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As the number of women in the construction workforce continues to climb from a recent dip, a renewed partnership between OSHA and a women’s trade organization will analyze ways to improve the safety and well-being of women at construction sites.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) entered into a new five-year pact to help mitigate women-specific construction industry hazards, according to OSHA. NAWIC provides professional and educational development opportunities to more than 4,000 women,

The alliance will focus on items including “personal protective equipment selection, sanitation, and workplace intimidation and violence,” a release from the organization reads. “Women represent a small, but growing segment of the construction workforce,” says Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Loren Sweatt. “OSHA’s renewed alliance with NAWIC will continue to promote innovative solutions to safety and health hazards unique to female construction workers.”

Last year, there were 939,000 women working in the construction industry. The number of women working in construction rose steadily from 802,000 each year since 2012, jumping to 840,000, 872,000 and then 929,000 in the intermittent years. However, each of those figures is lower than the 1,131,000 women who worked in construction more than a decade ago in 2006, according to statistics from the NAWIC.

The trade organization’s most recent figures show women make up 9.1% of the construction industry in the nation and, in 2015, women working in construction accounted for fully 1.3% of the total U.S. workforce. Further, the group also noted women working in construction enjoy a much smaller pay gap than those working in other fields.

According to their data, women working in the construction industry earn 95.7% of the pay earned by their male counterparts, up from the 81.1% in other industries. The partnership between OSHA and the NAWIC allows participants to share information regarding OSHA’s safety campaigns and disseminate ways to recognize and prevent hazards in the workplace.

Some of the OSHA campaigns covered are the National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction campaign, the Safe + Sound Campaign for Safety and Health Programs and Heat Illness Prevention campaign.

“OSHA's Alliances provide parties an opportunity to participate in a voluntary cooperative relationship with OSHA for purposes such as raising awareness of OSHA's rulemaking and enforcement initiatives, training and education, and outreach and communication,” according to the alliance agreement. “These Alliances have proven to be valuable tools for both OSHA and its Alliance participants.”

With the agreement being signed, an “implementation team” made up of representatives from both OSHA and the NAWIC will meet to generate a plan and determine “working procedures,” according to the agreement. The representatives are slated to meet 1-2 times per year to share information. OSHA team members will feature representatives from the “Directorate of Cooperative and State Programs, the Directorate of Construction, and any other appropriate office,” the agreement reads.

Read the full agreement. 

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