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OSHA announced another delay to crane certification enforcement

An OSHA announcement has consequences for some Oklahoma construction companies and workers. OSHA put forth a certification requirement for crane operators in 2010 but then received two consecutive three-year extensions for the enforcement of this requirement. The most recent extension is the third in this series, giving OSHA until November 2018 to oversee the crane certification requirement and enforce compliance.

Many crane operators have dissenting opinions about this third extension. A member of the Crane Institute of America stated that the extensions have led to preventable deaths because crane operators must be trained in order to receive their certification, and trained operators have fewer accidents. An employee of Florida Crane Inspections, LLC also does not agree with the most recent extension because, according to him, if the people operating cranes without certification have not learned to operate them safely and correctly by now, they never will.

Showing weak support for the delay, the CEO of the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators asserted that he hoped that the Final Rule would clarify the role of employers in making sure their employees are certified and that it would generalize the certification to more than one type of crane.

If a worker has dealt with injury due to the carelessness of an uncertified or untrained crane operator, a lawyer who focuses on workers’ compensation might be a good person to talk to when seeking help. It is not always clear what to do next when a person is injured on the job, but counsel might have answers to the questions that follow these types of construction workers’ accidents.

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