Insight and Perspective on How one Man Survived a Worksite Catastrophe
By 478 Member Bob Fitch
In 1956, the highway coming to Connecticut was the biggest piece of work ever; and, I was fortunate to work with the operating engineers. Then, safety was never discussed. You went to the job, got the job done and went home. There weren’t cabs on the equipment. There weren’t safety guards on anything. Machines weren’t hydraulic, only cable. No one thought about goggles, hard hats, seat belts - they just didn’t exist. With dust conditions, you rode the machine like a cowboy with a handkerchief over your face to breathe or pulled your t-shirt around your face and dug the grit out of your eyes at the end of the day.
There were no concerns about what was broken on a machine, flopping around; you just went to work and that’s what you did. I’m going to go as simple as if there’s no drinking water all day on a job, that’s a safety issue to me or no guard that’s going to keep you from getting your head cut off or losing a hand. There were injuries on a weekly basis. People went home without fingers and crushed feet. Gradually, through the unions’ efforts and when the unions started to get stronger because of population and the work demand, unions were the only organization that could supply qualified trained people so they became a very important entity when it came to worker safety.
In the beginning, management didn’t show much interest or any tendency to care. They were sitting in their office with heat control while we were out there dying. The biggest battle was that in the field. I couldn’t imagine the inside fights that got us workers where we are today. Negotiating was not a business form back in the 1950’s. Instead, whatever management said was it. The working relationship hadn’t developed for both parties. But, eventually, management decided there were too many people getting hurt and too many guys losing income and, as a result, safety slowly became one of managements’ priorities.
In the 1960’s, the union also began health and welfare programs for when guys got hurt. I remember, it was brought up to the membership at a meeting and, I’ll openly admit that the first night it was introduced, I voted against it. I’ll never forget the shot that knocked me right off the chair. It was my father, and he told me I would rue the day that I thought like that, and just a few years later, I understood
what he meant, when I had my own family and the medical expenses that came along with it and the worry of not having a job because I might break ribs or a wrist - which I accomplished running a scraper but went to work anyways.
That’s what you did in those days. You wrapped your hand up yourself to stop the bleeding. I saw guys stuff their cuts with dirt because no first aid kits were available. There was zero safety available. It was so draining because no one had any clue what to do.
It was arduous. Contractors didn’t want the expense and workmen’s comp wasn’t a thing, so there was nothing for the worker to fall back on. For a long time there was no insurance that covered you, so you were in deep trouble if you got injured. Eventually through legislation and the continuous efforts of the unions and all the industries, a movement started that kind of became a package deal.
Still, guys would discuss accidents at coffee break because it was so common. As time progressed and we got into the 1960s, machines started to come out with a cab of sorts, which would result in you getting crushed if it tipped because it wasn’t reinforced, but it kept you out of the weather. Contractors loved it, sure they’ll pay a little extra for a cab because the job wouldn’t be shut down due to the weather, and you wouldn’t freeze. A lot of different issues entered into very simple changes. First, a guard for your legs where everyone was getting hit by the levers and, then, manufacturers made up configurations and came up with ergonomics - big time to design. They started to take the operator into consideration because safety would save the project. The contractors got incentives from the insurance companies if they were safe. Machines became more efficient. Something as simple as having a water wagon on the job was life changing.
Safety helped develop the working relationship between labor and management because it was good for both. They would sit at the table and as long as management saw some benefit to it, it was a go. The unions were pushing for us and since the contractors were benefitting, the pushing for safety was on.
In 1971, OSHA came into effect and it was horrendous. There was no correlation between OSHA and contractors because OSHA was just developing. Contractors didn’t want to have to pay $54 for a safety belt that someone would probably abuse. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Groton showing Mystic Education Center property to prospective developers
By Deborah Straszheim Day staff writer
Groton — Town planning staff have been showing the 77-acre Mystic Education Center property to prospective developers and hope to issue a request for development proposals in the fall.
"We have a lot of interest and the type of development runs the gamut. There isn't just one type," said Paige Bronk, Groton's economic and community development manager. "We have some commercial, some mixed use, some residential. We have a variety of developers that are engaging."
The Office of Planning and Development Services will hold an informational session on Thursday for members of the public interested in the property. The session, from 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. in the Town Hall Annex, will include 10-minute presentations at 5:45 p.m. and 6:45 p.m.
Engineering and planning consultants from Horsley Witten Group, which has been assessing physical assets of the site at 240 Oral School Road, also will take questions.
"Right now we're marketing the property, we're showing the property, and at the same time, what we're hoping to do Thursday night is get some feedback from people in the community," said Jonathan Reiner, Groton's director of planning and development services.
The town has been advertising the site in the New England Real Estate Journal for several months and has held about 20 showings since the fall.
The property could be leased or sold, but is more likely to be sold, Bronk said. The town has not listed an asking price.
"The reason is this is not a real estate transaction," Bronk said. "This is a redevelopment project. So we're more interested in the proposed use, the caliber of the development team, the proposed schedule, their ability to execute — which would include financing — and community benefit," he said.
The education center, formerly called the Mystic Oral School, served as a residential school for the deaf from 1895 until 1980. It was later used by groups including the Groton Recreation Department, Special Olympics, and business and youth sports groups needing practice fields. The property has been vacant since 2011.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School Renovation Plan Gets Hartford Board Of Ed Approval
The $68 million revival of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School is back on track after the city board of education endorsed new plans Tuesday night that will be sent to the state for approval.
After working with the state for weeks on the proposal, Superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez expressed confidence that King, a hulking symbol of educational inequity on a hill in north Hartford, will finally be renovated after years of broken promises.
"When our students come into a building and things are falling apart ... they think that that's all they're worth," board member Juan Hernandez said in the elementary school's auditorium, where spectators sat in broken seats with ripped, faded cushions. The space, frigid on a warm evening, smelled of mildew.
Board member Richard Wareing said King represented the "institutional neglect of our schools." Despite school overhauls and stunning magnet schools in other neighborhoods, the district said the once-grand, Collegiate Gothic building just west of Keney Park has not received a major renovation since it opened in the 1920s, originally as a high school.
City school leaders and parents who have seen rodents scurrying inside have decried the facility conditions as deplorable and unsafe for children. More than 300 students attend the pre-K-to-grade-8 school named after the civil rights hero, and will remain in the Ridgefield Street building for at least another year, according to the CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
The conversion of two vacant, decaying office buildings in the heart of downtown into apartments will ramp up next month, giving a lift to a key corner across from the city's signature CityPlace office complex.
The New York firms of Girona Ventures and Wonder Works Construction and Development Corp. will redevelop the buildings at 95-101 and 111 Pearl St. into 258 studios, one- and two-bedroom apartments in a $51 million project.
West Haven mayor, challenger square off over $9M increase to build new high school
WEST HAVEN >> Democratic mayoral challenger Nancy Rossi laid the blame for the escalating cost of the West Haven High School re-construction project at the feet of Mayor Ed O’Brien Tuesday, saying he’s “costing the taxpayers of West Haven more than $9 million because he chose to play politics” with it.
Back in 2014, “We had a project that was going to cost $124 Million with the state of Connecticut reimbursing” all but a $30 million local share, Rossi, who has previously raised questions about the project’s financing and construction schedule, said in a release. “The Mayor, being himself and wanting complete control on the building committee, stalled the project,” said Rossi, one of two candidates challenging O’Brien in the upcoming election. “He appointed new members to the building committee, and said the project was too expensive and that he wanted to create a better and less expensive high school.”But instead, “We now have a project design which includes 14 less classrooms, and a price tag of $133 million, which is $9 million more than the original cost,” Rossi said. This is another example of Mayor O’Brien being in over his head,” she said. “He can’t balance a budget, and now he has cost the taxpayers another $9 million for a completely unnecessary delay.”O’Brien responded Tuesday by saying, “I didn’t put the project on hold. The state suggested we had to put the project on hold. They came down and suggested that we re-think what we were doing.”The decision not to move forward came “after many, many meetings” between the city and the state, he said.The extra cost that Rossi referred to “is asbestos” that the city is removing rather than encapsulating under the latest design, as well as more solid materials instead of lighter-weight materials being used in the front of the school, O’Brien said.“Yeah, there’s escalation, but there’s also a lot of good quality on the other side,” he said. “What I think is important is that we’re building a high school, built to the (projected future) enrollment of our high school, and we’re building it within budget.”In a Oct. 27, 2015, New Haven Register story, “West Haven High School project put on hold,” O’Brien, Finance Director Kevin McNabola, Superintendent of Schools Neil Cavallaro and then-High School Building Committee Chairman Ken Carney announced that the project would be put on hold for a few years while the city got its finances in order.“If we started (the bulk of) the job now, the funding might not be in place ... and we might not be able to access the market” because of the city’s then-current credit rating, deficit and debt level, O’Brien said at the time, adding that the bottom line was, “Don’t spend money that you don’t have.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
OSHA Delays Crane Certification Requirements
According to a recent Federal Register notice, OSHA is seeking to delay by a year its new certification requirements for construction crane operators, which are currently set to go into effect on November 10, 2017. Before it can officially delay the rules, however, OSHA must consult with the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health (ACCSH). On June 20th, ACCSH will hold a telephone conference, open to the public, to discuss the matter and receive public comments.
This would be the third extension of the OSHA crane operator certification requirements. The cranes standard, 29 CFR 1926.1427, originally went into effect in November of 2010, except for provisions related to operator certification, which were delayed until November 2014. In September 2014, OSHA issued a final rule that again extended the effective date of the operator certification requirements by another three years, until November 10, 2017. This latest announcement would delay the requirements until November 10, 2018. Importantly, each of these extensions also extended the requirement that employers ensure that crane operators are competent to operate the equipment safely.
Under these new certification requirements, any person operating a construction crane subject to OSHA’s cranes standard will have to be certified (except for operators of sidebooms or equipment rated at 2,000 pounds or less). Certification testing involves an equipment-specific written examination and a practical test. Operators on civil projects can be certified or qualified by: 1) an accredited third party testing organization; 2) the employer through an audited employer program; or 3) licensing through a state or local government that meets OSHA’s minimum requirements. The employer must pay certification costs. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
The New York firms of Girona Ventures and Wonder Works Construction and Development Corp. will redevelop the buildings at 95-101 and 111 Pearl St. into 258 studios, one- and two-bedroom apartments in a $51 million project.
The redevelopment is part of a four-year wave of apartment conversions in and around downtown adding hundreds of apartments to help boost vibrancy beyond the traditional work week. Key to the development has been taxpayer-backed loans and equity investments.
Last week, Girona and Wonder Works purchased the two neighboring buildings on the corner of Pearl and Trumbull streets, each for $625,000, according to CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUEWest Haven mayor, challenger square off over $9M increase to build new high school
WEST HAVEN >> Democratic mayoral challenger Nancy Rossi laid the blame for the escalating cost of the West Haven High School re-construction project at the feet of Mayor Ed O’Brien Tuesday, saying he’s “costing the taxpayers of West Haven more than $9 million because he chose to play politics” with it.
Back in 2014, “We had a project that was going to cost $124 Million with the state of Connecticut reimbursing” all but a $30 million local share, Rossi, who has previously raised questions about the project’s financing and construction schedule, said in a release. “The Mayor, being himself and wanting complete control on the building committee, stalled the project,” said Rossi, one of two candidates challenging O’Brien in the upcoming election. “He appointed new members to the building committee, and said the project was too expensive and that he wanted to create a better and less expensive high school.”But instead, “We now have a project design which includes 14 less classrooms, and a price tag of $133 million, which is $9 million more than the original cost,” Rossi said. This is another example of Mayor O’Brien being in over his head,” she said. “He can’t balance a budget, and now he has cost the taxpayers another $9 million for a completely unnecessary delay.”O’Brien responded Tuesday by saying, “I didn’t put the project on hold. The state suggested we had to put the project on hold. They came down and suggested that we re-think what we were doing.”The decision not to move forward came “after many, many meetings” between the city and the state, he said.The extra cost that Rossi referred to “is asbestos” that the city is removing rather than encapsulating under the latest design, as well as more solid materials instead of lighter-weight materials being used in the front of the school, O’Brien said.“Yeah, there’s escalation, but there’s also a lot of good quality on the other side,” he said. “What I think is important is that we’re building a high school, built to the (projected future) enrollment of our high school, and we’re building it within budget.”In a Oct. 27, 2015, New Haven Register story, “West Haven High School project put on hold,” O’Brien, Finance Director Kevin McNabola, Superintendent of Schools Neil Cavallaro and then-High School Building Committee Chairman Ken Carney announced that the project would be put on hold for a few years while the city got its finances in order.“If we started (the bulk of) the job now, the funding might not be in place ... and we might not be able to access the market” because of the city’s then-current credit rating, deficit and debt level, O’Brien said at the time, adding that the bottom line was, “Don’t spend money that you don’t have.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
OSHA Delays Crane Certification Requirements
According to a recent Federal Register notice, OSHA is seeking to delay by a year its new certification requirements for construction crane operators, which are currently set to go into effect on November 10, 2017. Before it can officially delay the rules, however, OSHA must consult with the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health (ACCSH). On June 20th, ACCSH will hold a telephone conference, open to the public, to discuss the matter and receive public comments.
This would be the third extension of the OSHA crane operator certification requirements. The cranes standard, 29 CFR 1926.1427, originally went into effect in November of 2010, except for provisions related to operator certification, which were delayed until November 2014. In September 2014, OSHA issued a final rule that again extended the effective date of the operator certification requirements by another three years, until November 10, 2017. This latest announcement would delay the requirements until November 10, 2018. Importantly, each of these extensions also extended the requirement that employers ensure that crane operators are competent to operate the equipment safely.
Under these new certification requirements, any person operating a construction crane subject to OSHA’s cranes standard will have to be certified (except for operators of sidebooms or equipment rated at 2,000 pounds or less). Certification testing involves an equipment-specific written examination and a practical test. Operators on civil projects can be certified or qualified by: 1) an accredited third party testing organization; 2) the employer through an audited employer program; or 3) licensing through a state or local government that meets OSHA’s minimum requirements. The employer must pay certification costs. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE