iStock/Evelyn Fogleman
Today marks the start of 2020 Construction Safety Week, and the Ohio Contractors Association (OCA) will join state, national and global construction groups as they recognize and participate in the event. The event, which will run from Sept. 14 to 18, was originally organized as a five-day event in 2014 to encourage the industry’s more than 11.2 million workers to be better safety leaders through teamwork and by sharing best practices.
OCA will use the week to highlight what the state is doing to spread awareness and prevent electrocutions and struck-by accidents, which are two of the industry’s “focus four” worksite occurrences. The association’s Safety Committee has set out to eliminate the risk of these accidents developing an overhead warning device that is consistent to all industry members in the state and compliant with the Federal Highway Administration, Ohio Department of Transportation and OSHA.
“Since it is such a positive issue and a safety-related issue, we thought we would coordinate our distribution of the devices to our membership in an event during National Construction Safety Week,” OCA Labor and Safety Affairs Director Mark Potnick said. OCA will hold the event at its Columbus headquarters on Sept. 17 where it will teach members about electrocution and struck-by occurrences and distribute 500 overhead warning signs to heavy, highway and utility construction contractors across the state.
Although this year’s National Safety Construction Week was originally scheduled for May, it was rescheduled to plan and provide COVID-19 protocols. “The focus of this year’s national event will be thanking workers who support safety and recognize efforts to be injury free; increase awareness of the importance of being committed to safety every day; encourage the sharing of best practices and working to strengthen the construction industry’s safety culture; and conduct onsite activities to support safety education,” OCA says.
