http://newsminer.com/news/2008/jun/29/alaska-lacks-regulations-tower-crane-license/Carly Horton/Alaska Journal of Commerce
Published Sunday, June 29, 2008
ANCHORAGE -- Recent crane-related fatalities have captured the attention of the nation.
In New York two crane accidents since March have killed nine people, a greater number than the total deaths from cranes over the past decade. In Florida, two construction workers were killed in March when a craned tumbled 30 stories onto a condo project. A worker was crushed to death by a moving crane in Las Vegas on May 31.
Some 35 states — including Alaska — do not require crane operators hold licenses of any kind.
Regulations not strictly enforced have also contributed to the problem: The crane standards of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were last updated in 1971. They require cranes be inspected once a year, but most of the inspections fail to occur. OSHA, a division of the U.S. Department of Labor, inspected only about 23,000 of the nation's 4 million construction sites last year.
"OSHA and other government agencies have been very lax on tower crane regulations," said Jared Hamlin, a spokesman for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 302, which covers Alaska and Washington. "In Washington, the state shut down three tower cranes earlier this month — two were cited for faulty electronics, one for improper paperwork. That's being proactive, which hasn't happened in the tower crane industry in a long time. You're seeing states enacting their own rules. OSHA is failing on those regulations."
According to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, there have been no occupational fatalities related to cranes in Alaska over the last 10 years. From 1990 to 1997, however, there were three occupational deaths involving cranes and three involving manlifts.
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