The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 Training Center, located in Wilmington, Ill., recently joined the International Powered Access Federation and became an American Work Platform Training center so that it could offer training on the safe use of aerial work platforms to its membership.

AWPT is the North American IPAF subsidiary whose training programs meet OSHA requirements and ANSI standards. It is based on IPAF’s program, which is certified as conforming to ISO 18878 and is used in many countries throughout the world.

Local 150’s Apprenticeship and Skill Improvement Program determined that the programs offered by AWPT were the most thorough and provided the organization with the tools it needed to integrate aerial work platform training into its certification protocols. AWPT offers the internationally recognized PAL Card to people who successfully complete a training program on a class of work platform equipment. It also provides a logbook for listing specific machine familiarization so union members have a way of showing that they had been trained on a particular piece of equipment. Local 150 now has more than a half dozen AWPT-approved instructors on board and is beginning to offer training to its membership.

IPAF is a not-for-profit members’ organization that promotes the safe and effective use of powered access equipment worldwide. For more information, visit www.ipaf.org. AWPT is a wholly owned subsidiary responsible for the delivery of industry standard training by members in North America. For more information, visit www.awpt.org.