What's Changed in Construction?

March 3, 2025

Are We Making Any Progress?

In the last issue of this newsletter, I addressed the current state of OSHA, since that seemed to be a frequently asked question among all the administrative changes and “information” being published everywhere. Not much to update here. The nomination for Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer , did clear the Senate Subcommittee and will now move on to a full Senate vote. However, the nomination for Assistant Secretary in charge of OSHA, David Keeling , and the nomination of Wayne Palmer as head of MSHA, still need to go before the subcommittee and that did not appear on the published calendar as of today.

Status quo for the most part. If you are interested in some insight into the potential affects these nominations may have on the agencies, there are brief opinions posted by Fisher Phillips that you can read at the links below:

• MSHA
• OSHA

Interestingly enough, the above article about the potential future directions of OSHA does mention the potential that the agency rolls back the injury reporting requirements that I discussed in the last newsletter. This would be extremely unfortunate as I believe this data is much more useful than the BLS's annual best guesses derived from a poll of a "representative sample" of employers around the nation. Accurate data, whether it is released to the public or even just stays in the hands of the agency, can be used to better target needed enforcement and education. Only time will tell!

Check out our free course on the current record keeping and reporting rules for construction employers on The Construction Collaborative

One thing that will remain unchanged is the amended rule for PPE in Construction which took effect on January 13, 2025 and mandates that personal protective equipment must fit workers properly. You can find OSHA's FAQ page on the new PPE rules here. This "new" rule simply added a statement to the existing PPE in Construction regulations that states that PPE must actually fit properly (a statement that has always existed in the General Industry regulations).

It took an incredibly long time to get this simple statement added to the regulatory language for the construction industry, as many of the big construction industry groups adamantly opposed the language when it was first proposed in 2011. The primary (and only) opposition to including this language came initially from a so-called "industry coalition" called the Construction Industry Safety Coalition (CISC), which included both AGC and ABC. This effectively derailed the effort in 2017 and moved it to a more burdensome rule making process, which thankfully did press forward in spite of continued opposition from industry organizations. In 2023, the same group again opposed the proposed changes, stating...

OSHA’s efforts to explicitly require employers to ensure that all PPE properly fits employees greatly changes the dynamic of the prior standard and places enormous new responsibilities on construction employers, thus substantially increasing their regulatory burdens.

I often wonder if safety professionals in the construction industry even realize that their industry groups are often the primary oppositions to changes in the construction industry. In the case of making the simple statement that "PPE must fit properly", CISC was the only opposition received by OSHA, effectively pushing the change from 2019 to 2025, delaying it by six years. All of this is well documented in the Federal Register (which is a document that cannot be altered or taken off-line).

If you have ever wondered why change comes so slowly in the #construction industry, perhaps we need look no further than the organizations we pay to represent us.

Actual Progress in Spite of Hurdles

Let's look at some additional examples and examine the effects.

Back in the late 1990's, several groups including NIOSH (a division of the CDC) published studies related to the state of women in the construction industry. Much of this data was assimilated into a report submitted to OSHA under the guidance of its Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health (ACCOSH) in 1999. This report (which has recently been removed from the OSHA web page where it has resided for decades) has become the primary, go-to, document to support discussions about the challenges faced by women in the construction industry today.

Herein lies the problem.

It is not the 1990's anymore. The industry bears little resemblance to its state of existence form more than a quarter of a century ago. There are construction management personnel on our projects that were not even born in the 90's! The world is a different place and so is the construction industry. So why are we still using a report based on interviews that are more than a quarter of century old, when many of the people who are in the industry today were only children, when many of the advances in materials and technology hadn't yet been dreamed up, and when the percentage of women in construction was considerably lower than it is today?

Put quite simply, it's all we've got. And that's a problem.

Have we fixed all of the problems highlighted in the 1999 study? Of course not. Can you still find some of the same statements being made by women in the industry today? Of course you can. However, there are significant changes that have been made in the industry which are not addressed in a report from the 90's.

• Back in the 90's, I would have been hard pressed to find PPE manufactured in many different sizes. Even if it existed, it was hard to get. It was an age of "one size fits all", even though it never did.
• Back in the 90's I would have NEVER seen sanitary bathroom facilities on a construction site such as the ones being used by DPR Construction that provide significant improvements in sanitation and hygiene for everyone on the job site.
• Back in the 90's, women's groups in construction companies did not exist. Today companies like McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. and Okland Construction champion these programs and fully recognize the importance of supporting women in construction in addressing the overall labor challenges we will continue to face into the future.

These are significant changes and improvements, and they were driven at least in part by information and reports like the 1999 study. This is a good thing. But the workplace of today looks very different than it did 25-30 years ago, meaning it is time to move forward. The 1999 report did its job, but the job is not done. We still face challenges, and we still have problems. If we are going to address these, we need a new report; new information that properly frames the issues of today, not the issues of a quarter century ago.

Make no mistake. I fully acknowledge that some (or even many) of the issues highlighted over 25 years ago still persist today. But the circumstances, the environment, and the solutions have changed. Indeed, solutions have been created that did not exist back then. That's great! That's progress, and we have the 1999 report to thank for that.

Now it's time for a new report.

We need a report that examines what has happened since the number of women in construction has advanced. One that highlights the fact that manufacturers have stepped up their offerings to make PPE that fits all shapes and sizes of people and questions why employers are not taking advantage of that. We need a report that studies the solutions that have been implemented and examines the benefits achieved.

This is what it is going to take to move us forward over the next 25 years.

The Takeaways

• If you haven’t reviewed your PPE purchases yet, do it now. PPE needs to fit. There is nothing new or earth shattering there, but many companies don’t take the steps needed to ensure this for all employees. There are plenty of manufacturers producing PPE in all shapes and sizes. If your supplier doesn't have this available, maybe it's time to re-evaluate your choices.

If you are taking a one size fits all approach, you are doing it wrong

• Seek out and research solutions that have been implemented and evaluate their effectiveness. There have been some great advances out there, and they probably don't get enough discussion and recognition. Look to companies that are implementing positive changes and see what you can adopt in your workplace.

Additional Resources

Here are some additional ways to access more tips and advice for professionals in the #aec industries (#Architecture, #Engineering, #Construction):

1. Visit The Construction Collaborative at www.cmsocial.net to find ideas, tips and tricks, video tutorials, and to help form a community of construction professionals sharing ideas and solutions.
2. Follow me on LinkedIn, then click the 🔔 at the top of my profile page to be notified about events and to join in the conversations in my posts.
3. Subscribe to Thoughts from the Field to receive this bi-weekly newsletter delivered to your inbox and on LinkedIn, so you don't miss any topics.

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