BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced Wednesday that 37 nonprofits, including one from Bakersfield, will be receiving grants totaling $6.7 million.
Kern County Builders Exchange in Bakersfield will receive a $199,980 grant for its proposal to provide COVID training to workers in the construction, agricultural, and defense contracting industries.
The 1 and 4-hour training sessions will include ways to mitigate, monitor, and prevent the spread of COVID and other infectious diseases in the workplace. Training will be in English and Spanish and use materials previously developed.
The grants are from the Susan Harwood Workplace Safety and Health Training program, named for in honor of the late Susan Harwood, former director of OSHA’s Office of Risk Assessment.
Harwood helped develop federal standards to protect workers from bloodborne pathogens, cotton dust, benzene, formaldehyde, asbestos, and lead in construction.
The program funds grants to nonprofit organizations, including community and faith-based groups, employer associations, labor unions, joint labor-management associations, colleges and universities.
