City Council OKs Construction Worker Safety Training Program

NEW YORK CITY — The City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a set of rules requiring construction workers to undergo up to 55 hours safety training. The bill is aimed at improving safety for hardhats following more than three dozen construction worker deaths in the last two years, lawmakers said.

Under the bill, Intro 1447, workers on most job sites must get 40 to 55 hours of training, with the exact amount to be determined by the Department of Buildings. The standard will be phased in, with workers required to start getting trained by March 1, 2018.

A 15-member task force comprising day laborers, minority and women-owned businesses and construction industry representatives will make recommendations about what the training should include.

"Requiring a uniform baseline amount of safety training is a long overdue and critically important measure to having a tangible impact on worker’s well-being," Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Flatbush), chair of the Council's Committee on Housing and Buildings, said in a statement.

(For more on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

The bill includes provisions to help workers get trained and will allow them to continue working after finishing 10 hours of training. Workers, construction site owners and building permit-holders could get hit with a $5,000 fine if they are caught violating the rules.

The program will cost the city $4 million to $5 million annually, primarily due to a program that would help workers who can't afford training get it, according to the bill's fiscal impact statement. The costs of additional inspections under the program are uncertain, but likely won't have a "demonstrable impact" on the Department of Buildings budget, the statement says.

The bill was introduced in January as a way to combat lax enforcement of local safety rules and negligence by contractors, lawmakers said at the time. Some 39 construction workers have died on job sites since 2015, including one a day after the bill was introduced, lawmakers said Wednesday.

Wednesday's vote followed eight months of talks with labor unions, the real estate industry and other groups, Williams said at Wednesday's Council meeting. Williams praised labor leaders but called the Real Estate Board of New York an "abhorrent partner" for complaining that the bill still wasn't good enough after pushing it further from what unions wanted.

In a statement, the trade group for real estate developers said it is "unfortunate" that Williams "can't answer basic questions about his bill," such as how workers will access training, who will pay for it and how the city will stop fake certification cards from circulating.

The bill also exempts building projects with four or fewer stories, which represented 80 percent of building permits and 35 percent of construction between 2010 and 2015, REBNY President John Banks wrote in a New York Daily News op-ed Wednesday.

Union laborers gathered in the Council chambers Wednesday to back the bill. Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, told The Real Deal that developers should pay for the training if they're so concerned about cost.

"Obviously, they have the resources to pay for it," LaBarbera told The Real Deal. "I think that’s what a responsible industry does."

(Lead image by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)