Tag: Construction Safety Week

OSHA And Skanska-Walsh Form Partnership To Eliminate Workplace Hazards

NYC construction accident lawyerRecently, OSHA signed an agreement with Skanska USA and Walsh Construction (Skanska-Walsh) to protect the health and safety of the 1,600 construction workers hired to work on the redevelopment project of LaGuardia Airport Central Terminal Building.  Skanska-Walsh is in charge of the $4 billion project. As an additional safety measure, Skanska USA has also signed a contract with the Building and Construction Trades Council to manage all of the construction zones.

According to Skanska-Walsh, safety has always been a major concern during this project. Out of 1,600 workers that are part of the redevelopment project, 1,200 are construction workers.  The … Read the rest

Sixth-Annual Construction Safety Week Starts This Monday

The New York City Buildings Departments Construction Safety Week has, since 2005, been a week-long series of events aimed at raising awareness about safe construction practices. Construction-related fatalities dropped 84% in 2009 when compared to 2008, and these events are a critical way to continue that trend. This year Construction Safety Week will run from April 26 to April 30, 2010.

Events during the week will include construction site visits to discuss safety issues with workers, information seminars to review construction trends and specific operations and community meetings in all five boroughs. This year’s seminars are Maintaining Safety at Stalled … Read the rest

April Brought Us Not Just Showers But Also NYC Buildings Departments Construction Safety Week and the High Risk Construction Oversight Study

Last week was the annual construction safety week. The weeks schedule of events included seminars and events that were free of charge and open to the public. The seminars included: Safety Harness Giveaway & Worker Safety Training; How to Identify and Hire a Licensed Contractor; Homeowners’ Night: Resolving ECB Violations & Illegal Conversions; Construction, Demolition, & Abatement Operations; How to Obtain the New C-Class Hoisting Operators License; High Risk Construction Study: Cranes – Findings & Recommendations; High Risk Construction Study: Excavations – Findings & Recommendations; High Risk Construction Study: Concrete – Findings & Recommendations; Introduction to the New NYC … Read the rest

A New Fire Code and an Improved Building Code For New York City Effective July 1, 2008

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has signed legislation establishing a new Fire Code for the City of New York, effective July 1, 2008. It is the first comprehensive revision since the City’s Fire Code was adopted in 1913. The Fire Code, enforced by the Fire Department, governs emergency preparedness and planning and more specifically the permit and inspection process for the use of building safety systems such as sprinklers, fire detectors, and extinguishers.

The new fire code improves public and emergency responder safety by establishing new permit requirements, requiring more detailed fire and safety evacuation plans, requiring a fire safety program … Read the rest

Toughen the Federal Worker-Safety Law: Make It a Crime

Although it is certainly too early to cast blame, if any, for this past Friday’s fatal crane collapse on the East Side, with the Manhattan district attorneys office having opened a criminal investigation into the collapse, the death and injuries sustained in the accident is perhaps just the latest example of why the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the primary federal worker-safety law in the United States, is in need of more powerful enforcement penalties. So cogently argues David M. Uhlmann, a law professor at the University of Michigan, in a recent New York Times op-ed article.

About 6,000 workers … Read the rest

The Crane Brethren

Yesterday our office received a call from a client involved in the March 15, 2008, collapse of a crane at a construction project on East 51st Street in Manhattan. The news that another crane collapsed when the top of the crane on an East 91st Street construction site had snapped off, crashed into a building across the street and killed two construction workers had hit our client personally; he had received a telephone call from a crane operator that he knew from his work that identified the crane operator who died in the latest collapse as a friend of our … Read the rest