The Steel Tank Institute/ Steel Plate Fabricators Association (STI/SPFA) represents over 300 member companies and individuals, employing over 146,000 employees, who may be directly impacted by any Occupation Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed rules on heat injury and illness prevention in outdoor and indoor work settings.
Since 1916, STI/SPFA members have been involved in the manufacturing and construction industries for steel plate fabricated products. STI/SPFA members have been active participants in providing comments on previous federal OSHA regulations, including in the most recent publication of the latest iteration of a heat exposure rule. Other rules we have commented on throughout the years include input in tank builders scaffolding, hexavalent chromium (Permissible Exposure Limits) PELs, confined spaces in construction, and cranes and derricks in construction. We have worked closely with OSHA to ensure the health and safety of our employees and we welcome further opportunities to partner with OSHA to ensure our employees, our most important asset, are protected from extreme heat exposure on their jobsites.
With that being said, we are deeply concerned and opposed to the “Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings” overall “one-size-fits-all” approach, and the unnecessary burdens it will cause to our over 170 company members, who employ over 20,000 employees. Our member companies believe that high heat hazards are best mitigated utilizing measures that are tailored to their individual companies and specific work processes and believe a federal “one-size-fits-all” rule that does not take industry specific jobsites, work requirements, and different health and safety concerns that conflict with this rule’s provisions into account should shelved once and for all. It is with that viewpoint that we fully support H.R. 6213/S.4427, the Heat Workforce Standards Act which states that the Secretary of Labor may not finalize, implement, or enforce the proposed standard titled “Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings” published by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the Federal Register on August 30, 2024 (89 Fed. Reg. 70698), or any substantially similar standard.
We respectively ask that you cosponsor the Heat Workforce Standards Act and push for its passage before the end of the 119th Congress.
