New York City Department of Buildings officials said the safety training mandated through local legislation passed in 2017 has contributed to a more than 20% drop in job-site injuries—the largest decrease in injuries in nearly a decade, according to www.constructiondive.com. The DOB announced Oct. 29 it has issued 100,000 Site Safety Training cards to date.
Officials also announced the DOB has started taking applications for its Construction Site Safety Reimbursement Program, a one-time grant to help offset the cost of training for construction companies with up to 15 employees.
Since the city enacted Local Law 196, the DOB has been sending building officials to job sites and informing workers and construction employers about the training requirements, deadlines and where they can sign up for in-person and online courses.
As part of the law, construction workers on large and complex projects must obtain a Site Safety Training card by completing at least 40 hours of Occupational Safety and Health Administration- and DOB-approved safety training; DOB-licensed site safety professionals must have 62 hours of safety training, and construction and demolition workers on the city’s 5,300 covered construction sites are required to have 30 hours of safety training; and construction workers on covered job sites must complete 40 hours of safety training and obtain their Site Safety Training cards by March 1, 2021, the final compliance deadline.
In late 2019, The New York Times reported the DOB had been conducting more than 20,000 surprise inspections at about 25% of all active New York City job sites. From September 2018 to mid-November 2019, 38 inspectors fined violators $15 million and issued more than 2,500 stop-work orders.
