NYC Postpones Construction Safety Training Mandate
The six-month delay doesn't affect the ultimate aim of the law requiring workers to have 40 hours of training by September 2020. Supervisors will be required to have 62 hours.
The New York City Department of Buildings announced Nov. 6 that the city is postponing its first major construction safety deadline, Crain's New York Business reported.
A 2017 law would require all city construction workers to take 30 hours of safety training by a Dec. 1 deadline. However, the department has invoked a six-month deadline delay that was written into the legislation, as NYC Buildings Commissioner Rick Chandler announced workers and supervisors will have until June 2019 to meet the threshold.
Training is typically provided by third-party instructors or in-house contractors, but according to the Building Trades Employers' Association, not enough providers were approved by the city in the months since the law was passed. This made it difficult to gain compliance across the entire industry by the December deadline, and if workers did not get properly trained, sites could have been subject to fines and delays.
The six-month delay doesn't affect the ultimate aim of the law, requiring workers to have 40 hours of training by September 2020. Supervisors will be required to have 62 hours. "This doesn't change the end result in terms of what the legislation was seeking," said Louis Coletti, head of the trade group. "But it provides a more reasoned approach on how to get there in a way that won't be disruptive."