b'Garys CornerupdateGary Auman, MRCA Legal CounselIcompanies safety attitude.hope you enjoyed the 2016 Convention and Trade Show held in Columbus, Ohio. One ofNew Thoughts from OSHA on Your Safety the highlights of my pre-convention activitiesProgramis to grade the contractor applications for theOSHA has recently provided a few pages on SHARP Safety Recognition Award and write the postits website that provide much of the information evaluation letters. This year we had some contractorsnecessary to move forward on a safety program. First who improved their recognition level from 2015 andOSHA has identified the reasons for a safety program. some who did not move position. When consideringThey are this, I started thinking beyond the process and more to what the program is meant to achieve.To prevent workplace injuries and illnessesWhen the MRCA started this program a few yearsTo improve compliance with laws and regulationsago we did so to encourage members to take a newTo reduce costs, including significant reductions in look at their safety program and at their commitmentworkers comp premiumsto safety. Your commitment to safety overshadows all other reasons you may have for participating. ITo engage your workersknow some of you might have been concerned thatTo enhance your social responsibility goalsyou did not move up form silver to gold or from goldTo increase productivity and to enhance overall to platinum; but the level at which you grade outbusiness operationsis not important. The important point is that your safety program is MORE to you than JUST WORDS!All of these goals make a lot of sense. Putting In the two days before I wrote this article I spoke tothe more moral incentives aside, I cannot imagine five different contractors from my associations. Twoa contractor that does not want to reduce costs of them had very interesting questions about safetyand increase productivity and profits. While cost compliance and three had just received citations. Allreduction is the third bullet on the list, it may well be of these were important, but two of them felt safetythe most important one to most small and medium was important enough to take some of their valuablesized contractors. time and use the MRCA legal hotline to ask importantIn this same section of its website OSHA also questions regarding the safety of their employees. Forprovides a list of ten easy steps and/or considerations them safety is more than JUST WORDS. to get your safety program started. Most of these While I want to discuss, in general, the 2016suggestions are simple to address. While you may not applications for the SHARP Safety Recognitionneed to adopt all of them, I feel that if you are truly Award, I am going to delay that for at least this issuemaking a lifestyle change in your business you should to talk about safety programs in general. OSHAmake an effort to undertake all ten of them. has recently issued some new guidelines for safety programs. These are not requirements, yet, butI cannot imagine a contactor that they are ideas you can use as you fine tune your program. Oh, by the way, the three clients who calleddoes not want to reduce costs me who had just been cited by OSHA are companiesand increase productivity and profits.who do know that safety is more than JUST WORDS. Unfortunately, in each case they had an employee who was injured because he/she ignored their safetyThe first step is to set and keep safety as a top training and the injuries necessitated a report topriority in your company. You should tell your OSHA. I am confident of getting good results in allworkers that their safety is important to you and three of these cases; in large part because of thethat you will be doing business with the intention 8 www.mrca.orgMidwest Roofer'