General Foremen's Roundtable Recap - May 13, 2015

The General Foremen's Roundtable was held on May 13 and it centered on the 1910.269 OSHA Regulations. Steve Socoby presented the new OSHA Regulations with the recent updates. He also shared an email from the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards, the body that oversees all municipal electric utilities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, that states it requires that all municipals follow OSHA Standards as a minimum strategy for safety for all workers. The new Arc Rated Clothing regulations, the new "Minimum Approach Distance" regulations, fall protection and training requirements were among several topics covered.

It was agreed that NEPPA will publish one regulation topic monthly and send it out to all of the NEPPA members, which will hopefully make it easier to cover all the compliance issues that municipal electric utilities face. The meeting was well attended, with more than 30 foremen from throughout Massachusetts.

Those in attendance were very much in favor of a new training venture proposed by NEPPA that would focus on "Frontline Supervisors." The NEPPA Staff will be putting together a program that should assist any frontline supervisor in all areas of responsibility, such as working as a middle manager, dealing with regulations and communications, as well as several technical topics just to name a few. The attendees requested that a job description be constructed to define the duties required by such a complex position and any existing job descriptions would be greatly appreciated.

The next General Foremen's Roundtable will be held in October, so be sure to keep it on your calendar.