Report of the MCAA Safety and Technical Committee

OSHA Issues
Our Director of Engineering, Rashod Johnson is often consulted when our members are cited with OSHA citations that might not be accurate or that may not be in line with traditional masonry practices. After recognizing that many of our contractors were fighting the same few battles in different areas of the country, Rashod and Marian Marshall, our Director of Governmental Affairs, arranged a meeting with OSHA's Directorate of Construction in Washington, DC this past August.

The five topics that were discussed were: Material Storage on Scaffolding - 29 CFR 1926.250(b)(5) and 1926.45 l(f)(3); Overhand Bricklaying Exception - 29 CFR 1926.45l(g)(1); Masonry Wall bracing - 29 CFR 1926.706(b); Scaffolding Access through Integral Ladders - 29 CFR 1926.451(e); and 120v and 240 v grounding of masonry equipment - 29 CFR 1926.404(b).

Rashod and Marian discussed these topics with the Director of Construction and one of his engineers at the Department of Labor in Washington DC. The MCAA was able to get favorable responses verbally on each topic and are now in the process of following up these discussions through written correspondence with OSHA.

The MCAA is also in the process of entering into a National Alliance with OSHA for wall bracing, scaffolding safety and fall protection, rough terrain forklift training, and silicosis. This Alliance with OSHA will allow MCAA to develop training programs for these topics that will be utilized nationally. Only members of MCAA will be allowed to participate in this Alliance that will give MCAA members some leverage when dealing with OSHA on the regional and local levels.

Codes and Standards
Rashod Johnson is very active in ASTM, CSI, MSJC, MACS, TMS, and ASCE.

Council for Masonry Research
The Council for Masonry Research (CMR) is the technical committee for the Masonry Industry Council. Rashod is working on the CMR on a variety of issues, but the most important is the Department of Defense issue as raised in the MCAA Legislative Report. CMR is in the process of either funding an outside source to develop some accurate Masonry Life Cycle Costs, or possibly develop them ourselves. This initiative is being led by MCAA and should be able to show some results very soon. For more information about this topic, please refer to the MCAA Legislative Report.

Masonry Standards Joint Committee
The Masonry Standards Joint Committee is done working on all new issues for the 2005 Code cycle. There are many changes, but the two most important are steel boundary limitations and the grout lift increase. John Tawresey will be giving a brief report to the members about steel limits at the Midyear annual meeting in San Diego, CA. The MSJC Committee has approved increasing the grout pour height from 4 feet to 10 feet for the 2005 Masonry Code. This is great news for those contractors who do a large amount of grouting in concrete masonry construction and should greatly improve productivity when grouting.