New York Construction Accident & Safety News

Will the down economy cause more construction accidents as people try to work faster and with less experience? The Long Island Business News reports on the issue that is cropping up at construction sites around the area. But is it true? Will people cut corners for money and put safety at risk?

One contractor who asked not to be identified said many builders won’t cut corners to save money. He said firms with long, reputable histories aren’t likely to suddenly skimp.

“There are always people who cut corners,” said the contractor. “Will people cheat when times get tough? Some people will never cheat.”

Whether or not the weak economy leads to corner cutting, some worry it could lead to more false claims. One Long Island contractor who asked not to be identified said he’s seen a surge in workers’ compensation claims among people about to be laid off.

“In that short period of time before they think they’re going to be downsized, they submit a report that they hurt themselves on the job,” the contractor said. “They file a report saying they pulled a muscle. Most employers slough it off. Then they [the workers] get laid off.”

The Buildings Department in New York City has been undertaking quite an overhaul after two major construction accidents involving crane collapses. Now the new buildings commissioner, Robert LiMandri, has begun to lay out his plan for sweeping reforms.

On Tuesday, at the annual Build Safe New York conference, Mr. LiMandri announced a 41-point plan to overhaul how “high-rise construction” is regulated and carried out in New York City. The changes result from a $4 million High-Risk Construction Oversight review of crane, hoist, excavation and concrete operations, begun last year, which involved 30 engineering experts from CTL Engineering and Construction Technology Consultants.

The review included visits to nearly 600 job sites; 12 outreach meetings with more than 95 organizations; and Buildings Department safety conferences with crane manufacturers and building officials from cities around the world.

“This groundbreaking study is the type of critical evaluation that is necessary to ensure a new standard of safety is implemented across the city, one that the public demands and deserves,” Mr. LiMandri said in a statement. “The city’s economy depends on construction, and New Yorkers are depending on us to make that construction safe. After an exhaustive review of high-risk construction, we identified 41 specific ways that will help prevent accidents and raise accountability across the board.”

The city of New York is putting in more strict guidelines for construction work in the city, and it seems to be resulting in a more vigilant Buildings Commission. Newsday.com reports on the new rules and the early results:

In June, the Council and Bloomberg laid out a 15-point legislative package for stricter enforcement and regulations for crane operations and to improve overall safety at construction sites citywide.

The package led to a series of requirements, including mandatory safety training for tower crane workers, requiring mandatory submission of detailed rigging plans and banning the use of nylon slings to secure tower cranes. Nylon slings were cited as a cause in one of the crane collapses.

Buildings Department Commissioner Robert LiMandri said yesterday that since the March 15 collapse, his department issued more than 400 stop-work orders in 2008, or more than double the previous year. The city in May also added $5.3 million to the Buildings Department budget to fund dozens of new positions for oversight and enforcing construction safety requirements.

Crane regulations have been in the news a lot this year, and with that in mind, the city of Philadelphia has become the first city to execute rules on construction sites that utilize tower cranes. The state of Pennsylvania doesn’t enforce any formal construction crane regulations, but the city of Philadelphia proper will take the reigns on enforcing strict guidelines on tower cranes.

In the wake of the Miami and New York City construction site crane accidents in March, the Nutter administration is taking advantage of its unique ability to strengthen and protect its blue-collar workforce.

“These are unprecedented tower crane safety regulations,” said [City Councilman Jim] Kenney, in whose district 10 Rittenhouse lies. The new ordinance requires the tower crane owner to submit a certificate of insurance with a minimum of $15 million in liability naming the City of Philadelphia as an additional insured and certificate holder.

“Prior to today, a 12-year-old child could have run a crane,” said Frank Bardonaro Jr., president and COO of AmQuip, responsible for the construction of 10 Rittenhouse. AmQuip also did extensive work on the Comcast Center.

“The law now requires everyone, [starting with] the person to hook [the crane] into to the ground, to have proper training, certification and experience,” said Mr. Bardonaro. “The company that erects the crane has to have factory-trained technicians on site during these procedures.”

A new construction safety campaign has been launched in New York City this week by buildings commissioner Robert LiMandri. SILive.com reports:

A new campaign launching in New York City will remind construction workers to wear their harnesses and keep their lifelines attached. Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri announced the "Stay Connected" worker safety campaign Tuesday morning at a building trades conference in Manhattan.

The Buildings Department said in a statement that four people who died in construction accidents this year might have lived if they had proper safety guards to prevent them from falling. The safety campaign will include print, radio and television advertisements in both English and Spanish.

In the wake of construction accidents involving cranes in New York City, new laws are taking shape to ensure the safety of the workers. But are the new laws too much? Many claim that they are having a harder time getting things done on the jobsite because of them.

[T]he city’s construction industry says the rules have become too unwieldy to follow, are hard to enforce and often cause costly delays. Contractors say construction sites are often shut down for days or weeks for minor violations, like a missing piece of paperwork or a messy site. A shutdown at a high-profile site can run a contractor or developer over $100,000 a day.

"In some respects, it’s already overkill," said Louis Coletti, president of New York’s Building Trades Employers Association. "You’ve got new rules and regulations coming out every day."

Since the March 15 and May 30 crane accidents, the city has passed laws that require a 30-hour training course for tower crane workers, limit the use of nylon slings that hold construction loads, mandate regular safety meetings before raising or lowering the cranes, and overhaul licensing requirements for mobile crane operators.

Some sobering news from AMNY.com regarding safety at construction sites:

The federal government says that fall hazards are the biggest safety problem at New York City construction sites after random inspections last summer.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued $247,400 in fines after inspecting 46 sites last June and July.

The inspectors cited 60 contractors with 129 violations. Nearly a third of the violations involved fall hazards. The contractors were also cited for electrical safety, problems with scaffolds, cranes and improper welding.

OSHA’s Manhattan area director, Richard Mendelson, says the agency will use the information to decide where it should target its federal inspections in the future.

New reports say that construction accidents fell in 2007 over their 2006 numbers. While that is great news, accidents in 2008 have almost exceeded their 2007 numbers with three more months left in the year.

Construction deaths fell by nearly half in New York City last year after spiking the year before, according to a federal report released Monday.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics figures came amid heightened concern about construction safety after a spate of deadly accidents this year. Roughly 20 construction workers have died in accidents citywide this year, approaching last year’s total of 24, most of them killed in falls.

The 2007 total shrank from a high of 43 in 2006, the city construction industry’s deadliest year in at least a decade. The 2006 toll was up 87 percent from the previous year, and it came as construction deaths rose just 3 percent nationally.

With all of the negative press swirling around the crane industry after several very profile crane accidents, including two in New York City, the industry is fighting back. Citing non stop changes to the law, those within the industry would like to see more uniform law to ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Jim Robertson, managing partner of General Crane USA and a member of the Florida Public Task Force on Workplace Safety told the group that the industry is vulnerable to the politics of knee jerk reactions driven by gory headlines.

The result in his home state of Florida was a push by 67 local counties to draft and try and pass regulations around cranes — and each one was different, resulting in a nightmare of compliance.

Robertson led the push to block Dade County’s legislation after discovering some of the standards set were unachievable and in some cases made crane-lift situations more dangerous.

The result of a long struggle is an emerging national certification program, says Robertson, which will make it easier for operators to comply and understand what is expected of them.

The same day a construction worker fell over 40 floors to his death, a worker in Queens also suffered the same fate after he fell three stories when a scaffolding platform collapsed. The worker appeared to be wearing a safety harness, however the harness was not attached to the building at the time he fell. Work on the building has been ordered to cease until it can be deemed safe.

It was unclear whether the worker, Miguel Rodriguez, 38, of Corona, Queens, simply fell from the platform or the platform had collapsed, officials said.

Mr. Rodriguez was pronounced dead at the scene, the police said.

Mr. Rodriguez and another man were doing “patch-up work and cement work” on a building at 226 West 111th Street shortly before 2 p.m., when the second worker stepped off the scaffold and into the building to use the restroom, said Malik Hussain, the owner of the paint company that employed the men.