UPDATE: As of December 2019, Building Skills New York has ended its OSHA-30 classes.
Building Skills New York and Public Housing Communities Inc. have been offering — for free — OSHA training that will soon become mandatory for New York City construction workers.
The city's Local Law 196 requires construction workers in all five boroughs to have completed at least 30 hours of site safety training courses by Dec. 1 in order to be permitted to work. The law demands that they have 40 hours of such training by Sept. 1, 2020.
The organizations first announced the classes, called OSHA-30 courses, early this year. According to the Building Skills website, participants — like those pictured above at a Sept. 17 session — will gain knowledge on a variety of safety topics including how to prevent falls, information on hazardous materials and guidance on working heavy machinery.
Workers interested in the free construction site safety training can call Building Skills New York at 212-776-4149.
“Building Skills believes that New York City’s ongoing construction boom must continue to provide good jobs for residents of the communities in which new projects are being built,” David Meade, executive director of Building Skills New York, said in a Sept. 20 release. “We are taking another step to advance that mission ... to ensure that more locally based workers have the safety training they need to gain and maintain good construction jobs.”
Charlene Nimmons, founder and CEO of Public Housing Communities Inc., said in a March 5 release: “We are appreciative of what we have built to help those that find themselves on the outskirts of the construction industry.”
Local Law 196 was back in the news last spring, after three construction workers died within a week at sites in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
