Local 69 (Little Rock, Ark.) BM-ST Rodney Allison, center, accepts the top NACBE safety award on behalf of his local. Joining in the presentation are (l. to r.) NACBE Exec. Dir. John Erickson, NACBE Pres. Eric Heuser, IVP Warren Fairley, and IP Newton Jones.
OSHA recordable rate drops below 2.0 for first time
THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of Construction Boilermaker Employers (NACBE) presented its annual safety awards to the 2012 top-performing locals from the Boilermakers’ four U.S. vice-presidential sections March 4, during the Construction Sector Operations conference held at Marco Island, Fla.
Local 69 (Little Rock, Ark.), representing the Southeast section, took national honors with zero lost-time accidents, zero compensable injuries, and zero OSHA-recordable injuries. L-69 BM-ST Rodney Allison accepted the award.
The three other lodges finishing first in their sections included Northeast Local 237 (East Hartford, Conn.), Mark Pinard, BM-ST; Great Lakes Local 105 (Piketon, Ohio), Van Stephens, BM-ST; and Western States Local 4 (Page, Ariz.), Casey Tibbs, BM-ST.
NACBE Executive Director John Erickson said the safety index covered over 60 percent of all construction Boilermaker man-hours worked in 2012. For the first time in its history, the index showed the overall OSHA recordable rate dropped below 2.0, to 1.97.
“That’s the number owners ask us about the most,” Erickson said.
Meanwhile the lost-time injury rate had “a slight uptick,” he noted, from 0.23 in 2011 to 0.24 in 2012. The compensable injury rate in 2012 also showed a small rise, to 5.86, up from 5.43 in 2011. Forty locals had zero lost-time injuries, up from 39 in 2011. Sixteen locals recorded zero compensable injuries for 2012, three more than in 2011.
NACBE began tracking safety performance using the index in 1990. Safety awards are based on the lowest injury rates followed by the highest percentage of Boilermaker man-hours from NACBE contractors participating in the index.
Erickson also announced that NACBE President Wendell Bell stepped down from his position on the organization’s board in 2012, with Greg Purdon of Enerfab filling his seat. Subsequently, the NACBE board elected Eric Heuser of APComPower to the office of president.
