OSHA to Inspect Construction Sites on Weekends
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has announced that it will begin inspecting construction sites on weekends as part of its ongoing region-wide program to reduce employee injuries and deaths resulting from falls, contact with overhead power lines and the use of scaffolds. The agency has also announced that it is focusing its regional inspections of construction sites in Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska. In those states, “OSHA will be conducting extensive outreach to encourage voluntary compliance by employers and employees, and to increase community awareness of fall hazards and others related to scaffolds and overhead power lines,” Charles E. Adkins, OSHA regional administrator. Over the last 10 years, 39% of the work-related fatal and catastrophic incidents in the three-state area have occurred in the construction industry, according to OSHA. Falls accounted for 38% of the incidents and 17% were electrocutions. More than half of the electrocution fatalities involved contact with overhead power lines. Adkins said his agency is starting to take a look at work on weekends because an increasing number of contractors have been conducting construction activities then. Within the past seven years, 15% of the fall, scaffold or overhead power line fatalities occurred on weekends and in 2004 half of the fatalities occurred on Saturdays. “This year, our agency will randomly select three months in which to conduct inspections of active construction work sites operating on weekends that have fall hazards, employee exposure to overhead power lines, and/or scaffolding hazards observed,” he announced. | 
