OSHA announced that its temporary enforcement measures applying to fall protection on residential construction jobs will stay in place for six more months –- until Sept. 15, 2012. The key benefits they afford to contractors in this sector are having OSHA area offices give their requests for compliance assistance top priority and potentially having penalties cut by 10 percent.

Falls are the leading cause of death in the construction industry.

The temporary measures resulted from OSHA's relatively new interpretation that requirement that workers performing "residential construction" must be protected with guardrail systems, safety nets, or personal fall arrest systems or other fall protection measures allowed in 1926.501(b) unless the employer can show such protection is infeasible or would present a greater hazard. (The changes became effective in June 2011 and replaced an interpretation that had existed since 1995.) Building a home or dwelling using traditional wood frame materials and methods qualifies as "residential construction."

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