U.S. DOL Announces More than $11.7 Million in Workplace Safety, Health Training Grants

Washington, DC (WorkersCompensation.com) - The U.S. Department of Labor announced in late September it had awarded $11.7 million in grants to support worker and employer education to make workplaces safer and healthier. 

The grant funding is part of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Susan Harwood Training Grant Program. More than 90 nonprofit organizations received funding from the program for Fiscal Year 2022. Named for former director of OSHA's Office of Risk Assessment, the grants are awarded in the Targeted Topic Training, Training and Educational Material Development, and Capacity Building categories. Harwood developed federal standards to protect workers from bloodborne pathogens, cotton dust, benzene, formaldehyde, asbestos and lead in construction. 

One of those grants will give the Manufacturers' Association in York, Pennsylvania, $156,415 to provide training for workers and employers in electrical safety in central and southcentral Pennsylvania. Categorized as a Targeted Topic training grant, the program will help workers and employers recognize serious workplace hazards, including injury prevention implementation measures, as well as training to understand the rights and responsibilities of OSHA. 

“We at The Manufacturers’ Association applaud this investment by the federal government and OSHA – it demonstrates their recognition of the high caliber of training programs which the Association delivers each year to thousands of manufacturing employees in central and southcentral Pennsylvania,” Tom Palisin, the Association’s Executive Director, said. “Safety of employees is a priority for the regional industrial base, and these training funds will transfer the best practices and procedures to the workforce - reducing lost work hours or possible injuries and helping with retention of the skilled workforce." 

According to OSHA, the nation saw an increase in electrical deaths and injuries between 2018 and 2020. Statistics show that the country saw a 4 percent increase in deaths, and over 2,200 lost work hours in 2020. 

To combat that, the Manufacturer's Association will begin training programs that include topics like electrical safety, lockout tagout, arc flash and NAFPA 70e. The training will be made available at no cost to employers. The association said it would also schedule and offer the training sessions for both employees and those looking for work in Central and Southcentral Pennsylvania. The goal is to train 500 people, the association said. 

NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association also received a Susan Harwood Grant of $160,000. That funding will develop a new curriculum tailored to the communications infrastructure industry to instruct telecom workers on electrical safety awareness on topics like overhead transmission and distribution, equipment, basic electrical theory, lockout tagout procedures and standards, electrical telecom equipment installation, underground power, grounding and bonding, induced current, PPE, batteries, tower lighting and capacitors, and job hazard analysis documentation. 

“Based on certain trends we are seeing in the field, there is a need for more industry-specific electrical safety awareness training geared specifically to telecom employees and employers,” said Ken Hill, Director of Network Safety at Crown Castle, and a member of the Association’s Curriculum Development Committee. 

Grants ranged from a maximum of $160,000 to a low of $41,309 to the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, S.D. That grant would fund the development of new lockout/tagout training materials for employers and workers in the agricultural, sawmill, construction, electrical and mechanical industries with a targeted audience of youth, hard-to-reach and limited-English speaking workers. 

Other grants included a $74,760 grant for the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station to develop new fire safety training materials or employers and workers in the oil & gas industry to train workers on the topic of high-

hazard industries, fire incidents, fundamentals of fire, mitigation and fire hazard recognition; $85,000 for the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest to provide 1 to 2 hours of training on worker fatigue in the meat processing industry; and $120,646 for the University of Texas at San Antonio to provide three hours of training on working in extreme temperatures for employers and workers in the construction industry. 

The Susan Harwood grants are awarded to non-profit organizations, including community and faith-based groups, employer associations, labor unions, joint labor-management associations, Native American tribes, and local and state-sponsored colleges and universities. Target trainees include small-businesses and underserved workers in high-hazard industries.

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