L-69 wins top NACBE safety award second time in row

Overall safety numbers continue positive trend

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of Construction Boilermaker Employers (NACBE) presented its annual safety awards to the 2013 top-performing locals from the Boilermakers’ four U.S. vice-presidential sections March 3, during the Construction Sector Operations conference held at Marco Island, Fla.

Local 69 (Little Rock, Ark.), representing the Southeast section, took national honors for the second year in a row, with zero lost-time accidents, zero compensable injuries, and zero OSHA-recordable injuries. L-69 BM-ST Rodney Allison accepted the award on behalf of his lodge.

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 242 (Spokane, Wash.), Mark Keffeler, BM-ST. NACBE Executive Director John Erickson said the safety index covered nearly 60 percent of all construction Boilermaker man-hours worked in 2013. OSHA recordables, which dropped below 2.0 for the first time in the index’s history, in 2012, continued to improve in 2013, coming in at 1.66.

Meanwhile the lost-time injury rate dropped from 0.24 in 2012 to 0.12 in 2013. The compensable injury rate also improved, from 5.86 in 2012 to 5.58 last year.

“All of these major measurements continue to go in the right direction,” said Erickson.

Forty-five locals had zero lost-time injuries, up from 40 in 2012. Twenty-one locals recorded zero compensable injuries for 2013, beating the 2012 count of 17.

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.