Smart Mark is an excellent instructor-led, interactive curriculum that meets and exceeds the requirements of the OSHA Construction 10- and 30-hour programs.  Covering over 20 topics, the Smart Mark program is flexible and easy to use.

In the mid-1990s, CPWR partnered with the North American Building Trades Union (NABTU) to develop a standardized safety and health awareness training program for workers in the organized sector of the U.S. construction industry. Because workers in the trades typically come and go on construction sites, this program addressed two industry needs: 1) ensuring that craft workers, either employed directly or by sub-contractors, have the same level and quality of safety and health awareness training; and 2) access to a program that conforms to OSHA’s 10-Hour awareness training requirements.

CPWR coordinated this effort with NABTU’s Safety & Health Committee — prioritizing training topics, reviewing existing programs and related subject matter, and identifying training content. Once all NABTU’s participating building trades unions had reviewed, modified and approved the program, NABTU finalized and copyrighted it as Smart Mark.  In 1998, during construction of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, NABTU’s president and other construction industry leaders introduced Smart Mark to the industry.

The program has been modified and expanded over the years. It currently covers 20 different topics, meets OSHA’s 10-hour training requirements and a majority of the instructor and student materials are available in both English and Spanish.* Smart Mark offers high-quality instruction and because of its relationship to NABTU, its affiliated building trades unions, and their joint labor and management training funds, there’s an infrastructure in place that makes it possible to delivere the training in every region of the nation.

Training materials for each topic include:

• Lesson Plans – Each topic has instructor lesson plans, background information, and classroom activity suggestions in Adobe pdf format that can be printed easily.
• PowerPoints – Colorful PowerPoints help instructors guide their students to understand how to recognize, avoid, and abate common construction site hazards.
• Student Booklets – Each lesson has a student booklet, which provides an overview of important information that students can take back to their worksites for reference.

Since the first edition Smart Mark in 1998, more than 5,000 OSHA-authorized instructors affiliated with the Building Trades have trained more than a quarter-million workers nationwide using the program. The Building Trades have made using Smart Mark even easier by putting all the curriculum online at http://www.esmartmark.org/. To access the materials, contact your International’s training director or CPWR’s Mike Kassman — [email protected] — for more information.

*Some of the newest additions are only available in English.