accidents have highlighted concerns about whether government health and safety agencies are doing enough to ensure safe working conditions at construction sites in new york two massive construction crane collapses and killed nine people including one bystander in las vegas over the last nineteen months twelve construction workers have been killed in construction projects on the strip according to the las vegas sun where workers have died in the city over the past nineteen months than died during the entire one nine hundred ninety s construction boom and investigators series in las vegas and details circumstances behind the deaths on the strip including inadequate response from the nevada occupational safety and health administration as eyewitnesses were described today's construction is one of the most dangerous industries for workers on average for construction workers die on the job every day unfortunately most of these workers die one at a time in their death do not garner the same level of attention that the media that the media gave to the new york crane collapses there's no question that construction is in the herald a dangerous job and there's no one who would argue with that the question is whether we can whether whether more can be done to prevent accidents and to make the industry safer we intend to begin to answer that question today and explore ways to make the industry safer we will examine whether or not the u s occupation state and health administration is doing everything it can to improve safety of construction sites committee has repeal either a serious concerns about osha's inability or unwillingness to to issue needed health and safety standards for a number of different industries and we have the same concern now about the construction industry we will also examine today with osha has sufficient resources to do its job in the borough of manhattan in queens for example federal osha has only twenty inspectors to cover thousands of construction sites and some of the inspectors are new trainees we have nothing but praise for the dedication the work of those few valiant inspectors perform every day but we are faced with that they are faced with an impossible task the root cause of that problem lies here in washington we'll also examine the role of cities can play in making construction site safer because of the lack of federal osha resources in the city new york city decided to step in to address that has the city's construction boom is presented the city reason that its actions not only protect workers but also protect members of the public who may be walking driving or living underneath a tower crane by our count one of our by our count and one of our witnesses can confirm this today the city has more than twenty times more inspectors on the ground than osha has but we commend new york city for its activity in this area is unclear whether other smaller cities have the same ability to put resources into construction safety that new york has we also intend to examine today whether the federal laws now written may actually discourage some states and cities to maintain their own programs to enforce workplace safety rules unless there overriding public safety concerns the state of florida is try to issue stronger construction safety regulations on its own but those efforts were overturned by the courts because the federal osha regulations preempt any state in force misstates a do not have their own occupational safety agencies let me be clear the u s occupational safety and health ministry is an agency responsible for workplace safety but workers must be served by vigorous ocean foresman coupled with renewed efforts by states and cities to make construction sites safer finally we'll examine the enforcement that osha has to ensure a construction site safety oshie has the ability to assess penalties against construction companies who violate the law but those penalties appear to be low and really low enough to be considered just the cost of doing business and they usually assessed long after the inspections occurred moreover osha does not have the authority to shut down job site unless the agency judged the site presents an imminent danger the city has the authority to wield much bigger much bigger stick the new york building department has the ability to shut down dangerous job sites at a moment's notice potentially costing the contractor hundreds of thousands of dollars a day we will discuss today with osha to have the enhanced authority to shut down has job sites without first jumping through excessively time consuming legal hoops when workers lives are on the line these are not simple issues but they are issues of life and death and they demand the committee's attention today will hear from the head of osha to present a bill in the construction trades department the acting director of the new york department of building and we'll also hear from former ironworker a contractor from las vegas who will speak to the house as workers face during the building boom he will also address the personal loss that workers and families face when a loved one is killed on the job i want to thank all the witnesses for being here today and we look forward to your plead their projects were aware of the large bonuses that contractors receive if they complete their building projects by a certain date particularly if they're finished ahead of schedule but in reverse we know there are equally large penalties that some contractors pay if projects are late with the almighty dollar ruling it's not a surprise that often comes last and the real panic penalty falls on the worker the worker who's injured or the worker who live loses his or her life this hearing will point out it appears i'm once again that osha is failing to fulfill its mandate workers in this country safe and to keep them healthy with the construction industry that we're going to talk about today the problem is pretty obvious first osha has not updated this crane in derek's standards since one thousand nine hundred seventy one another as experts have long realized that the standard is out of date and in fact in the year two thousand and three osha began working on a new rule labor and management came together and they produced a draft in the year two thousand and four but here we are i two thousand and eight and hasn't issued its proposed rule so we understand that the department has sent the proposed rules to o m b and we hope the administration that you're going to bring us some good news about that today about publishing these badly needed regulations and also the resources for construction jobs so the resources for osha in general such as staff and inspectors twenty nine states that don't have their own program and the twenty one states with their own health and safety programs have another twelve hundred seventy three inspectors this means that there are a total of two thousand and ninety four overview of efforts to ensure worker safety within the construction industry given a number of recent high profile i expect we will also look specifically at the crane and direct standards currently in place as well as a pending update to that standard that began with an osha negotiated rulemaking process in two thousand and four it's my understanding that osha sent a proposal to revise and update the crane rule to the office of management and budget earlier this month for final review and that we're going to expect to see final regulations in place before the end of the year media reports of the devastation that kind of occur when construction equipment fails as we have seen this problem has not been isolated in one area of the country as have consequences nationwide construction cranes for instance are powerful tools in today's construction arena they're being built higher can carry larger loads and if used properly improve the efficiency of a construction cranes can be laminated many man hours for lifting and moving supplies and materials on the job site they can also be among the most dangerous equipment for construction workers to be around constant vigilance is vital when workers are moving in and around functioning cranes investigations into a number of recent crane accidents are still underway and i expect these investigations to provide valuable information about how to prevent such tragedies in the future however i'm very troubled by allegations in the new york times that the crane inspector has been accused of taking bribes to certify cranes as operational and workers as having successfully passed licensing exams i request unanimous consent to include this article dated june seventh two thousand and eight in the hearing record construction is vital to economic growth but it's also an inherently dangerous industry and that's why it's so important that steps  be taken to help mitigate the risk and protect the workers because of the unique characteristics of construction job sites and their associated dangers osha has put in place specific and extensive regulations directed at the construction industry i look for forward to learning more about those standards today we have before us a distinguished panel of experts including osha administrator paul paul folk who has taken over the development of the crane regulation i mentioned earlier in the midst of its development i'm hopeful he will provide us with an update on the crane rulemaking that has been developed as well as the other specific safety standards apply campbell to the construction industry this hearing is an important first step to examine safety protections for workers in the construction industry with a particular emphasis on the crane accidents that have drawn so much attention in recent months i anticipate  help shape public policy on this important issue i would also request unanimous consent to include testimony for the record from mr graham brown executive director of the national commission for the certification of crane operators when this hearing was originally scheduled we were notified that it would focus exclusively on crane safety although the scope of the hearing has been expanded i believe the record will be enhanced with the inclusion of mr brent's testimony thank you chairman miller  yield back the balance of my time i think the gentleman i'd like to introduce our panel first we are joined by paul who is assistant secretary of labor for osha prior to his current position assistant secretary of folk was a partner in m as a member is a member of the ironworkers local four three three robert lee mandery is the acting builder commissioner of the city of new york position he was named to an april two thousand and eight commission mandery join the building department electrical field having worked as an electrician a foreman super superintendent project manager department in division manager he is currently responsible for managing the construction department of their electric mark ayers is a president of the three million member building and construction trades department prior to being elected to that position mr ayres the construction and maintenance department director for the international brotherhood of electrical workers welcome to all of you to the committee we look forward to your testimony you've been here before you know we we provide five minutes for education and cooperate programs to protect employees strong enforcement of safety and health standards is a vital component of our effective approach to construction safety osha focuses on the four most common causes of occupational fatalities in the construction industry namely paul's struck by was caught in between and electrocution in f y two thousand and seven more than half of all the ocean spec sions read once they plan inspections were conducted in the construction industry resulting in the issuance of seventy four thousand eight hundred sixteen citations specifically osha issued more than twenty four thousand citations for violations of the fault protection standards thirty three hundred citations were struck by violations and thirty five hundred citations for electrical violations and since two thousand and one osha has issued two hundred fifty six penalties in the construction industry with penalties in excess of one hundred thousand dollars overall osha has proposed more than three quarters of a billion dollars in penalties for safety health violations since two thousand and one doing the same period osha has made sixty four criminal  justice which is more than any previous administration in fiscal year two thousand of the fifty seven thousand violations issued so far eighty percent of being categorized as a serious willful repeat or perry  the highest percentage ever recorded by the agency we are also effectively targeting our inspections as violations have been found in seventy eight percent of the work site osha has inspected it into a strong target enforcement program continually reviews it's been struck construction safety and health standards there are a number of regulatory changes under consideration including the crane and derek standard osha conducts national regional local emphasis programs to target  which individuals who successfully complete the required training trainer courses are authorized to conduct training programs in construction over one point six million construction participants have been trained by these trainers since two thousand and four this training has saved lives occurred after construction employing hands has attended one of these training courses and learned to don and adjust a full body harness coworker latest survived a fall on the job because of their understanding of how to properly use this critical safety equipment the construction industry boys a large number of spanish speaking employees continues to develop into stupid spanish language such as spanish english construction dictionary public service announcement twit cards and labor organizations and others to improve safety and health in the construction industry voluntary protection program of one hundred thirteen construction participants across the nation there are also a hundred and forty strategic partnerships with construction companies which is more than eighty percent of all partnerships i want to make it clear however there while the agency offers technical assistance to employers to help comply with osha standards as well as recognizing employers for implement exemplary safety health management systems compliance with osha stated how standards is mandatory not voluntary there is no such term or practice as voluntary compliance every employer is responsible providing employees a safe and helpful workplace free of  hazards committed to hanson construction safety and to continue to provide employers and employees with safety information and to ensure that we're seeing safety regulations i can assure the committee that construction safety is a top priority for osha and that we are striving to taking action on this compliance directive that contributed to the tragic death of my brother in law rusty i am really pleased that nevada has formally denounced items contain federal  vital safety provisions for our workers my testimony before you will prevent future fatalities to help bring closure to our family we believe that mr paul is accountable at all he should be  rendered the morning chairman miller ranking member mccann distinguished members of the education labor committee thank you for this opportunity to discuss construction safety regulation and pour cemen and frankly the previous testimony really hits home today like yourselves and like many americans i'm deeply troubled by the recent construction accidents in new york city and across the nation while we all know construction is inherently dangerous there is no excuse for failing to minimize the risk since mayor bloomberg took office in two thousand and two the department has set high expectations for integrity and accountability raised construction safety standards for the industry and improved our own enforcement of existing regulations advancing construction safety demands attention from all levels of government and requires a steadfast commitment from industry we have nine hundred seventy five thousand buildings under our jurisdiction an issue of approximately one hundred seventy thousand permits each year we have undertaken an aggressive enforcement effort to promote worker safety but it is simply impossible for arm specters to be at every job site all the time construction safety requires dedication from all responsible parties and government contractors architects and engineers owners and workers everyone has this responsibility in order to meet the challenge of enhancing construction safety the department of buildings has undertaken a seven pronged approach first we nearly doubled the size of the agency and focus more resources to construction safety second we sought new and improved regulatory oversight and enforcement tools third we created a new enforcement program to stop problems before they become serious for we support an aggressive criminal prosecution of repeat offenders we are currently conducting a top to bottom review of high risk construction areas to further enhance the six we are holding all parties accountable and seven we are focusing on education for construction workers and requiring site safety managers in more locations in order to have a constant presence in terms of resources we are now better able to target high risk areas of construction thanks to increase staffing a new mayor bloomberg and the city council in our special new in forstmann plan alone we have identified one hundred forty four dedicated engineers architects inspectors lawyers and support staff working to raise construction safety standards and to aggressively enforce expanding our regulatory important tools has also been a crucial component to advancing crown structure in safety on july first of this year the new new york city construction codes go into effect they put construction safety front and center and replace the city's outdated one nine hundred sixty eight building code we are also launching our construction analysis and oversight plan an unprecedented top to bottom examination of crane concrete and excavation operations to improve industry practices government oversight to minimize the risk on the enforcement front we are actively issuing stop work orders a particularly effective tool that we have in our arsenal that allows us to immediately halt and save construction finally earlier this month mayor bloomberg and members of the city council announc aggressive legislative package that would enable the department attract various types of contractors by their safety records overall it is been an enormous but necessary ongoing effort however improving construction site safety also requires the federal government to take an active and aggressive role i'm proud of new york city's partnership with osha as much of our progress would not have been possible with their without their dedicated staff it is clear that osha had more additional staff our achievements would be far greater i urge congress to follow new york city's lead in allocating a crease increased funding to construction safety and provide additional resources to osha so they can deploy the construction safety inspectors they so desperately need right now we have approximately seventy five hundred active new building construction sites and eight thousand additional major alterations as was indicated earlier osha has a minimal number of compliance officers they simply cannot cover enough ground while ocean spector's do their best to respond to emergencies and complaints they lack the critical enforcement tool i mentioned earlier the stop work order without authority to halt unsafe work when they find an ocean spector's can only issue fines i want to get to cranes the tower cranes and build our skyscrapers are like our planes they cross state lines they demand regular maintenance and need skilled have interchangeable parts we first support the proposed modernization of the crane osha rules because these cranes move across state lines it is important that the federal guidelines be updated in addition what we'd like to see is an invaluable black box technology to be required in every tower crane across the country third cranes must that have these interchangeable structural components must be clearly labeled and must be able to track over their lifetime and for we are strengthening and expanding tracking and testing requirements for tower crane components we can do a lot in new york city the entire nation deserves better the time is now to make meaningful changes this focus on race several times already this morning how come it's taken so long to do the crane safety standard my understanding was the negotiated rulemaking was completed in two thousand and four that's correct  preamble the preamble and this document is over a thousand pages once that was completed we had to go through the regulatory flexibility analysis we had disagree for review which we had for small business review and then we had the paper work reduction act so we had to do all those things during that time period also we had to because of the standard had to be then reviewed of a text of the standard had to be viewed to ensure that it was get them in place that standard i'm not positive but my belief is probably does it unfortunately that you don't do you know all the things i don't know right on but i can we can check that out for you get an answer for you  and penalties what does that tell it was that tells us is that osha enforcement program regarding construction is working the twenty four thousand citations were issued and given your limited those citations so you know that twenty four thousand is the high targeted sites i think we do have we have we have special emphasis programs throughout in construction i understand i'm just trying to determine what does that figure tell me i think it focuses on obviously we're inspecting those where the fatalities occur because those are automatic inspections where obviously if we have  are over there are four hundred or four hundred fatalities due to falls this is twenty four thousand i'm just trying to determine you suggest that this is this is brom are being aggressive i don't know what twenty four thousand sites tell me if i divide that into thirty three million tells or having them updated so i guess i'm going to ask you to provide supporting evidence of that because i don't know that i mean that's what you're saying i understand that's what you're saying but i don't know that that's what it tells me i don't know if if if if if twenty four thousand is small because couldn't get to enough sites i don't know if it's if it's abusive because you've got to sites you shouldn't get to i don't know what it tells me it's a figure and it's an affine i don't know if thirteen hundred dollars per incident is sufficient or not doesn't sound like it if these if these are serious this warrant violations and serious serious infractions doesn't doesn't if that's what the violation brought about i just can't i can't decipher that that that national local emphasis regional offices programs are focused on the sites that we need to get and where we're getting to where we need to get mr cole who's sitting next to his brother in law was killed and there was no fine there was a plenary fine as i understand it and then there was a decision to remove that find later on and that's my understanding based on the testimony that he went from a clearly find two of the employers there was some investigation  that there is the employee misconduct defense that's a defense has been recognized by the review commission the federal courts the state courts i don't know if that played in there because once again we're not we don't have jurisdiction over and about osha so i don't know what was or are waived together you have no authority to look at that enforcement to see whether or not that's the patient or not absent questioning the whole program is that correct you don't get the you don't get to intervene under current law as to whether enforcement or training or various components of that are adequate you might have osha might have been certified about a fifteen years ago to do this i don't know when they did and at that point it's their it's their ballgame as i understand it as looking here a particular item that we can go and and that's given to the usually to a regional administrator and they do an investigation on that particular state plant we also do studies and we actually are doing a current study we had a complaint regarding  the settlement in a new orleans hell orleans hotel and the site settlement so we are looking at those two so we can go in but it is limited i raised that point because in your testimony you've said before an appearance before this enforce the law like i said it once again it is because it's about osha i'm not sure what was all involved but you need to understand as part of the settlement process that the federal program and all the state programs is that when when an employer is issues has been issued citations and once those citations have been contested there is no requirement under the act to abate those hazards until there's a final order of either the review commission or the state review commission which is how it works out and normally during the settlement process what you have is there is sometimes reductions in the penalty amounts or even the classification of the penalty but in turn and part of the reason is to get immedia employers in this area there was always a requirement when there was a penalty reduction that something else would be given but done by the employer that was not required under either the standard or the act so in effect you are getting  something for the penalty reduction but with respect to this particular item i don't have the information because like you say was handled by and about osha i've run out of time i would just notice that in the in the las vegas sun story again the perine construction company and mr cole's testimony he criticized osha for issuing a compliance directive in conflict with the underlying steel erection regulations can you explain the controversy and why osha has taken the position of house industry and the unions and the government involved in that in preparing the materials one of the biggest issues and if you actually i had the preamble here if you look at the preamble the most contentious those were the two things which said that you do not have to have protection you don't have to have one hundred percent fall protection otherwise you have to be tied off you can have either a deck or netting below it at  either two stories or thirty feet just as an example that's thirty feet if you fall from that if i fell backwards off of that and landed on this floor the likelihood of me studs that if they were using one hundred percent full protection in other words they were tied off at all times when they were all in there would that be a violation of the standard and the determination by mr secretary because then what was provided in the standard because if a person falls from there on the land or he'll fall by the six feet instead of falling thirty feet and that's basically how it came out but it was a contentious he read the standard maybe the preamble to the standard it says this is one that was the most contentious issue of the of the of the standard so in the in the case we're talking about  they didn't have the thirty foot or two story protection because he was supposed to be tied off them was exposed be doing one of the other on this job which one on the on because it was about thirty feet then one hundred percent for protection would be required under the standard so what is one hundred percent protection hundred percent correction is that they are in a  and netting section that requires fall protection nineteen twenty six seven sixty requires that the employer provide all the fault protection the bell harnesses  whatever the lanyard the lifelines but and the employees are supposed to wear the equipment but the standard does not require them to book all and installed in the preamble that is fifteen and thirty feet you actually have to provide a body you have the between is anything over thirty feet or two stories they had to be hooked on by a standard between fifteen and thirty that how that how could this how could he how could he die if he was doing this if he was next to the life line if he was if you had a hundred if he was follow the rules in a one way or the other either you have decking or netting that that what we are doing that how would targeting that an armed force mean efforts are targeting and enforcement but also our outreach program i mentioned about the one point six million employees that have been trained the training programs we're doing partnerships and our partnership programs have been a very effective and especially in construction because that's kind of where we focused our emphasis on the partnerships because most of the over fifty percent of partnerships are construction and the idea there is to help develop training programs best practices model policies whatever it takes we working together and i think that was mentioned one of the other speakers and their testimony that was that's part of what we have to do we have to train the employees and we're doing that i think pretty effectively one point six million since two thousand and four to ms of the fact of is a lot of people being trained on the ocean ten hour course and the thirty hour course how does our structured record compare with that there has been a decrease in workers comp claims both the united states in canada and in in the european nations so i think there has been a general trend i think you rates have been pretty much trending the same way and in those countries where the center for construction research and training indicates that finland norway here many it's not meant to be perfect but you should know if you're the guy in charge you should know how we compare i mean i look at many things to see how we compare between the media of all people in the country you should know how we australia their rates may be low and i don't know how not having seen the data if there is the type of construction that they do or the amount of construction that do i mean in about it we're talking about one project that has seven thousand employees on the site just one notion that we should all visit as many countries as possible i'm not sure if it was lemonade to get it up but always a good idea to see how the rest of the world works mr call meyer i'm must admit i'm every time we ask if you have enough money to be able to run the program as it should be we always have we do or right and yet we see that there's such a shortage of ocean inspectors going around when you look at new york what they've done a terrific job on having certainly a very very large of mouth probably twenty times more than what you have in this city alone but one of the things that i wanted to ask you also when you were talking about the safety and how training the one of the problems that i see in looking at the testimony misteries they do contracting where it becomes mandatory if i understand from your written testimony on training has to be mandatory that's part of the that is correct in some cases but to answer your specific question the training is voluntary but the difference is we need our employers to demand that anyone report to a construction site has a minimum of ten hours exactly that's what i'm trying to get at why can't we make it mandatory that everybody goes through a ten hours of training through osha well i mean there is a mandatory training in construction but it's not the or thirty hour course i mean we could obviously there could be a standard could be promulgated on training required a ten to thirty hour course but once again to do you have enough people to actually do one hundred one point six million employees on the ten and thirty hour courses so we are doing the training we would have the ability to do it through our heads as i believe well i'm just thinking about a lot of the you know you had mentioned in your testimony that we're seeing a lot more hispanic workers on the job yes you've done a program as far as putting things up as far as safety issues in the r particular language but again with those that are not union contracted have they had even the correct training to be doing the job that they're doing well once again i would say we do have mandatory or who it is alright maybe you have another number for me how many how many construction workers do we have total in this country ballpark figure trying to remember i've seen the mean the employer and we know that a lot of employees are doing their job but it seems to me that an awful lot of employers are not doing their job because we have too many injuries and we have too many deaths on a yearly basis even though you say the numbers are coming down but maybe it's because there are some training programs but isn't it up to the federal government to have a standard that all construction workers should go under the training program where once around the country training and all the employers may be providing training and they may not be doing the ten or thirty hour course yet they're doing the full program training in the record for their employees and we're not capturing that just to finish  what would you consider the employer is doing a safety program and it's not the ten the thirty hour program what would you consider the bare minimum that would actually make workers safer i think under the standard  be advised and trained on the hazards associated with their work what they would normally be exposed to and be able to train to avoid them and also the training on personal projects that in our courses to our course is that a talk before they go on the job data they may be fully trained to the employers to private consultant and not taking the ten or thirty hour courses and i think it's awful the employer may be to design the course to be able to train his employees on the hazards that they're going to be associated with in their particular type of instruction you know you might be curious to find out if canada actually makes it mandatory for safety training so we blamed everything  with all of the stakeholders associated with proposing new regulations for crane safety my understanding that that process resulted in consensus among all of the stakeholders with respect to draft regulations regulations are contentious my understanding is we have agreement with all of the stakeholders and still we have four years elapsed with no proposal can you comment on that and help us understand why it would take when  reaction took about nine years they started in one thousand nine hundred two and finished in two thousand and one so it was that contentious or was or was that also a consensus building process such as the crane regulation process there was i mean there was a one hundred percent protection issue was that the negotiated rule making team work to the team developed so we had a regulatory test that's one hundred nineteen pages from there we had to develop the preamble which basically the preamble to any standard basically spells out in detail what each provision is going to give kind of instructions to employers and employees and their organ all business organizations and the union as to what why that particular item was put on that particular stand the preamble to the cranes and their standard is one thousand is over one thousand pages long so that all had to be drafted by the agency that was not drafted by the sea that committee then we went through and we're doing  lot of different things we're talking about this is a very comprehensive standard ground conditions assembly disassembly of power lines electrocution issues operator certification safety devices signaling inspection so we have all these things that we had to work on and and then we had to look at each one of the construction standards that were already in place to determine if this was somehow as a conflict then we had to go through the regulatory flexibility analysis we had to go through the small business a brief has decreed that there are to be no final rules proposed for osha standards subsequent to june first will you request a waiver of that standard so as to expedite the crane what we do is we have the  process you have to look at the process yes or no will i get explain the process there is right now before anybody once they prove you provide that review then we have to put the proposed rule in the federal register and provide a comment period which will be sixty days then under the act we are the act provides that any person can request a hearing on that stand and there are more than likely will unfortunate time periods that or allowed under the law are going to carry it into two thousand and i only have time for one more question mr manders if the draft regulations agreed to by the stakeholders with respect to crane safety had before law in your opinion would those regulations have prevented the two accidents that took place in new york city the two different accidents that occurred in new york city are both under investigation and i don't want to compromise that investigation i will tell you that we are here today because the regulations will standardize across the nation cranes are transitory they go across state lines if there are not federal regulations that make the operators the people who maintain those cranes and how those cranes are worked on when they go in and out of a jurisdiction and there's no standard baseline i do think that it will  have a large effect across the nation on the standard so we are here today to support that there are some very specific pieces in this that would raise the level of standards that can make a difference thank you  what is it going to take what is missing in this picture why can't we do it right you have the entire country behind what's going to take from the federal representative what's going to take from the d he went to work for overtime he was working on another job after he got there he did not talk to me process of doing that the next step in the process is doing a peer review of the data and so we will move forward on that with respect to the confined spaces in can show me to talk about confined spaces in construction the confined spaces we will then go the next step at that would be a proposed rule i don't know if that will be completed by the end of the year which is depends on what the peer review determines and on the hearing on the confined spaces in construction that will be like have a final rule this year there's a potential for that it just depends on what comes out of the hearing i understand that it's customary at the end of it ministration to start shedding responsibility i would just urge you to you and everyone you know show to show a greater sense of urgency i realize some of the work will not be completed in this administration but i sure hope that you can have as much deaths and despite your rosy statistics it just doesn't match with the experience i hear from people in the workforce and what a worker comes away with with training what's the argument against every worker having that safety training of at least ten hours i think i know in my private my experience and private practice in dealing with clients that were in the construction industry and even in general but they're doing a lot of training we do not know exactly the scope of the training that's being done by the employers in house to consultants or whatever they may be providing all the same maybe they may actually may have a much more broader inspection training program than is required in the ten hour even the thirty hour course because i know some of the employees my clients did have that type of thing so i have to say that they're not getting the training i can't say that requirement for training and in the construction so they would be in violation of the standard but secondly you know i like to say i believe personally that you know keeping employees safe is a moral responsibility for lawyers so ok my impression is that there's a certain dimension of viewing this workforce is kind of disposable workforce which is the thing that i think is troubling a lot of people here  close that the what they've done for the miners has proven to be effective they have regular inspections of mines and quite frankly we have roughly eight hundred thousand construction projects and under the current level of inspections going on it would take seventeen years to inspect all those projects granted they start when they stop and they move around but  statistics on page two of your testimony because you indicate that since two thousand and one osha has issued two hundred fifty six significant cases and significant important cases are defined as those with penalties over one hundred thousand dollars in the compliance assistance the training the outreach is demonstrated that we have an effective program because our injury illness and fatality rates are going down that's interesting because we had a hearing last week and we talked or netting underneath the employee between within two storeys or thirty feet whichever is less than the two to qualify under the directive you have to have one hundred percent for protection and it was they had to be tied off at all times to you reprint question over time what you discussed the steel erection standard in your testimony on page one and apparently the compliance directive eliminated the safety provisions and so as an ironworker i'm interested in your insights about inches and the workers move that floor to continue the building and it gives a place for all the other crafts to work on your need that an accident can happen if something goes wrong experiences needless to say you have my deepest sympathy for the loss of your brother in law rusty billingsley my district of las vegas has seen unprecedented growth in the construction broom in recent years and there are currently forty thousand new hotel rooms under construction in las vegas while this construction is very important to the local economy it's also very important more so to ensure the safety of the workers that are  building our city for the future unfortunately my hometown of las vegas is the in a high number of construction related deaths and we're here to make sure that everything is being done to protect our construction workers  make no mistake that the construction workers on site in las vegas are the highest quality building trade unionists in the country they have the expertise the quality of their work is unsurpassed then they have experience on the job of many years and many construction sites their second to none i'm hopeful that the purpose of this hearing and through this hearing will be able to shine a spotlight on this most important issue so that those who are on the job and at risk and have the safest possible work conditions available i have a couple of questions and mr cole i i want to be is as sensitive as possible but i'd like to get a short answer if you could possibly just so we have this on the record for absolute sure do you believe the oh sure compliance director on steel erection standards provides thank you very much  occurring what we want to do is we want to halt the practice require the contractor to come in tell us or the engineer of record tell us what they're going to do differently and then we allow them to go back to work with an inspection and violation requires them to remedy the situation that might mean remedial work prior to going back to work or a listed practice of how they're going to move forward because each construction site is different and they have particular means  thousands of violations a year not every violation requires stop work that's correct and how is this received with the employer community the contractor community how does this work well i will tell you that the best way to get someone's attention is to stop the work getting them to identify before they go back to work a new plan we can we get major compliance we also we also i'm sorry we get additional compliance they go above and beyond the code we may say that whatever the practice is today we don't agree with we want you to do more there might be management changes there might be a protocol change we might require them to change personnel and contractors and in some cases the fine the fines were abolished in some cases they were substantially reduced and since the reports a newspaper they've held for a moment  get how you how you can have an injured worker or worker who's died and you can have an informal process in which the worker the workers family or the union and even the other workers on the site are not included having either the work or representative organization the case of and or the family somebody be able to say wait a minute you guys making a secret handshake here without having to go to court the companies that have to go to court to make the line coming down overall for accidents and yet construction accidents is kind of uneven about that and you have you have as i say four people a day dying on construction sites but when i see of you can comment on that big but there's something there's something wrong in that prospect i recognize there are a world wide company there are highly respected in all the rest of that but something's terribly wrong in this process especially if those fines i think are going away after one was three point six billion dollars and somebody said it was a nine billion dollars over all you do start to get the sense that just pay the fine and let's keep moving here we're working twenty four seven and that's a that's a fairly disturbing aspect i become because it sounds so callous and it's not fair to a lot of responsible employers that it becomes almost the cost of doing business and and that's just can't be acceptable here i think that perhaps new york city  minor step but i just i just don't think that and certainly some of these megaprojects that the fines that we have historically watched with all of this i'm not sure that that leads to to the kinds of correct very serious questions about that about that state of force and about what the federal government under the delegation of authority is has the ability to do under the under the current law thank you all very much for your for your testimony it's been very helpful to the to the committee there will be fourteen days will be available for any member committee who wants to submit additional material for the committee and some of my colleagues had