We recently attended the signing ceremony for the first alliance between the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and MEMCO, a construction-oriented staffing agency. Why was it important for us to cover that signing?
Worker safety is the most critical issue in the construction industry today, followed closely by training and certification. The developing skilled worker shortage has increased the demand for those skilled workers, and construction oriented staffing agencies like MEMCO provide workers on a temporary or contract basis to clients around the country. MEMCO and OSHA believe that it is critical that those temporary workers have safety training before they go to a worksite to avoid safety issues and reportable accidents when they are under contract.
OSHA’s Alliance program provides training that will help satisfy owners’ requirements for safety training up to the 10-hour or 30-hour level before any worker can work on their projects. MEMCO is a leader in this training and OSHA has teamed with them to provide additional training for the workers and clients about the safety needs and responsibilities for safety for these workers. This training does not eliminate the need for site and project specific orientation, but it does provide the foundation for a safe workforce.
You can get additional information from the OSHA press release and by watching the 7 minute video below in which I interview Casey Wenzel, General Manager of MEMCO Texas operations.
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