Workplace safety training bill debated

CARSON CITY -- Changes to speed up workplace safety training for new employees, in efforts to reduce on-the-job deaths and injuries, prompted questions Monday in a Nevada Assembly committee hearing.

AB148 requires 10 hours of safety training for employees and 30 hours of safety training for supervisors. Companies would have to drop workers who don't get the training in a timely manner. The measure stems from the deaths of 12 workers at Strip construction sites over an 18-month period.

Debate on AB148 in an Assembly Ways and Means Committee hearing focused on a change to the bill that shortens the deadline for both employees and supervisors to complete the safety training to 15 days from the date of hire instead of the 60 days originally in the bill.

Assembly Majority Leader John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, said that the new deadline will make job sites safer and prevent deaths.

"My thought on the 15 days is that what we're trying to do is make a culture of safety. I don't believe if you wait 60 days it does that. I think it should be from day one on the job because you can get killed from day one," Oceguera said.

The shortened time frame also prevents employers from getting around the proposed law, Oceguera said, explaining that if the deadline was kept at 60 days "an employer could merely keep you hired for 59 days and then terminate you or move you to another location."

Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert, R-Reno, said the bill previously had a broad range of support, but that the new time frame prompted "a change in the tide because people were very concerned about being able to comply in 15 days."