OSHA has announced that it will delay for three years an impending ruling requiring that crane operators must be certified by November 2014. NPCA worked closely with OSHA to obtain the 3-year delay. The OSHA ruling would have required all crane operators in precast plants to be certified by completing a crane operator training course and passing a comprehensive test. The current testing covers cranes that are commonly seen in the precast industry, but also includes cranes and situations that fall outside the typical day-to-day operations that a precast boom truck operator would experience.
After hearing NPCA’s concerns that the qualification/certification options presented by OSHA did not entirely align with the precast concrete industry, OSHA decided to delay the certification requirement until November 2017, reducing the disruption to the construction industry that the original compliance date imposed. The delay will give NPCA more time to work with industry crane operator certifying bodies to develop a boom truck certification that is appropriate for the precast concrete industry and to give plants more time to prepare their operators for the certification.
Read the OSHA statement here.
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