The safety violations in construction’s most iconic photo
Zachary Phillips
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.
“It’s one of those things emotionally, you’re grateful and,
and you honor and you respect the photograph, but by the same token as a safety
professional, you look at it and you go, ‘Wow, let me just name the number of
things that are wrong with this,’” said Greg Sizemore, vice president of
workforce development safety health and environmental at Associated Builders
and Contractors.
From the spot they’re sitting in, to the lack of proper
footwear, personal protective equipment or fall protection, this photo is
cringe-inducing, especially for safety experts, Sizemore said.
That said, Sizemore has a copy of the photo. So does Jim
Goss, senior safety consultant with HCSS, based out of Sugar Land, Texas.
“That print says a lot. These people are comfortable in that
setting, comfortable enough to be eating and drinking,” he said.
An iconic background
“Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” first ran in the New York Herald
Tribune on Oct. 2, 1932, Rockefeller Center Archivist Christine Roussel told Time Magazine in 2016,
as part of the publication’s 100 iconic photos series.
Three photographers — Charles Ebbets, Thomas Kelley and
William Leftwich — climbed the steel beams and walked the precarious heights
along with workers; it is unknown which of them actually captured the iconic
photograph taken at the top of the tower, Roussel said (although Ebbets is
credited).
The workers themselves came from all over the world, Roussel
said. Irish immigrants and Mohawk Native Americans made up a considerable
number of the roughly quarter of a million workers hired for blue collar jobs
on the project during the Great Depression, she told Time.
The publicity stunt captured the exact sentiment it had set
out for.
“That was the attitude, very very positive toward the
future, very positive toward America, very positive toward business,” Roussel
said.
That’s a sentiment many feel the image still captures today.
Where we came from
For Steve Rank, executive director of safety and health for
the Washington, D.C.-based Ironworkers International union, the photo
encapsulates how far standards have come, and the arduous fight for continued
worker protection.
“It kind of symbolizes the Depression … and our struggle to
not have fatalities in the workplace, and fighting to get OSHA standards to
protect people during steel erection work,” he said. “They worked in conditions
that didn’t have safety requirements or anything. That’s what that picture
symbolizes to me, is the tough times people had to go through.”
Bottom of Form
The OSH Act created OSHA in 1971, so this photo existed
decades before any federal agency provided standards or cited employers for
violations. Goss and Rank also both noted a long battle to create the steel erection standard,
which is a little over 20 years old.
“When I first started in the business, we had the same
things that that photo depicted,” said Goss. “It’s just the way it was. The
rules were disorganized. We had tie-off rules, but we didn’t [really] have
tie-off rules.”
Some say employers at the time of the iconic photo had
cavalier attitudes about worker casualties because they didn’t affect their
bottom line.
“The folklore from that time is when you were building a
large skyscraper, you estimated a certain number of fatalities per floor,” said
Justin Rihn, director of safety for Clark Construction.
Where we are now
With today’s OSHA standards, if an inspector came across a
sight like the men in the photo, the fines could vary, depending on whether
they are classified as willful or not. If they are, Goss said, the construction
firm could face an initial fine of around $155,000 per person — about $1.5
million total. That would be before negotiating a settlement from OSHA.
For context, that would be about $200,000 higher than
the largest
initial fine of 2022.
“If you did that today, you wouldn’t be in business very
long,” Rank said, in reference to the men in the photo. “It’s a whole different
world.”
Even still, Goss pointed out, falls remain construction’s
deadliest hazard. In 2021, 390 of the industry’s 986 workplace fatalities
resulted from falls, slips or trips. About 13% of all workplace deaths —
680 fatalities — resulted from falls from
elevation in 2021, the most recent data available.
“Falls are the greatest hazard that [contractors] should
look at every day,” Goss said.
Even though the attitudes and polices for worker safety have
improved greatly since the 1930s, the work done tens or hundreds of feet in the
air remains treacherous.
“Gravity will win every time,” said Goss.
Where we are going
In Construction Dive’s digital Round
Table for Construction Safety Week, safety experts individually highlighted
the progress in the industry, and championed the notion of working earlier in
the project to highlight, educate and plan ahead for hazards.
“The culture has dramatically changed from seemingly
accepting a certain number of worker deaths or serious injuries on a project to
now meeting project safety requirements with rigorous attention,” said Rihn.
“Planning safety into the work, empowering workers to stop unsafe acts, and
encouraging them to report incidents and near misses allow us to prevent a
recurrence, minimize risk and ultimately, improve the safety of everyone on
site.”
Sizemore too is a champion of safety by design — documenting
every potential hazard during the planning phase to know what exposures workers
will face on any given day.
Asked what will change in another 90 years of construction,
Sizemore predicted more machine-use and technology on jobsites, even likening
piloting vehicles on the job to UAVs used by the U.S. military.
“We’ll never engineer out the human, but the human skill
sets will be different,” he said.
GREENWICH — While most businesses at Greenwich Plaza are closing in preparation for a $45 million overhaul of the Greenwich train station, two are not.
"Citibank and Signature Cycles have leases that run
through the entire construction period, so those two businesses are remaining
in place and, to the best of our knowledge, remaining open the whole
time," said Kim DePra, a spokesperson for The Ashforth Company, which owns
and operates Greenwich Plaza. "All the other businesses are vacating
during construction, and we do not anticipate any of them will return."
Work is expected to begin in the next few months on the
train station renovation, although the timeline is still fluid.
"Our construction team is working to finalize the
design and construction drawings with the architect, Beyer Blinder
Belle," DePra said. "So once these are complete, we will be able to
give a more definitive start date and timeline — but we expect construction to
be well underway before the end of the year."
At Signature Cycles, co-owner Ruedi Laager said,
"We're staying open, and we will have access at all times."
Laager said he was working out plans with the landlord for
customers to enter the rear of the business while a new exterior is installed.
The full-service bike shop, founded in 1990, serves bike lovers from all over
the region, he said, and a number of their customers are riders from New York
City.
"It's a good location," Laager said. The bike shop
is also undergoing some interior renovations, he said, "to spruce it up a
bit."
The approvals
for the project authorized a 4,975-square-foot restaurant with a large
outdoor patio that will take the place of the former movie theater there. Also,
2,170 square feet of retail space would be added next to the restaurant.
The businesses
which closed already are two athletic-equipment businesses, Rink and
Racket and Gym Source, as their leases were not renewed.
Rink and Racket owner David LaRusso said he was considering
his options and had no immediate plans for the business.
Gym Source, part of a national chain, said the Greenwich
employees were relocated to another Gym Source store in White Plains, N.Y.
Planet
Pizza is planning to close at the end of this month to re-open at a
new location in central Greenwich at the Stop & Shop Plaza on West Putnam
Avenue. Owner Sam Silva said there was no surprise when the lease was not
renewed for his business; merchants all knew that a substantial renovation was
in the works for years that would re-make the site.
"We all knew it was coming," he said.
The Bow Tie Cinema closed in 2020 because of the coronavirus
pandemic.
There was no immediate comment from management at the Olive
Branch restaurant what the plans were for the operation.
There will be substantial public benefits from the
renovations, according to the development team, in addition to a more modern
and eye-catching train station. The new structure will employ granite,
limestone, cedar and a bronze-like alloy. A large central clock will be placed
in the exterior. Town leaders noted that the transportation center, more
than 50 years old, served as a poor gateway to Greenwich. Accessing the
platform was also a challenge for many rail-riders.
According to attorney Bruce Cohen, access will be much
easier. Commuters often complained about the old and difficult stairways
leading from the street to the train platform, a problem that will be
alleviated with the new design.
"The current project will improve access to the train
station for pedestrians, cyclists and persons with disabilities by
reconstructing sidewalks, increasing the width of the northern stairs, which
lead up to the train station platform and making improvements to ADA (American
with Disabilities Act) opportunities, including better access to the station’s
elevator," Cohen said.
The plans for renovations at Greenwich Plaza have
been in discussions for over five years, lengthened by a dispute over
air rights at the facility.
Concerns about parking at the newly renovated station and
commercial plaza were raised repeatedly during the review process. The Planning
& Zoning Commission said it would monitor traffic and parking conditions at
the site when the project is completed to see if modifications or valet parking
would be necessary.
The work at the transportation center is a public-private
partnership between the town of Greenwich, The Ashforth Company,
Metro-North Railroad and the Connecticut Department of Transportation.
Metro-North and the DOT own and operate the train facilities.
Can I use cannabis after work? In CT, it depends what your job is.
Possession and use of cannabis for recreational purposes
became legal in Connecticut on July 1, 2021, but how that affects employers and
employees is still evolving, according to Betsy Ingraham.
“The standard is going to be whether the employer has a
specific policy against the out-of-work use of marijuana,” said Ingraham, an
attorney practicing labor law at the New Haven-based law firm of Garrison,
Levin-Epstein, Fitzgerald & Pirrotti. “If they have a specific policy
about an employee not using marijuana off the job, they can lawfully discipline
or terminate an employee if an employee in fact partakes off the work site even
though it's legal.”
But even without a written policy regarding the use of
cannabis out of work, some employees are barred from smoking or ingesting
marijuana.
There are, according to state Department
of Labor guidance on the subject, several industries in which
employees are not allowed to use cannabis -- exemptions defined in the state
law that made cannabis legal for recreational use.
Those industries include mining, utilities, some
manufacturers, some construction, educational services, transportation
services, justice and safety-related activities, according to DOL.
“These employers are unaffected by the Cannabis law and may
treat on and off-duty employees in the exact same manner as they did prior to
the passage of this legislation,” the DOL’s guidance says.
People employed as firefighters, police officers, emergency
medical technicians, Correction Department employees with direct contact with
inmates or supervisors or employees who care for children, are also exempt from
the recreational cannabis legalization law.
Cannabis is legal in many states, including Connecticut, but
federal law still classifies cannabis as an illegal drug, so employers with
federal contracts or federal funding are exempt from state law.
State
law allows the possession of 1.5 ounces of cannabis on your person and
5 ounces of cannabis in a locked container, or in a locked motor vehicle glove
box or trunk. If an employee is not employed in an industry or a role that is
exempt from cannabis laws, they may not be disciplined for possession of
marijuana.
An employer may, however, prohibit an employee’s possession
of cannabis in a motor vehicle parked on the premises, if that policy is
written. An employer may also prohibit the use of cannabis, and the use of any
intoxicating substances during work hours.
“I think employees need to know whether their employer has a
specific policy on marijuana use outside work. That's the first thing that an
employee needs to know,” Ingraham said. “If their employer has such a written
policy, then they need to be aware of that before making the decision whether
to partake of recreational marijuana because if they are violating a specific
written policy of their employer, they could still be disciplined or
terminated.”
There is no clinical test available for marijuana, so the
law stipulates that, “The employer must have a reasonable suspicion, based on
the totality of the circumstances, that the observed employee is under the
influence of drugs or alcohol which adversely affects or could adversely affect
such employee’s job performance,” according to the DOL guidance.
Prospective employees who use cannabis as a medication, may
not be asked about their use during a job interview and may not be denied
employment based solely on their use of cannabis. The exception is for
positions affecting public safety, including police, firefighters and airline
pilots, according to the DOL.
Employers may ask job seekers about their use of
recreational cannabis, but cannot refuse to hire a prospective employee who
used cannabis outside the workplace prior to being hired unless it violates a
standing written policy or would put that employer in danger of losing a
federal contract or funding.
If an employee or prospective employee believes that their
rights under the state’s cannabis law have been violated, they may file a civil
action in court within 90 days of the alleged violation.
But, Ingraham said, if the use of cannabis violates a
written company policy, there is no appeals process.
“If they had a collective bargaining agreement or a union
contract that provided for an appeals process or a grievance process, then
obviously they could use that process,” she said. “But aside from that, if you
violate a policy of your employer, and there's no other there's no other
illegal reason for terminating you, then they certainly have the right to do
that.”
Hydrogen company to expand facility in Wallingford
Kate Ramunni
WALLINGFORD — A Norwegian green hydrogen company recently
announced plans for a “gigafactory” to be built in Michigan using technology
that is being developed and tested at the company’s Wallingford operation.
Nel Hydrogen makes devices that take water and split it into
hydrogen and oxygen, known as electrolyzers, as well as making fueling
stations. It recently announced plans for the new plant in Michigan, as well as
an expansion of Proton Onsite, the electrolyzer manufacturing facility on
Technology Drive in Wallingford, which it purchased in 2017. The Wallingford
expansion will assist in the operations at the Michigan plant.
The company chose Michigan for its new plant because of its
proximity to General Motors, with which it has formed a partnership to make
electrolyzers more efficient and less expensive. CEO Håkon Volldal said
the company will make electrolyzers in the Detroit area to supply up to 4
gigawatts’ worth of hydrogen each year, making it among the largest such
factories in the world.
At Proton Onsite, new technology will be used that is
planned for the Michigan facility, according to Marketing Director Chris Van
Name.
"We are expanding to 500 megawatts" from the
current 50 megawatt capacity, he said, "and they are putting in a new
automated assembly system and new technology that they have been
developing. They are going to expand Wallingford and use it as a testing ground
for the new automated equipment that they are going to be then putting into the
new facility in Michigan."
As a result of the $24 million investment, the facility is
expected to reach the 500 megawatt capacity by 2025.
Van Name said he did not have information with regard to how
many new jobs the project may bring to Wallingford, but said the company has
been actively hiring for the last year.
"Nel has hired a lot of employees separate from
the expansion, especially engineers," he said. "We have hired about
20 people this year."
Two years ago the company, working with RTI International, a
nonprofit research institute, was part of team that received a $10
million U.S. Department of Energy grant to create new processes for
producing and using low-carbon energy carriers like ammonia, which can be
easily transported for use in agriculture, industry and as an energy source.
Hydrogen that is produced using electricity from a grid
powered by renewable energy, such as wind and solar, can cost about $5 per
kilogram. That’s driven largely by the cost of electricity so it can vary
widely by location. Most hydrogen today is not this type and does contribute to
climate change because it is made from natural gas. It costs far less, about $1
to $2 per kilogram to produce. The DOE set a goal to reduce the cost of clean
hydrogen to $1 per kilogram in a decade.
How DOT determined the Gold Star Bridge was safe to reopen after catching fire
Erica Moser
Editor’s note: Some terms in this article have been defined
using the Ohio Department of Transportation’s Glossary of Bridge Terms.
Groton ― When Gov. Ned Lamont held a news briefing at 3 p.m.
on Friday, April 21 about the fatal Gold Star Memorial Bridge accident from 11:15
that morning, Connecticut Department of Transportation Commissioner Garrett
Eucalitto said of the southbound span, “It’s going to be an extended closure.
We don’t know how long, until we’re able to do an extensive analysis of the
structure.”
The Gold Star Memorial Bridge's two steel truss spans carry
Interstate 95 traffic over the Thames River between New London and Groton.
Given the shock of the earlier plumes of black smoke
emanating from the bridge, there was some surprise when two southbound lanes
opened three hours later. Additional lanes opened the following morning, but
the right-hand acceleration lane and pedestrian walkway remain closed.
So, how did DOT officials determine the southbound span was
safe to open after a crash with a fuel truck led to flaming fuel running along
the bridge? What does a structural analysis entail?
“The Gold Star Bridge was inspected by experts immediately
following the crash, which is why it was able to reopen several hours later,”
DOT spokesperson Josh Morgan said in an email Wednesday. “Under no
circumstances would that bridge have been reopened if there were any safety
concerns.”
Division Chief of Bridges Bart Sweeney said the fire started
on the deck of the bridge and traveled down the drainage scupper, an opening
for water accumulated on the roadway to drain. The fire traveling down the
scuppers is how the superstructure got exposed to the fire, leading to
questions about whether the fire impacted the structural integrity of the
bridge.
Sweeney said he was one of six DOT workers whose primary
focus was the structural integrity of the bridge ― and it turns out there’s a
lot engineers can determine through visual cues.
But first there was the initial response. Paul Rizzo, bureau
chief of highway operations, noted that the operations center in Bridgeport
co-habitates with Connecticut State Police Troop G, so they find out about
incidents when state police get 911 calls. DOT also has cameras near the
bridge.
Rizzo said service patrol vehicles immediately responded.
Once DOT knew what was going on, they started dispatching maintenance, bridge
and electrical crews, along with the director of District 2 and managers that
oversee maintenance of the bridge. Rizzo headed to the scene from the
Southington area.
He said between state and contractor employees, DOT had
about 75 people supporting the bridge response from the day through the night.
As principal engineer of Bridge Safety and Evaluation, Mary
Baker got a call from the operations group in Bridgeport and first looked to
see what staff and equipment were available.
A project to repair and strengthen the northbound span,
which received a “poor” rating for its deck and superstructure in 2019, began last year. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete
Buttigieg visited the bridge in January to highlight a $158 million federal grant for repairs to the
northbound span.
The inspection report for the April 21 incident says Baker
was notified at 11:35 a.m. and initiated the investigation. The report said the
roadway showed about 420 feet of fire damage to the lane off the right ramp and
the shoulder area.
There was also about 400 feet of damage to the parapet ― the
concrete wall on the outer edge of the roadway ― and railing mounted on the
parapet, and 300 feet of damage to the sidewalk. The fence and supports
sustained 320 feet of damage, and so a temporary chain-link fence is in place.
According to an April 26 memo from Scott Hill, chief
engineer in the Bureau of Engineering and Construction, Office of Bridge Safety
personnel arrived around 2 p.m. They didn’t yet have access to the top of the
bridge, as state police were still working on accident reconstruction
But they were granted access below the bridge, which Sweeney
said “is the most critical area for us to start with.”
“We want to look at the integrity of the foundations of the
bridge, of the bearings that hold the steel up, and then the steel itself,”
Sweeney said. The first steps are understanding where the fire was located,
what sort of fuel was associated with the fire, how long it burned, and how
long the burn affected the structure, Sweeney said. The next phase is a visual
inspection.
“The internal temperature of the steel is very critical to
these assessments,” Sweeney said. But since his team wasn’t there when the fire
was burning, they couldn’t measure the temperature, so visual cues are
important.
Workers used the 135-foot manlift to look at the fire
pattern on the superstructure ― the large beams with the truss ― and determine
“if there was any damage done to the structure because of excessive heat and
excessive duration of heat.”
Noting that material generally expands when heated, Sweeney
said the first good sign was there was no deformation in the flanges, which are
the horizontal parts of I-shaped beams, or buckling in the portion between the
flanges. Looking at the superstructure from the bridge down to the bearings,
Sweeney said they “saw no signs of distortion.”
He said the next thing they look at to determine steel
temperature is the paint, because paint begins to fail around 750 degrees and
completely fails at 1,100 degrees. Inspection crews took soot from different
locations to confirm the paint system remained intact.
“As long as temperature stays below 1100 degrees, the
structural integrity is not compromised,” Sweeney said. Workers looked at the
external paint and the paint on the backside, finding “no deficiencies in the
paint system.”
A third positive sign was the 11:44 a.m. call Sweeney got
from the deck saying the fire was out.
“A half-hour duration is also a key indicator that the steel
was not exposed to fire sufficiently long to bring its temperature up to that
critical temperature,” he said.
Sweeney said if the superstructure had been jeopardized, DOT
was looking at an alternate plan to push southbound traffic onto the northbound
span.
Asked whether the southbound rehabilitation work that began
in 2017 had any impact on preventing the aftermath of the accident and fire
from being worse, Sweeney said no, that “the structure was already prepared to
survive an event like this.”
Rizzo thinks that fuel spreading out and burning “was
probably better than being in a concentrated location and burning.” By
comparison, he recalled the concentrated and long-burning fire on the I-95
Howard Avenue overpass in Bridgeport in 2004.
That incident was also the result of an accident between a
car and a truck carrying home heating oil, but unlike on the Gold Star Memorial
Bridge, the fire melted the bridge superstructure. The southbound lanes were
closed for six days, until a temporary bridge opened.
Reopening the bridge and next steps
Rizzo said as Sweeney’s team did its assessment underneath
the bridge and it became clear the left two lanes could likely reopen, the
highway operations team was coming up with a traffic plan and acquiring the
needed materials.
Between arriving by 12:30 and leaving around 9 p.m., Rizzo
coordinated with state police and communicated as much info as he could to
Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto.
Rizzo was back early the next morning, with a target of
opening more lanes by noon. This happened, though the acceleration lane,
shoulder and sidewalk remain closed.
Sweeney, who went up top after doing work below the bridge,
also said there was a lot of damage to the parapet and so DOT also had to
assess whether the fire jeopardized its integrity.
He said the spalling of the concrete was 2 to 3 inches deep
but not enough to see the reinforcing bars, which are what give the parapet its
strength, so DOT felt the parapets still had structural strength.
DOT spokesperson Josh Morgan said Wednesday the agency is
awaiting a report from consultant Michael Baker International, from a follow-up
inspection, before determining if lab testing of the parapets and deck is
needed. The results of the inspection will determine whether the parapets can be
rehabilitated or if they need to be completely replaced.
Morgan said MBI is also assessing the sidewalk, and there is
no word yet on when it will reopen.
Baker said DOT is tracking expenses related to its work on
the bridge, which are mostly labor and equipment, and Morgan said he doesn’t
have an update yet on what kind of reimbursements it could get either through
insurance or the federal government.
24-unit apartment development planned in Meriden
A local construction company could be breaking ground this
spring on a 24-unit multifamily development on a Main Street property near
Hanover Road and the Quinnipiac River in Meriden.
Rincon Holdings LLC and principal Joseph Larosa of
Meriden-based Larosa Family Associates is planning to build three new
residential buildings totaling nearly 14,400 square feet at 33 Main St. Two
buildings would have nine units and one would have six.
The 3.4-acre property currently contains a commercial
building, which would be demolished to make room for the new development,
according to development plans.
This application was reviewed and eventually approved by the
Inland, Wetlands and Watercourses Commission in late 2022, after issues related
to floodplains were addressed, then by the city Plan Commission earlier this
year.
No building permits have yet been pulled for the demolition,
city officials said, but that is the next step before building can start.