The New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) has extended the deadline by which all workers must complete 30 hours of construction safety training from Dec. 1, 2018, to June 1, 2019, according to www.constructiondive.com.
Supervisors will need 62 hours of training by the new deadline, and workers must take an additional 10 hours—for a total of 40 hours—by Sept. 1, 2020. Workers can meet the requirement by completing a 30-hour Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) training course; 10-hour OSHA class with 20 hours of additional training (eight hours of fall-prevention training, an eight-hour site safety manager refresher and four hours of scaffold training); a DOB-approved 100-hour training course; or via previous experience plus four hours of additional training for fall prevention and scaffold training.
Although the department provided no reason for the delay, the city reportedly determined the number of providers was insufficient to meet demand. Instead of imposing fines and penalties and potentially shutting down job sites, building officials decided to extend the deadline.
"This doesn't change the end result in terms of what the legislation was seeking," Louis Coletti, head of the Building Trades Employers' Association of New York City, told Crain's New York Business. "But it provides a more reasoned approach on how to get there in a way that won't be disruptive."
The original version of the law was more stringent; in response to increasing construction worker injuries and deaths, city officials proposed a series of reforms, including the requirement that workers complete 59 hours of safety training and an apprenticeship program or its equivalent. However, companies in New York's nonunion construction sector fought the apprenticeship requirement, arguing that unions sponsored nearly 50 percent of such programs in the city to boost their own membership. Although lawmakers ditched the apprenticeship requirement and reduced the total required training hours to 40, some nonunion developers and construction companies say even the 40-hour mandate will cause small businesses to struggle financially.
The number of New York construction accidents increased more than 18 percent during the first seven months of 2018 when compared with the same period in 2017. The number of injuries increased by about 17 percent, and the number of construction-related deaths doubled from four to eight.
