By Anna DeBattiste

During the November NCCCO Foundation meeting Scott Ketchum, director of OSHA’s Directorate of Construction, spoke for an hour about what his office is up to these days.

The most important thing for you to know is that the compliance directive that was due two years ago and was delayed by Covid is coming out “imminently” (Ketchum estimates in the spring). While it will be aimed at compliance officers it will be available to the public as well, and we expect it to be pretty useful. It will not create any new obligations for employers; it will simply give direction to enforcement personnel on conducting inspections and it will outline policy on citing violations. It will be focused on operator certification and qualification and it will list exactly what they are looking for. Here are a few specifics it will address:

• When to initiate an inspection into an operator’s training, certification, and evaluation
• How to approach an inspection involving multi-purpose equipment and multi- employer worksites
• How to determine whether the operator has received training that meets the requirements of the standard
• What steps to take when inspecting the certification/license of an operator
• How to address certification concerns such as fraudulent certifications or testing organizations not meeting requirements
• When an employer would need to conduct additional evaluations for an operator

At the same time, OSHA will also be releasing an updated Small Entity Compliance Guide with information on operator certification and qualification which will:

• Provide a concise statement of crane operator training, certification, and evaluation requirements
• Answer frequently asked questions on certification testing and payment for certification

Lastly, the directorate is developing FAQ's to address questions they have received about:

• Status of accreditation agencies
• Evaluations – who can be an agent of the employer?

Ketchum presented a list of the top 10 crane-related citations between October of 2020 and October of 2021:

• Operator certification
• Too close to power lines
• 12-month inspection
• In-cab load charts
• Keeping clear of the load
• Power line safety measures like spotters and visual aids • Competent person visual inspections
• Swing radius entrance protection
• Rigger qualification
• Signalperson qualification

Let’s remember that compliance is not just about keeping your company out of hot water. It’s more importantly about saving lives and preventing injury.