OSHA plans new crane-safety standards for demolition and underground work

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration plans to apply the worker safety and health standards used for cranes and derricks to demolition and underground construction work under its direct final rule issued earlier this month.

The new rule will streamline OSHA’s standards by eliminating the separate cranes and derricks standard currently used for underground and demolition work.

It also corrects several errors introduced in the 2010 rulemaking to make it easier for workers and employers to understand and implement these standards. The rule will take effect Nov. 15, unless the comment period, open until Sept. 17, produces significant adverse comments.

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New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.