or not the app could
be loaded onto a tablet computer, and they are looking at that as well.

		That's a good point about the fact there are workers for whom it would
have no  use at all because of restrictions.

		MR. MARRERO:  With the tablets, you only see the top foremen or
superintendents standing around with a table or IPad.  Like Roger said,
it's restricted on a lot of job sites.  A lot of safety programs states
you are not allowed to use your phone during work hours, only during
breaks and so forth.

		DR. BRANCHE:  As we talk about safety and health, as we talk about the
fact -- I know this is an issue OSHA has dealt with, but in NIOSH, we
don't have the capital to be able to make hard copies available of
training materials or the things that would be appropriate to think
about for training.  We don't have the money to support it.

		Everything we do is put out through our website.  Increasingly, as I
talk to various members now or previously of ACCSH but other folks who
do safety and health training, they don't have the capital to do
anything other than electronic media.

		It will be important just as we all have to adapt, coming past the
first decade of the 21st Century, we are all going to have to re-think
this.

		MR. JONES:  Yes.

		MR. GILLEN:  All right.  Phones are both tools and distractions.

		MS. DAVIS:  Absolutely.

		MR. GILLEN:  Here is a study, these steel dowels provide load transfer
across concrete, people building highways or airport runways, they
really transfer the load across the pavement joints.

		They drill pin holes and put these steel dowels in there.  When you do
that, you can see the picture on the left, it creates quite a bit of
silica dust.  You can have exposures up to 20 times over the NIOSH
recommended exposure limits for silica.

		Alan Echt and his team formed a partnership with the two manufacturers
of the equipment, Easy Drill and Minick, and got others involved.  They
are looking at this issue and what they are trying to do is explore how
to make local exhaust ventilation work well, having that be on the
equipment.

		On the right, you can see there is the equipment where it has been
fitted up with local exhaust ventilation.  You can see there is not as
much dust there in the workers' breathing zone.  They are going to work
with their partners to perfect this and promote the use of the equipment
with the dust controls and get the word out, develop workplace solutions
to help get the word out.

		That is an example of a product in the pipeline.

		Our engineers and researchers are really good at helping people
perfect and develop controls.  If people know of other tasks where you
feel controls are needed, there are gaps there, please let us know and
we will pass that information onto the researchers.

		Here's one that is about noise control.  The purpose is to make it
easier for contractors to find out noise levels associated with tools,
especially new tools that they might buy.  When it comes time to
purchase equipment or even rent equipment, they can easily rent or buy
quieter equipment.

		Chuck Hayden and his team have taken a Buy Quiet program originally
developed by NASA and have adapted it for construction contractors.
They are working with Messer Construction Company, which is a firm in
the Cincinnati area, to pilot the program.

		The top slide shows an example of how people can inventory their
current equipment.  The bottom slide shows trying to make it easy to
search for different types of equipment and what noise level information
is out there for the different tools.

		What they have done is gone out and taken available information about
noise levels throughout the world and tried to put it into these tools.

		There are other parts of the program that includes policies, posters,
return on investment calculations, for example.

		It should be really nice research for contractors to use to give this
whole buy quiet approach a try.

		That should be ready some time in 2013, for example.

		The last one I was going to talk about is the FACE program, fatality
assessment and control evaluation project.  I just want to make sure
everybody is aware of this project.  It is really a terrific project and
program.

		NIOSH does it and we have multiple state partners.  They investigate
targeted fatalities, different types.  They put together reports that
often includes photo's.

		The valuable thing about it is it includes root cause information.
That sometimes is the kind of information they pull out from OSHA
inspection data, for example.  They spend a lot of time describing that.

		What they have been doing is working on how to make this information
more searchable.  Believe it or not, there is currently 715 FACE cases
involving construction.

		There are new features they are going to add to make it easy to search
so you can search by code, location, by industry, such as construction
versus energy production.  You can search by cause, such as confined
spaces, falls, falls from residential, commercial.  You can search by
population, such as young workers, Hispanic workers.

		We have this nice body of FACE cases and we want people to be able to
search them more easily to use them.

		They are really helpful for training and for toolbox talks.  Again,
you can search the ones that are relevant for a topic that is of
interest to you.

		We want people to know about these and use them.  Here are a couple of
examples.  California house painter, falls through a roof opening.
Another one from California, a roofing supervisor dies when he falls
through a skylight.

		They also include some that involve chemicals, where they involve
fatalities.  Believe it or not, that chart is hard to see, but it says
"Maintenance worker dies from methylene chloride while stripping a
baptismal font in a church."  It was kind of a confined area and the
person was overcome with fumes.

		We have heard in previous NIOSH meetings about work done in Michigan,
about dust.  Here is a Massachusetts alert and fatality involving the
same thing.

		The partners are also beginning to develop additional materials beyond
the case files for people, such as what they call digital story video's.
 You can see one from California, "Preventing Falls in the Solar
Industry."  It is really a nice video.  It is really a good training
tool.

		Again, we want people to know about them and try out that FACE page,
search and use the materials.

		Another program we have that is really kind of under utilized by
construction stakeholders is our health hazard evaluation program.
Again, when we talked about topics such as the ones we mentioned
yesterday, like RF or nano, those are topics for HHEs.  Nobody really
totally understands the risks or might not what exposures typically are
for a task.

		A health hazard evaluation can help you get at that.  This is an
example of a recent one that was done at a shipyard where they did a lot
of heavy abrasive blasting, and were interested in what the exposures
might be.

		In this case, the exposures were so high that the sample methods
weren't able to withstand a harsh abrasive gas, and the samples
overloaded, and indicated a need to develop perhaps improved methods for
sampling those really harsh environments.

		There has been increasing interest in health promotions, what NIOSH
calls "total worker health."  If that is something that is interesting
to you, you might be interested in this study.