At a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) questioned Ben Tresselt, President and Owner of Arborist Enterprises on behalf of the Tree Care Industry Association, about OSHA standards.
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00:00Thank you, and next we'll go to Chairman of the full committee, Mr. Wahlberg from Michigan.
00:06Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for having this hearing today.
00:10It brings a lot of memories back to me of some of the things we've dealt with since 2006,
00:16and so, Mr. Tresult, I do want to start with you.
00:21Your written testimony states that the tree care industry has a fatality rate estimated to be 10 to 30 times higher
00:29than a national average, with more than 1,000 injuries each year, all significant, all important.
00:36Do you believe there would be a significant reduction in your industry's fatality and injury rate
00:42if OSHA had a significant standard in place?
00:47Thank you, Congressman.
00:49Having an OSHA standard in place would help.
00:52We're never going to, unfortunately, get rid of all of our fatalities, but it definitely would help.
00:56It would take the ANSI Z-133 standard, which is a consensus standard in our industry,
01:03and make it the platform in which we could, which OSHA could, take and distribute to all those companies.
01:12The fatalities that we mostly see are what's called struck-bys, things falling out of a tree, hitting people.
01:19The ANSI Z-133 addresses that very specifically by making sure that those areas are very well defined.
01:28So, in our company, when we have a job briefing prior to starting a job, working aloft,
01:33we take the time to note where the things are going to fall from the tree.
01:37We mark that area off as a no-go zone, and everybody on the crew knows that.
01:41So, that is one of the examples that we would utilize through the ANSI Z-133,
01:46that currently OSHA doesn't have that in their general duty clause,
01:50that we could help a lot of our problems.
01:53Taking this standard and making it uniform across the board with all of the Z-133 standards would help tremendously.
02:03I would like to say that we could reduce it significantly,
02:07but there's always those things.
02:08We work with nature.
02:09Well, you've been asking for the standards since 2006.
02:13Correct.
02:14And you've been, as it were, left out on a limb with multiple,
02:20sometimes conflicting, patchwork of standards across the United States.
02:25What do you believe is the reason for the delay?
02:28I don't really have a direct answer for that.
02:30I think maybe other priorities in OSHA have taken precedent over our small industry compared to what the broad spectrum that OSHA has to regulate.
02:41Well, we're talking about lives, in this case, where it's amazing the industry itself is asking for it.
02:48Correct.
02:48That doesn't happen all the time, and I think that's unique.
02:53Ms. Watson, your written testimony highlights six concerns over the Biden administration's worker walk-around rule.
03:00I want to go back to that.
03:01It greatly expands the opportunity for third parties to gain access to job sites.
03:06The rule seemingly opens the door for a union official to serve as a third-party employee representative when the union is not an exclusive bargaining representative at the workplace.
03:18How does this rule overstep the OSHA Act and potentially conflict with the National Labor Relations Act?
03:25Thank you for the question.
03:27Yes, sir.
03:28I think it's a different – OSHA has a different mission.
03:31OSHA's remit is different than the National Labor Relations Act.
03:34OSHA uses employee representative, which doesn't have the safeguards that are outlined and used in the National Labor Relations Act.
03:43That act governs workplace representation of unions.
03:48When you've got a work or walk-around situation where you've got – you actually could have a couple of scenarios.
03:54You could have a non-union work site, and maybe a union wants to get their foot in the door.
04:01And so they might come and –
04:02Do you believe that would happen?
04:04Anyway, I know the answer.
04:07And it's not a negative on union representation because they do serve an important purpose.
04:13But the point here is that a non-employee third party is able to talk to employees, and all it takes – if you've got two people on a work site, all it takes is one to say, yes, they can come on.
04:26And so that's potentially the problem.
04:29But the other problem is that employee bargaining is governed by the National Labor Relations Act.
04:34It doesn't fall within OSHA's remit.
04:36And so that is something that is troubling.
04:38Okay.
04:40Mr. Parson, I appreciate Michigan's – your workforce in Michigan.
04:45And I'll ask you in a few seconds here about the heat standards, specifically as it impacts moving of freight with a truck driver.
04:56What's the problem?
04:57I think freight's really problematic because you're moving all kinds of different things.
05:03So we move a lot of stone, asphalt, ready-mixed concrete, perishable goods.
05:08And so to try to figure out how long can a driver be exposed to the heat when he's cleaning out his truck or whatever, and the brake schedule, where does he take a break if he doesn't have a place to take a break?
05:18So it presents a lot of problems.
05:20Okay.
05:21Well, thank you.
05:22I yield back.