OSHA Forms SIF Prevention Alliance With NSC, ASSP, AIHA and CU Boulder
OSHA has formed a new National Serious Injury and Fatality Prevention Alliance, ISHN reports, pairing the agency with the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP), the National Safety Council (NSC) and the University of Colorado Boulder’s Construction Safety Research Alliance (CSRA). The group will share research and offer employers and workers guidance and training on identifying and eliminating high-risk hazards that can lead to serious injuries and fatalities (SIF).
The alliance is an outreach and education effort. It covers awareness materials, joint training sessions, conference appearances and technical briefings for OSHA, State Plan and Consultation staff. ISHN describes no new standard, penalty or compliance requirement, and none is created. No timeline has been given for when materials will be released.
NSC CEO Lorraine Martin said the effort moves toward “proactively addressing the conditions that can lead to the most serious outcomes.”
What It Means for Subcontractors
- Benchmark your SIF definitions now. Compare how your company classifies serious injury and fatality potential, and how you report near misses, against the SIF identification and prevention principles the alliance publishes. The materials have not been detailed yet, so review them as they come out through OSHA and the member groups.
- Expect prequalification questions. This is our read, not ISHN’s, but with CSRA, a construction-focused research group, in the alliance, GCs may start asking for SIF classification and near-miss data in safety prequalification. Have your records organized before a bid package asks for them.
- Treat it as free training. The alliance plans to deliver sessions for employers and workers, with materials in multiple languages. Small crews can use these in place of building SIF content from scratch.
