New York City Cracking Down on Safety Violation in Construction Industry

Published on August 15, 2019 by Marie McCarthy

There are thousands of workers across job sites across New York City. The Big Apple has had a busy construction scene for the past few years, and with more jobs and more employees, come more accidents.

More people have died working in construction than in any other industry in the Big Apple, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

CBS 2 reports that more than 11,000 job sites have employees who are not properly trained and construction site injuries are up 221% compared to data from 5 years ago. That’s why the Department of Buildings is putting more effort to enforcing and regulating safety compliance in the industry.

The New York City Department of Buildings has enacted more than 25 laws to increase construction site safety, including an on-site smoking ban, uniformity in sprinkler and standpipe color coding, more registration requirements for certain construction activities, and pre-shift safety meetings.

Workers need to have 10 hours of safety training, and next year they’ll need to have four times as much. Any employer who is not complying with the regulations is getting ticketed by the department, and it’s not cheap. It costs the property owner, contractor and employer $5,000 in fines each.