When you consider all the different occupations that fit into the construction-industry vertical, construction is the largest sector of the economy and can be an effective barometer of the state of a nation’s economy. If there are buildings being renovated, new buildings going up or new neighborhoods being established, that is usually a sign that there is some demand in the economy for those facilities.
However, that also can mean the industry reflects the economy by its cycles. As the economy slows down, construction jobs slow down. The construction jobs seem to pick up steam as a precursor to a upswing in economic activity that is noted by the public and media. As construction is a cyclical industry, most of the workers are temporary and cyclical; many work just for a couple days at a time.
Safety Guidelines …
Because of these temporary workers, there are a platoon of guidelines and standards specifically designed to keep construction workers safe on the worksite, as a construction site can have more risks and hazards than just about any other worksite. Various occupational safety organization have put out guidelines and regulations about worksite safety, and OSHA has followed up recently with some of its own best-practices guidelines.
Some best-practices guidelines recently developed and released are created from some tops-in-safety organizations and are deisnged to be as close to one-size-fits-all as possible, providing guidance for handling short-term projects as well as those that take multiple years, regardless of the number of employers and sub-contractors that are working on-site.
The goal of the guidelines is to share what has worked for many top companies in helping them reduce incidents at worksites, with the emphasis on communication and coordination of activities on the site, even with multiple employers on site at the same time.
… But Lack of Accountability?
The problem with guidelines, to be fair, is that they are meant for a “moral and just” people, as John Adams might say. They don’t have a mechanism to be self-enforcing; following them relies heavily on the goodness, common sense and ethics of those in charge of following the guidelines.
What happens when you don’t follow the guidelines? You could be a movie star – and not in a good way.
CaveLight Films produced a documentary where it followed the construction process for the new MGM CityCenter in Las Vegas, which was plagued by a number of deaths to construction workers.
The documentary takes video from the construction site, and weaves in interviews from labor-union representatives, academics, former U.S. government officials, reporters, former congressmen and a former OSHA official, as well as family members of some of the deceased, to take a hard look at high-demand constuction projects and construction regulations that aren’t effectively followed or enforced and the steps that are potentially taken in higher levels of government and the private sector to push for more productivity on-site at the risk of compromising safety for workers.
You can check out a trailer and details of how and where to rent the documentary here.