From Aug. 9-16, ABC celebrated Safe + Sound Week to recognize the successes of workplace health and safety programs and offer information and ideas on how to keep America’s workers safe.

On July 15, Occupational Safety and Health Administration released additional materials to educate the workforce on heat illness prevention.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, more than 40% of heat-related worker deaths occur in the construction industry.  As with all incidents, heat illness is entirely preventable, provided you develop and implement simple preventive measures. 

ABC of California applauded the California State Assembly for the unanimous and bipartisan passage of Assembly Concurrent Resolution 23, which proclaims March 18, 2021 as Construction Suicide Prevention Awareness Day in California—raising awareness of an important health problem affecting the state’s construction industry. ABC of California supports ACR 23 and is currently working alongside its author, Assembly member Carlos Villapudua (D-Stockton), to help change the conversation around suicide and suicide prevention.

On Feb. 1, ABC joined 41 trade associations in urging Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Charlotte A. Burrows to quickly issue guidance clarifying the extent to which employers may offer employees incentives to vaccinate without running afoul of the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws enforced by the EEOC.

On July 15, Virginia became the first state in the nation to enact an Emergency Temporary Standard to address the COVID-19 pandemic. The ETS will go into effect at the end of July.

ABC is committed to providing its members with the latest health, safety, economic and policy information regarding the coronavirus pandemic. To better manage the growing number of resources, ABC just updated its Coronavirus Update webpage to simplify and improve navigation, with topics and resources organized in four different categories: Employer Resources, Employee Resources, National Markets and State & Local Markets.

On March 24, ABC, as a member of the Construction Industry Safety Coalition Steering Committee, wrote to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration regarding recordkeeping and respirator enforcement during the COVID-19 outbreak. CISC is comprised of a number of trade associations that represent every aspect of the construction industry.

In the wake of coronavirus-related business shutdowns impacting the construction industry in Boston, Pennsylvania and other localities, ABC is urging President Trump to recognize construction as an essential service and keep workers employeto preserve the industry’s current and future ability to build and maintain health care facilities, respond to critical infrastructure requirements and aid in recovery efforts after natural disasters.  

ABC and its chapters are reaching out to state and local lawmakers and asking them to treat construction activities conducted in a safe and responsible manner as essential services in order to permit critical infrastructure services to continue as states and localities draft stay-at-home orders and other policies allowing only movement of workers involved in essential businesses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.