1. Breakout Session Summary Construction
November 1-2, 2007

2. Overall Construction Trends
Construction accounted for 1226 fatal work injuries, the most of any industry
Construction had 4th highest industry fatality rate (10.8 per 100,000)
Total (2006) represented a 3 percent increase over 2005 total
Falls account for the greatest percentage of fatalities
Fatality rates for contracted employees not under supervision of organization significantly higher than employees

3. Organizational Consistency With Trends
Industry group findings not consistent with 2nd leading cause of fatalities – Transportation
Industry group data not consistent with overall industry fatality rate (10.8) – variation between construction of building, heavy & civil, and specialty trade contractors (BLS data accuracy)
Industry group downward recordable and lost time incident trends & no fatality trend changes consistent with BLS data

4. Most Significant Contributing Causes
Language/cultural/educational barriers that results in workers not proficient with project requirements and associated rules
Scheduling & work hours that conflict with safety requirements usually resulting in additional risks
General & regulatory training that does not address project specific risks / hazards
Inadequate fund allocation for safety resulting in management system deficiencies
Monitoring for safety management system effectiveness (i.e. ANSI Z10)
Litigation issues that prevent safety continuous improvement efforts – i.e. discoverable documents, terms & conditions

5. Most Significant Organizational Weaknesses
Lack of senior management / owners understanding of safety and associated financial benefits (ROI)
Unclear understanding of line management, safety & employee roles and responsibilities for safety (accountability)
Employees do not have proper knowledge / skill-set, specifically assessing risks and implementing appropriate control measures

6. Solutions & Best Practices for Fatality Prevention
Hazard Analysis Effectiveness for non-routine tasks
Design in Safety during Engineering Pre-job/task Planning stages
Contractor (including subcontractors) pre-qualification using predetermined scoring system and ongoing performance review
Site-specific training for project risks
Zero-tolerance for deviation to established safety requirements and continual owner-contractor assessments
Incident investigation findings used for establishing causal factors and improvement in safety system
Owner-led integration for safety during all construction stages

7. Areas of Future Research
Design and development of effective and appropriate safety training & educational materials for diverse workforce
Determine correlation between virtual reality simulators and construction safety performance