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February 17, 2020
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Featured Content
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Conaway Conference On-Line Registration Deadline - February 22
The annual Conaway Conference will be March 3 & 4, 2020 at the Hyatt Regency Columbus located at 350 N High St., Columbus, OH. The conference will provide a forum to review the previous construction season, provide valuable information for the upcoming year, and a networking opportunity.
March 3rd - Day 1 of the conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency Columbus. The format and sessions will be similar to last year’s Conaway Conference. Registration and Continental Breakfast are tentatively scheduled for 8:00-9:00 with sessions ending at 4:50. Day 1 Registration is $150 (breaks and buffet lunch included).
March 4th - Day 2 of the conference will also be held at the Hyatt Regency Columbus. Day 2 is targeted toward ODOT and contractor leadership personnel. Registration is scheduled for 8:00-8:30 with sessions ending at noon. Day 2 Registration is $65.
Conference Agenda
Conference Registration Link
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News |
Congratulations to the University of Dayton Estimating Competition Team
11 great schools, 66 outstanding students, two days of intense competition, victories, setbacks, learning moments and lifelong memories and we have a winner. Congratulations to the 2020 OCA Estimating Competition winning team from the University of Dayton.
1st Place - University of Dayton
2nd Place - University of Akron
3rd Place - University of Cincinnati
Please Sign Up Now for OCA Safety Training!
Well, so far it has been a fantastic winter in Ohio…. if your favorite color is GRAY!!!! Let’s hope the Groundhog is spot on this year!
Just this morning, I perused our schedule of winter safety training classes, and was surprised that the numbers of registrants are way down. I hope it is simply because you all have been busy and not yet registered your folks for these super training and educational opportunities. Our new, Competent Person training class for underground damage prevention has been getting raves from members and the industry alike. Instructor, Jennifer Reams is doing a fantastic job in this class that prepares your field personnel in the skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to avoid those costly underground damage incidents. Another great aspect of this class is that your personnel will learn how to hold the utility owners responsible for their required actions under Ohio’s underground damage prevention laws. Your employees will learn how and when to file formal complaints against the utility owners when they violate the law. Jennifer recently took the class on the road for more than 40 employees of one OCA member. She will be at OCA on February 19 (Only 11 registered to date!); March 11 (Only 16 registered to date); and March 25 (Only 1 registered to date!!!). I hope you will take advantage of this opportunity to train your employees to work safely and productively around utilities and to save your company big dollars in avoidance of underground utility damage claims. OSHA requires that contractors assign “competent persons” to oversee specific hazardous tasks. This class will help prepare your field personnel as “competent” for work in and around underground utilities. Please go to www.ohiocontractors.org and register today. Once there, click on “Registration”.
Next is our Trenching Safety Class. Buck Buchholzer, who has a long-standing training relationship with OCA is here again this winter on two dates: February 25 (Only 4 registered to date!), and March 20 (No registrations to date!!!). Buck does a fantastic job and sends your employees home with tried and true methods to work safely and productively in trenches. This course can be a lifesaver! Unbelievably, and sadly we continue to see trench fatalities in our industry. It seems some contractors still have the attitude that it’s not going to happen to me. WRONG! Last year we had two fatalities in Ohio!!!! Why? Is it that contractors are simply not educated in the dangers and safety requirements of trenching? Or, is it that they simply take risks to save time and money? Ask any of the contractors who’ve experienced a trench fatality how much time, money, and regret they’ve expended as a result???? Register your field personnel for these classes today and eliminate the lack of education issue when it comes to trenching and excavation safety. As a company owner or Safety Director, you should be able to go to sleep every night knowing absolutely that the next day, no employee on any project will ever be exposed to an unsafe trench. We have plenty of spaces left in our trenching classes. Please help us fill these classes today, and make sure we have no trench fatalities during the coming construction season. Register now on at: www.ohiocontractors.org. Once there, click on “Registration”.
Operating Engineers Local 18 Administrative Dues Change
We have been advised by the Operating Engineers, Local 18 that effective April 1, 2020, a change in administrative dues will go into effect for all Local 18 members working in all classifications under the OCA Ohio Highway Heavy Agreement.
The administrative dues deducted shall be decreased to 2.5% of gross pay. It is currently 3%. Please be sure to share this information with your company’s payroll department.
If you have any questions about the change, please contact Mark Potnick in the OCA office.
ODOT to Change CRL Payroll Schema
ODOT will release AASHTOWare Project Civil Rights & Labor version 4.2 in spring/summer of 2020 which will include required payroll schema changes as a new feature in the 4.2 release for additional fields and logic to support Salaried Average Hourly Rate (SAHR). For more information, click here.
District 3 Schedules Pre-Bid Meeting
District 3 has scheduled a non-mandatory pre-bid meeting for the RIC-30-9.26 PID 93455 project, which is estimated at about $70 million. The meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, February 26, 2020 from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM. There will be a DBE Matchmaker event following the pre-bid meeting.
Location:
US Steel Union Hall
376 W. Longview Ave.
Mansfield, Ohio
Registration is Now Open for the 2020 Federal Issues & Transportation Construction Coalition Fly-In
The (TCC) Fly-In will be held May 12 -14 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, DC. The registration fee is $975. If you have any questions please contact Michelle Holdgreve, OCA’s Legislative and Environmental Affairs Director at [email protected] or 614-488-0724.
Note: Hotel reservations fill up quickly for this event.
LEGALLY SPEAKING
by Bob Dunlevey and Nadia A. Lampton
Taft/Law
What the New Federal Overtime Rules Really Did!
With the ushering in of the new year came the new federal overtime rules but with little flurry. These rules changed the exemption status of approximately 1.3 million employees who must now be treated as hourly employees and paid overtime. Probably the lack of fanfare can be attributed to the fact that this is the second time employers have gone through this in the last few years – recall that President Obama attempted similar revisions in 2016 and a Texas federal court struck down the regulations.
What the advent of the new rules actually did was to make employers sit up and take notice of their wage-hour practices and many found that they were not in compliance with the law – old or new. Many have discovered that their purported exempt employees have been misclassified all along. Others discovered that they were not properly tracking hours worked. Some employers got out and dusted off their job descriptions for the first time in years only to find that those descriptions were obsolete and the duties did not support exempt status.
Trench Safety Grant (TSG) Program Available in Ohio
The Ohio BWC is offering $2 million in trenching safety grants. The program is available only to Ohio employers who perform trenching and excavating to purchase shoring and shielding equipment.
BWC uses the Trench Safety Grant (TSG) Program to partner with Ohio employers to substantially reduce or eliminate injuries associated with trenching operations. This grant is only available for a short time, and applications must be received by Dec. 1, 2020. The TSG does not fund equipment purchases for technical rescue operations. The program is available to eligible Ohio employers who wish to purchase the following qualified/allowed items:
• Shoring: aluminum, hydraulic, or other types of supports to prevent soil movement and cave-ins.
• Shielding: trench boxes or other types of supports to protect against soil cave-ins.
As part of the Safety Grant programming, the TSG Program is available only to Ohio employers that perform trenching and excavating. Review the complete program policy at http://ow.ly/fLtS30qfBvQ. Eligible employers may receive up to $12,000 for the duration of the TSG Program. To be eligible, you must meet the following criteria at the time of application.
1. The employer must be a company that performs work in trenches. The employer must provide information on the application clearly describing their trench work. This grant will not fund equipment purchased for technical rescue operations.
2. Be a state-fund private or public employer taxing district.
3. Have active Ohio workers' compensation coverage and maintain continuous active coverage while participating in the program.
4. Not have more than 40 days of cumulative lapses in workers' compensation coverage within the prior 12 months.
5. Be current with respect to all payments due BWC as defined in Ohio Administrative Code 4123-17-14.
6. Have been in existence for at least two years.
7. Have reported payroll for at least one full policy year.
8. Timely report actual payroll for the preceding policy year and pay any premium due upon reconciliation of estimated premium and actual premium. We'll deem an employer to have met this requirement if we receive the payroll true-up report and any associated premium before the expiration of any grace period. See the Payroll true-up page for additional information.
Unless otherwise specified here, all application requirements, eligibility, participation criteria, reporting and procedures stated for the Safety Intervention Grants Program apply to applicants and participants of the TSG Program. To learn more about trench safety go to: Trenchsafetyohio.com
8 Locations Across Ohio - Register Today! |
| CompManagement is pleased to announce our 2020 on-site seminar series coming to a location near you this April. Please click on the images below to learn more |
Please join us for our seminars that are scheduled to take place this April. Once again, we are offering half-day sessions that will provide you with relevant information that is focused not only on safety and workers’ compensation, but also unemployment. We will address how to best prevent work place injuries from happening, as well as the reporting requirements that are required if an injury does take place. We have assembled a panel of experts that will discuss all of the tools available to effectively manage a workers’ compensation claim. Lastly, we will share strategies on how to manage unemployment claims and control your unemployment costs. Please note that these sessions qualify for the two-hour safety credit through the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation. We look forward to seeing you at one of our locations!
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CompManagement
Seminar Registration |
Registration
fees are $40.00 per person for CompManagement clients. Tuition, educational
materials, continental breakfast and a refreshment break are included in the
registration costs. In order to register, you will need to provide your Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) policy number and Managed Care Organization (MCO) name.
To register, please click on the image to the left. Be sure to register early as space is limited! |
If you have any questions regarding our 2020 state fund seminar series, please contact Kim Laughlin at (800) 825-6755, extension 65751 or via email at [email protected].
We look forward to seeing you at our 2020 Seminar Series!
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ODOT Seeks Input on Item 611
January 2020 marks the seventh year of implementation of CMS 611. CMS 611 was implemented to encourage industry innovation while reducing risk to the Department. Since implementation, the specification has received numerous updates and modifications.
Below is an online survey that ODOT put together as a means of industry feedback. The Office of Hydraulics has issued this to the conduit manufacturing industry already. The survey works best with Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge. ODOT would like to have the survey completed by February 29th.
We appreciate any assistance you may be able to provide!
https://odot.formstack.com/forms/odot_cms_611_survey
ODOT Updates Claims Database
ODOT’s Division of Construction Management recently announced that the Claims Database on their website has been updated and condensed. The database now provides one page which is searchable by claim number, year, district, location, contractor, and issue(s). To access the Claims Database, click here.
Quick Links to On-line OCA Resources
• Current Ohio Contractor Magazine
• Safety Resources
• Labor & Employment Information
• OCA President's Commentary
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