The immediate objective of the National Fund is to provide occupational health and safety training to Ironworkers. In addition to training workers to meet immediate demands, the long-term and most important objective is the implementation of the hazardous waste training program into the existing national, highly successful training structure of the National Fund, which has access to over 130 local training Funds located throughout the United States. The integration of the program into the existing training structure will firmly """"""""institutionalize"""""""" the training, thereby ensuring that the program will continue, protecting the health and safety of thousands of Ironworkers without the need of financial assistance in the future. The National Fund's aim ia to use our existing curricula to provide quality training necessary so that Ironworkers will know how to recognize hazardous conditions and substances, understand occupational health and safety rights, rules and regulations, and most importantly, known how to properly protect themselves from the many hazards associated with hazardous waste operations. The program will train workers in rural and urban areas throughout the United States. The Fund estimates that approximately 30,000 Ironworkers throughout the country will need training, as their special skills are required to construct steel and metal facilities for the storage of hazardous wastes; construct steel containment vessels and pumping stations; install railing, grating and fencing around the site; install reinforcement steel required for the construction of concrete reservoirs and drainage systems; and perform all rigging activities directly involved with the removal, transportation and storage of hazardous materials. The program will train additional instructors to assist the over 100 instructors now on hand to train 3000 workers over the three-year grant period. Pending on demand, the Fund estimates that 1200 workers per year will be trained on an on-going basis. The Fund also meet the demands of the refresher courses for workers and instructor.
