Falls continue to be the number one cause of workplace fatalities in construction: Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that between 2018 and 2019, fatal falls to a lower level increased from 321 to 401. Those figures make it more important than ever to re-focus on fall hazard awareness and the prevention of falls, particularly as employers and employees are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training has been posting new resources and information in connection with this year’s OSHA-NIOSH-CPWR National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls, including hosting webinars with members of the ANSI Z359 Accredited Standards Committee and the National Roofing Contractors Association. Register for those webinars below and find more information about the Stand-Down on the Stop Construction Falls website.

Tuesday, April 20th at 2 p.m. ET — Fall Protection Q&A Panel Part II
Click here to register and submit a question for our panelists

Wednesday, April 28th at 1 p.m. ET — Fall Harness Fit: The Basics
Click here to register and submit a question for our panelists

Monday, May 3rd at 1 p.m. ET — 2021 National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction: Official Kick-off with OSHA, NIOSH and CPWR
Click here to register and submit a question for our panelists

Also, to improve our resources and outreach efforts, we are conducting a fall experience survey to learn more about the root causes of falls from heights. If you have experienced, witnessed, or investigated a fall incident, please consider completing the survey.

The Department of Labor (DOL) will host an National Online Dialogue on Empowering Teen Workers April 19 – 30 to gather ideas on better ways to reach all teens, including teens with disabilities, with important information about their workplace rights and protections. The public—including teens, parents, employers and other influential adults of teen workers—are encouraged to participate. DOL and OSHA will use their social media platforms to share messaging about the online dialogue and workplace safety and health for teens who or will be employed over the summer.

Here’s how you can help:

• Share this one-pager about the online dialogue with your stakeholders, particularly those who work with or employ teens, and encourage them to participate.
• Follow DOL and OSHA as they share posts and information through their social media platforms. You can find them as @USDOL and @OSHA_DOL for Twitter and @departmentoflabor for Facebook.
• Follow a campaign organizer, CareerSafe, who can be found on Twitter as @CareerSafe and on Facebook as CareerSafe Online.
• Retweet or share their posts on your page or feed.
• Respond or comment using #KeepTeenWorkersSafe and #KeepWorkersSafe.
• Review the social media posts on KeepTeenWorkersSafe.org or in this toolkit, then make them your own, originate the messages from your account, and use #KeepTeenWorkersSafe or #KeepWorkersSafe in your posts.

In addition, please show your support by posting the following message on Tuesday, April 20th:

I care about the safety and health of teen workers! Share ideas on empowering teens in their workplaces: https://teenworkers.ideascale.com #KeepTeenWorkersSafe #KeepWorkersSafe

The 2nd annual National Stand-Down to Prevent Struck-by Incidents will take place April 26th, 2021 — on the first day of Work Zone Awareness Week. The NORA Construction Sector Council will be holding two webinars as part of this virtual event (please be aware that the webinar platform only supports 1,000 people attending live, however everyone who registers for the event will automatically receive the recording):

Monday, April 26th at 1:00 pm ET (1 hour): Cranes & Lifting – Avoiding Struck-By Incidents Under the Hook
April 26th is the second National Stand-Down to Prevent Struck-by Incidents, and this year we’ve expanded the focus to include lift zones in addition to work zones. In this webinar – the first of two virtual Stand-Down events – you’ll hear from a variety of industry stakeholders about the responsibilities of a lift director and the basics to look out for in a lift zone, the most prevalent issues and accidents experienced, and best practices for lift safety.

Click here to register and submit a question for the panel in advance.

Monday, April 26th at 3:00 pm ET (1 hour): Preventing Struck-By Incidents: Learning by Experience
In this webinar – the second of two virtual Stand-Down events – our panel will discuss their own experiences facing stuck-by incidents and identifying improvements and strategies to better avoid them.

Click here to register and submit a question for the panel in advance.

The E-Newsbrief from the NIEHS National Clearinghouse is a free weekly newsletter focusing on new developments in the world of worker safety and health. Each issue provides summaries of the latest worker health and safety news from newspapers, magazines, journals, government reports, and the web, along with links to the original documents. Also featured each week are updates from government agencies that handle hazmat and worker safety issues such as DOE, EPA, OSHA and others.

We encourage construction safety and health trainers and others interested in worker safety and health to subscribe. Click here to register as a new subscriber.