Everyone in the construction industry has heard of OSHA. OSHA is responsible for a very large positive impact on the overall safety of the construction industry and the industry’s employees. However, there is one area that they fall short in: incentivizing musculoskeletal care for employees.

Musculoskeletal pain is defined as mostly soft tissue aches and pains. The construction industry is filled with workers that have developed these pains from years of physical labor without the proper care given to recovery or prevention. The lack of recovery care given to workers is not the worker’s fault - many of them may not have had the resources or the knowledge to properly prioritize recovery. This is where I believe OSHA is somewhat to blame.

In a May 2nd 2024 memo with the subject, “Enforcement Guidance Under OSHA's Recordkeeping Regulation When First Aid, Active Release Techniques (ART), and Exercise/Stretching Are Used to Treat Musculoskeletal Injuries and Illnesses”, OHSA writes that:

“The use of exercise or stretching (i.e., therapeutic exercise) is not included on the list of first aid treatments in section 1904.7(b)(5)(ii). Such therapeutic exercise is considered medical treatment when it is designed and administered to treat a particular work-related injury or illness as part of a treatment plan and ends once the objectives of the treatment has been met. Accordingly, if an employee exhibits symptoms of a work-related injury or illness, the recommendation to conduct exercise/stretching, either at work or at home, to treat a work-related injury or illness makes the case recordable regardless of the professional status of the person making the recommendation.”

By saying that prescribing exercise or stretching routines constitutes a recordable incident, OSHA has effectively disincentivized one of the most powerful forms of recovery and pain management for employees. But what about the pre-shift stretches that are done before work? These stretching routines are often static stretching routines that have 0 benefit besides getting everyone together at the start of the shift to talk about the safety risks for the day. I challenge anyone who thinks that the pre-shift static stretching is effective to find a professional sports team doing static stretching before a game. Any smart employer would never invest in a stretching or workout routine that may actually help the pain since that would be setting up the company for a recordable incident. But why are recordable incidents important in the first place?

Construction companies that want to be successful need to have great safety records. Clean OSHA safety records allow companies to win more work and pay less in insurance. Some jobs even require companies to maintain a certain OSHA standing for companies to even be qualified to bid the work. Companies in the industry are judged on their TRIR or Total RECORDABLE Incident Rate. Notice the keyword there. Companies would never proactively address chronic pain faced by workers as that would be categorized as recordable incidents and instead they rely on the first aid solutions given by OSHA which often include ice and soft immobilization - arguably two outdated views of pain management.

I believe that the solution is to obviously caveat the language such that employers are able to put a larger emphasis on taking care of their workers through proactive strength plans and increased knowledge of recovery management. There needs to be an effort from companies to address pain and the physical tolls on the labor force if construction hopes to solve the labor crisis.