13
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2013
ACCESS, LIFT & HANDLERS
F
alls are the leading cause of death in
construction. There is no sugar-coating
it. According to the Occupational Safety &
Health Administration (OSHA), 264 people died
from fall fatalities in 2010. The National Council
on Compensation Insurance says that from 2005
to 2007, 38 states reported that falls from height
cost insured companies $53 million per year.
OSHA is heavily promoting
its new campaign geared
toward educating workers
on how to be safe while
at height.
Lindsey Anderson
spoke with OSHA’s
Directorate of Construction
Jim Maddux
about how far
the program has come and
where it’s off to next.
Fall prevention
Construction, became involved in the plight
to save lives when the National Institute
for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
approached OSHA about creating a fall
prevention campaign.
“Construction falls have been the leading killer
of construction workers for decades; for as long
as we have data to show us this kind of detail
which started around 1992,” Maddux says.
“We work a lot with NIOSH and the National
Occupational Research Agenda (NORA). NORA’s
construction sector committee is very active
and they came up with the idea of having a fall
protection campaign about three or four years
ago. We said, ‘Yeah, this is a really good idea.’”
OSHA then partnered with NIOSH and NORA’s
Construction Sector on the nationwide outreach
campaign to raise awareness among workers
and employers about common fall hazards in
construction.
“We’ve had a lot of enforcement initiatives and
rule-making initiatives over the years, but the
idea of trying also to do an awareness campaign
was very appealing.”
Simple steps
The Fall Prevention Campaign aims to raise
awareness about the hazards of falls from
ladders, scaffolds and roofs (see box story for
more information). OSHA has an educational
resources webpage that gives workers and
employers information about falls and how
to prevent them. There are also training tools
for employers to use and posters to display at
worksites.
“Our webpages today have had well over a
half million page views,” Maddux says. “We’ve
Jim Maddux set to speak
at IPAF U.S. Conference
Jim Maddux, Director, OSHA Directorate of Construction, will speak Oct. 21 at the Renaissance
Chicago O'Hare Suites Hotel in Chicago at the International Powered Access Federation’s U.S.
Conference. Maddux will discuss the need to address falls from height and the OSHA campaign
to raise awareness about such. For more information, visit
.
Maddux was appointed as the new director of OSHA’s Directorate of Construction in 2010.
Maddux previously served in OSHA’s Directorate of Standards and Guidance as the Director of
the Office of Physical Hazards and Acting Director of the Office of Engineering Safety. Maddux
held several leadership positions at OSHA, including Director of the Office of Maritime and
Acting Deputy Director for the Directorate of Standards and Guidance.
Maddux began his career with OSHA in 1990 as a statistician in the Office of Statistics,
and joined the Directorate of Standards and Guidance in 1998. Maddux has been a project
director, author and contributor to numerous OSHA standards and guidance projects, including
the payment for personal protective equipment standard, injury and illness recordkeeping
regulations, ergonomics guidelines, and
several maritime standards and guidance
products. He has a bachelor’s degree in
economics from the University of Maryland,
University College, an associate’s degree
in computer information systems from
Laramie County Community College, and
an associate’s degree in chemistry from
Northern Wyoming Community College.
The average cost to a company when a worker
falls from height is about $106,000.
But most important, all falls can be prevented
and workers can go home safe to their families
at the end of every day. In order to address
this issue, OSHA is heavily promoting its Fall
Promotion Campaign, now in its second year.
Jim Maddux, Director, OSHA Directorate of
INTERVIEW
