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December 2023: Round-up of news items impacting contractor OHS management.
The Supreme Court of Canada Rules on Owner Responsibility for Prime Contractor Incidents
After the groundbreaking Supreme Court decision in R v. Greater Sudbury (City) ("Sudbury"), the landscape of health and safety obligations for owners under Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) has undergone a significant shift. Many owners and general contractors across the country wonder what the impact on their organizations could be considering the Court's decision. Today, the full ramifications of the ruling are not known. Further court actions are required to resolve the R v. Greater Sudbury case through the Ontario Provincial Offences Appeal Court.
Site Safety Plans
Boston's New Construction Safety Ordinance Calls for Contractor Site Safety Plans.
SkillSignal.com reports that effective December 1st, contractors are required to submit a Site Safety Plan Affidavit on Boston construction and demolition projects. Article here.
This is the kind of regulation I can get behind. Not because I love regulations but because this particular regulation impacts field safety in such a positive way. And, whether legislated or not, or in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or not, the value of a Site Safety Plan is hard to overemphasize.
A Site Safety Plan (SSP) documents how a contractor will work in compliance with OSHA, the site, and the client's unique requirements.
Also referred to as the Site-Specific Safety Plan, its true value is identifying elements of a specific workplace that may pose new or unusual hazards, and aligning practices and plans accordingly.
Creating an SSP is a formal activity that benefits from multistakeholder input. A template with standardized content can significantly decrease administrative time and serve as a content checklist. A generic template must be customized to document the site-specific conditions, tasks, geography, facilities, hazards, and other elements.
The Plan is created by the contractor. It is based on their understanding of the scope of work and how they will operate on the client site.
It is required that the contractor personnel creating the Plan know OSHA and client requirements and bridge them to the contractor's business practices and methods.
Ideally, there is a quality control function by the client or prime contractor where the Plan is reviewed and approved. The quality review provides feedback to the contractor and correction of the Plan if/as required.
A suitably comprehensive Plan will:
Describe the scope of the work, including the known assumptions, constraints, and deliverables.
Identify the site-specific risks and hazards known to be present and those that may foreseeably arise from executing the contracted work.
Identify hazard controls.
Include input from contractor and client stakeholders.
Provide for communication of the Plan to potentially impacted personnel.
Provide stakeholder feedback and identify a method to update the Plan if/as required.
Include applicable local and regional emergency response services, including contact information and consideration of site access and incident command protocol.
Mental Health in the Workplace
Workplace Strategies for Mental Health has published a recent blog titled: Evidence-Based Actions for Balance. The article covers tangible and visible aspects of mental health leadership including:
Behaviors that leaders can model that demonstrate work/life balance.
Actions that support workers who are struggling with work and life issues.
Steps to prevent burnout
Providing educational opportunities that support work-life balance
Construction Employers Skirt Rules to Avoid Paying Workers Compensation - Report
Up to 2.1 Million U.S. Construction Workers Are Illegally Misclassified or Paid Off the Books
In a November article, the Century Foundation finds:
In the US, employers have legal responsibilities to pay taxes on behalf of their employees and provide them with critical benefits. However, companies are under no similar obligation when hiring an independent contractor.
The legal and tax differences lead many employers to intentionally misclassify employees as independent contractors or pay them entirely off the books. This denies workers their legal rights (overtime pay, workers’ compensation insurance, and so on), disadvantages law-abiding employers, and represents an implicit subsidy from taxpayers to law-breaking employers.
Nationally, 1.1 to 2.1 million construction workers are conservatively estimated to be misclassified or paid off the books in 2021. This represents between 10 percent and 19 percent of the construction industry’s workforce.
Employers who misclassify their workers or pay them off the books are underpaying workers and shortchanging payments toward legally required benefits (such as Social Security, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation) by over $12 billion per year, costing taxpayers between $5 and $10 billion per year.
The incidence of misclassification and off-the-books payment for workers in the construction industry are highest in the South and Northeast, likely due to weaker worker rights in the South, greater urban density, and higher costs for workers’ compensation insurance premiums in the Northeast.
The Construction Industry Continues to Lead in OSHA Citations - Lack of Fall Protection Training an Onoing Issue.
OSHA Top 10 Most-Cited List (Latest, fiscal 2022)
Fall Protection, construction (29 CFR 1926.501) [related safety resources]
Hazard Communication, general industry (29 CFR 1910.1200) [related safety resources]
Ladders, construction (29 CFR 1926.1053) [related safety resources]
Respiratory Protection, general industry (29 CFR 1910.134) [related safety resources]
Scaffolding, construction (29 CFR 1926.451) [related safety resources]
Control of Hazardous Energy (lockout/tagout), general industry (29 CFR 1910.147) [related safety resources]
Powered Industrial Trucks, general industry (29 CFR 1910.178) [related safety resources]
Fall Protection Training, construction (29 CFR 1926.503) [related safety resources]
Eye and Face Protection, construction (29 CFR 1926.102) [related safety resources]
Machinery and Machine Guarding, general industry (29 CFR 1910.212) [related safety resources]
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