Organizations Partner to Protect Construction Workers

Staff -- Pacific Builder and Engineer, 4/2/2007

Washington, D.C.— As part of the Roadway Work Zone Safety and Health Partners, the Associated General Contractors of America signed an alliance recently with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to establish a collaborative relationship to protect workers in highway work zones.

OSHA, NIOSH, and The Roadway Work Zone Safety and Health Partners will work to provide the alliance program participants and other government and non-government organizations with information, guidance and access to training resources that will help protect employees from general health and safety hazards.

The program is aimed at reducing and preventing exposures to roadway work zone safety and health hazards. The alliance will focus on flagger safety, safer deployment of traffic control devices, positive protection, night work, andd reduction of speeding in work zones and runovers/backovers.

AGC also announced that it has become the first national launch partner to join the Common Ground Alliance on the new 811 "Know What's Below — Call Before You Dig" campaign.

811 is the new FCC-designated national N-11 number created to eliminate confusion of multiple "Call Before You Dig" numbers across the country. This quick and efficient service will connect callers with local One Call Centers who notify the appropriate local utilities, who then send crews to the requested site to mark the approximate location of underground lines for free.

It is important to know where underground lines are buried before each digging project to help prevent injury, expense and penalties. The 811 line is live already in some parts of the country and will be used nationwide later this year. It is not designed to eliminate existing numbers but will work alongside them.