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Documentary filmmakers have discovered abusive working conditions for laborers of NEOM’s The Line megacity development in Saudi Arabia. Per new reporting on the website Middle East Eye: "Labourers are forced to work grueling hours far beyond legal limits to construct the flagship project of... View full entry
New York City construction worker fatalities have declined to record lows, according to a new report released by the NYC Department of Buildings. Construction-related deaths are now at their lowest point in the past decade despite an increase in injuries at job sites for the third consecutive... View full entry
Earlier this week, engineering and construction giant Bechtel and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) announced a multiyear partnership dedicated to preventing construction worker suicides. The partnership aims to reach 500,000 U.S. construction workers over five years... View full entry
The construction of the Sydney Opera House was a famously fraught saga, but as the city’s landmark turns 50, former workers remember a quite different atmosphere on the site itself. — The Guardian
Trade unionists and other workers were not the only sources of labor disputes on the site, as Jørn Utzon memorably quit midway over a payment dispute on the 14-year construction project that became essentially the Brooklyn Bridge of the Southern Hemisphere when it finally opened on October... View full entry
The nationwide demand for labor is dulling, but construction still faces a shortage of workers. Construction counted 363,000 job openings at the end of July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a decrease of 23,000 jobs from June. — Construction Dive
As noted by the chief economist for Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), Anirban Basu, job openings, across all industries, are at the lowest level since March 2021, and the rate at which workers are quitting their jobs has returned to the pre-pandemic norm. The demand for construction... View full entry
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced plans to increase protections for workers facing extreme heat, as temperatures across the U.S. soar and large swaths of the country face heat advisories. — HR Dive
The President’s announcement comes as close to 40% of the U.S. population faces heat advisories, according to the National Weather Service. The country currently has no federal standards on workplace heat safety, and there has been no timeline for the finalization of one. As reported by HR Dive... View full entry
With record-high temperatures impacting millions around the world, a spotlight has been cast on the workplace conditions of construction workers, who currently aren’t protected by any strict standard regarding extreme heat. According to a heat tracker by The New York Times, approximately 27% of... View full entry
Eleven men perch precariously on a metal beam, eating lunch, lighting cigarettes or drinking from glass bottles. Wearing only cloth caps as head protection, the men dwarf the hazy background of 1930s New York City and Central Park. Much has changed since workers building the 66-story, 850-foot-tall Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan posed for “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” in 1932, but it remains construction’s most iconic photograph. — Construction Dive
The photograph, which was originally displayed in the New York Herald Tribune on October 2, 1932, was and continues to be a positive and widely admired American symbol. However, when examining what’s being depicted, it is undeniable that there is an array of problematic safety violations... View full entry
[C]onstruction is a risky job, and even more so for undocumented immigrants, who often work under informal verbal agreements. And for women, being vastly outnumbered on every construction site means more pressure to accept lower pay and mistreatment. That’s why, as more immigrant women don hard hats in New York City, advocates are training them to stand up against exploitation – and transform the construction industry itself. — The Guardian
More than half of New York City’s 200,000-plus-strong construction workforce are immigrants. Myriad abuses abound in informal labor markets, adding to a dangerous climate that last year saw fatalities reach a three-year high. The women featured in the Guardian article also... View full entry
A new report from the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) has shown an alarming increase in construction worker fatalities in the city for 2022. A total of 11 deaths were recorded for the year, up from 9 the previous year and the 8 that were recorded in 2020. A total of 9 fatal accidents... View full entry
In 2021, 12.1 per 100,000 construction workers in New York state died on the job, a 9% increase from 11.1 the year before, according to a new report from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health.
The total number of workers who died in the state increased to 61 in 2021, up from 41 in 2020, reported NYCOSH, a membership organization that represents workers, unions and health and safety professionals.
— Construction Dive
The Committee also found that one-quarter of all workplace fatalities across New York state took place on construction sites, a repeat of the figure contained in the Deadly Skyline Report for 2020. Latino workers accounted for 25.5% of the deaths recorded, keeping pace with a larger grisly... View full entry
Construction workers died at a rate of 9.4 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers in 2021, the BLS reported, down from 10.1 in 2020. That rate has hovered in that threshold for at least a decade. The new per capita figures are the lowest since 2011, but still don’t break the trend.
Worker death rate across all industries was 3.6 per 100,000, the highest since 2016.
— Construction Dive
Among the demographics, immigrant Hispanic & Latino workers were almost twice as likely to die than their U.S.-born counterparts, highlighting an underreported problem nationwide. Slips, trips, and falls were among the most commonly-recorded causes of death, followed by transportation... View full entry
Construction staffing has nearly climbed out of the pandemic-induced hole. [...] construction reached 99% of pre COVID-19 numbers, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers.
Contractors added 60,000 new employees last month, Associated Builders and Contractors reported, boosting total employment in the industry to 7.6 million. That’s the highest staffing level since COVID-19 drove one million workers off site in April 2020.
— Construction Dive
“Evidence indicates that contractors have had a somewhat easier time filling available positions recently,” Associated Builders and Contractors Chief Economist Anirban said in a March statement. “There are also indications that supply chain issues have improved slightly, though the... View full entry
Work on the vast expansion of the Metro Purple Line in Los Angeles has come to an abrupt stop following dozens of worker injuries and safety concerns that officials say have not been addressed.
“Metro has ordered its contractor to temporarily suspend all field work on the Purple Line Extension Section 2 Project due to the unacceptable rate of serious worker injuries,” Metro said in a statement. "The safety of those building our county’s transportation projects must always be protected.”
— KTLA
A total of nine serious incidents were recorded this calendar year alone, with several near-misses that could have been “more serious,” according to Metro’s letter to general contractor Tutor Perini. Parts of the project had previously accelerated thanks to Covid-related street... View full entry
By any count, Presidio Tunnel Tops had an unusual number of women in construction and project leadership. They say there are good reasons for that. — Landscape Architecture Magazine
Led by Kerry Huang of James Corner Field Operations, the recently-opened new addition to San Francisco’s public parks portfolio was in the works for the better part of 30 years before being completed in July. As Landscape Architecture Magazine highlights, the number of women employed in... View full entry
