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Every year, more than 80,000 workers suffer an injury on construction job sites across the U.S. This is a staggering statistic, and each person and company involved in construction needs to take responsibility for changing it.

As a collective community, construction companies have come together nationwide to celebrate the second annual Construction Safety Week. Being safe every day on every job site crosses competitive boundaries and goes beyond getting the job done. Safety Week (May 3-9) is an opportunity for construction firms to work together to eliminate worker injury and motivate everyone in the industry to be leaders in safety. Construction firms around the region are planning activities to thank workers for being injury free, inspire the sharing of best practices to elevate our collective safety culture strength, and increase awareness of the importance of being committed to safety every day.

The overwhelming support from construction industry leadership, project owners and politicians is a testament to efforts brought by our community commitment to safety. It also validates our vision of 鈥淶ero Incidents Through Collaboration鈥� at SafeBuild Alliance, which is a nonprofit organization promoting the transformation of workplace cultures to achieve an incident-free construction industry.

Many state and local officials have joined in the 2015 Construction Safety Week celebration. Governor Kate Brown has proclaimed May 3-9, 2015 Construction Safety Week in Oregon. Several cities have joined the celebration.聽Following Portland’s participation in 2014,聽Mayor Charlie Hales has proclaimed聽May 3-9, 2015 Construction Safety Week in the city. Others have followed: Beaverton, Happy Valley and many more.

Construction companies in the Pacific Northwest are engaging in activities to increase awareness and highlight their commitment to safety. Some activities include: visits by company leaders to job sites and participation in inspections; safety committee meetings; training; and company-wide lunches and awareness activities. If you are interested in celebrating Safety Week, visit www.safetyweek2015.com for ideas.

Many regional firms are providing training for their teams. In addition, SafeBuild Alliance has collaborated with several organizations to provide the following training opportunities around Safety Week for our community:

鈥� Oregon OSHA, in partnership with SafeBuild Alliance, is presenting a free class on the lessons learned from fatal accidents. Using functioning models of construction equipment, Mike Riffe, an Oregon OSHA accident investigator, illustrates several fatal accidents that occurred in the Portland area. Using facts from each case, the presentation examines under-evaluated warning signs, the mechanism of injury, causes of failure and preventive measures that should have been taken to prevent the tragic losses. 鈥淚t is imperative we learn from these tragic events,鈥� Riffe said. 鈥淭hese people lost their lives while working for others. They are very real people with real families and friends. Learn a little about each one of these victims, understand what happened, and learn from mistakes made.鈥� The class will be April 13, from 8:30 to 10 a.m. at 16760 S.W. Upper Boones Ferry Road in Durham.

鈥� OSHA 7405: Fall Hazard Awareness for the Construction Industry to Prevent Falls in Commercial and Residential Construction is a free class at the OSHA training center. The focus of this course is to identify, evaluate, and prevent or control fall hazards at construction sites. The target audience is the small construction employer, business owner or manager who would like to obtain information about fall hazards found in the workplace. The training is also suitable for employees and employee representatives. Topics include identifying fall hazards, analyzing fall hazards and preventing fall hazards, as well as OSHA resources addressing fall hazards. Local industry representatives will also be guest speakers at this special event. Register at osha.washington.edu.

鈥� Industrial Training International (ITI) is offering a different rigging toolbox talk for each day of safety week. Rigging, hoisting and crane activities are among the most risky and dangerous activities conducted on construction sites. During safety week, take a little time each morning with craft teams to ignite those neurons by watching a free video or reviewing a quick toolbox talk on a crane and rigging subject. Videos and files will be posted each evening and be available on any mobile device or browser each morning, at www.iti.com/safetyweek.

To set the tone and importance of the week to our regional safety community, SafeBuild Alliance is hosting a Safety Week Kick-Off Breakfast event and quarterly meeting on May 1 at the World Forestry Center (4033 S.W. Canyon Road in Portland) in Miller Hall. More than 40 companies have stepped up locally and regionally to sponsor the free event.

Mike Parnell, a world-class, subject-matter expert in cranes, rigging and load handling 鈥� and the technical director & CEO of Industrial Training International 鈥� will be the keynote speaker. He will challenge attendees to evaluate how hazards, risks and unfamiliar tasks have been handled by past generations, and how today鈥檚 employees and organizations need to earnestly recognize their strengths and weaknesses in order to achieve project success while lowering risks. Also, Capital Safety will provide a fall protection and rescue demonstration.

For more information about SafeBuild Alliance, Safety Week 2015 and the Kick-Off Breakfast, visit www.safebuildalliance.org.

We hope you are inspired to get your company involved in Safety Week and lead change within.

Mike Clifford is a construction executive with Mortenson Construction and president of the SafeBuild Alliance. Contact him at 503-201-7628. The SafeBuild Alliance is a nonprofit organization working to achieve incident-free construction projects through the transformation of workplace cultures. For more information or to join, visit www.safebuildalliance.com.