Silica

Silica is crystalline quartz. It is commonly used in building materials, particularly cement. It is toxic to the skin and a significant danger for masons and cement workers. It is particularly dangerous in mining or when hardened concrete is broken in maintenance or repair operations. The dust of these operations contains microscopic silica fibers that lodge in the lungs and eventually cause silicosis, a deadly and irreversible lung disease. Autioimmune disorders and chronic renal disease also can result from exposure to silica dust.

Recent studies by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) indicate that a working lifetime of exposure to legally permissible levels of respiratory silica significantly increases the risk of acquiring chronic silicosis. Thus, limiting exposures of Laborers to the hazards of silica, especially silica dust, is an important goal of the LHSFNA.

During the 1990s, OSHA developed a new, draft silica standard for construction, but some industry forces opposed its adoption. It remains in limbo. The LHSFNA monitors this situation and seeks ways to encourage the adoption of an appropriate standard.

In the meantime, the Fund workers with signatory contractors to ensure effective company and site-specific silica dust exposure control programs. It publishes and supports a Model Silica Protection Program for Contractors and Fact It: a Laborers’ Guide to Respiratory Protection. It provides training resources to signatory contractors and to the Laborers-AGC Education and Training Fund.

The Fund also is working with NIOSH on a silicosis awareness and training program aimed at Hispanic workers.

In addition, the Fund seeks ways to engineer silica out of the worksite. For instance, in a multi-year collaboration with the New Jersey Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund and a wide range of other partners (New Jersey Highway Construction Partners Seek Solution to Silica Dust Exposure), the LHSFNA is supporting on-going efforts to devise an effective and commercially practical mechanism for the wet-control of dust produced by jackhammers.

Our understanding of the dangers of silica go back more than a half century, and many of the worst practices have been eliminated. But the risks of even slight exposure are serious, and the Fund continues its efforts to get all silica dust out of the air that Laborers breathe.