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OSHA Announces Safety & Health Partnership on Manhattan Construction Project

NEW YORK -- The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) has signed a site safety and health partnership agreement with the construction contractor Turner Construction Company, The Building Trades Employers' Association, and the Building and Construction Trades Council. The partnership is for the ongoing construction project at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center located at 423 East 68th Street in Manhattan.

Turner Construction Company is the prime contractor in the construction of two buildings for the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Building one will be a 23 story, 557,000 square foot facility inclusive of three basements and an excavation depth of 75 feet. Building two, the smaller of the two buildings will consist of 10 stories, two basements and an excavation depth of 45 feet. The project, currently in the excavation phase commenced in February of 2002 and is scheduled to be completed in December of 2005.

Signatories for OSHA included Region 2 Regional Administrator Patricia K. Clark and Manhattan Area Director Richard Mendelson. Also signing were Peter Davoren, Senior Vice President, Turner; James Mc Kenna, Vice President/General Manager, Turner; Michael Handler, Director of Safety New York, Turner; Louis J. Coletti, Chairman & CEO, Building Trades Employers Association; and Edward J. Malloy, President, Building & Construction trades Council.

This partnership is thus far one of three that have been formed with contractors that participated in the clean up operations at The World Trade Center. The partnerships give OSHA an opportunity to assist contractors in developing a workplace culture that focuses on safety and health. There are also provisions in the partnership that allow for the prime contractor to assist their subcontractors in improving their safety and health programs. OSHA representatives also participate in safety & health meetings at the site an invitation that would not normally be extended in the course of operations at construction sites.

Partnership agreements allow for contractors to be more involved in safety & health and offer incentives from OSHA that will serve to increase emphasis on employee safety & health concerns. Some of these incentives include OSHA providing training or other assistance with safety and industrial hygiene concerns. The partnership however, does not preclude OSHA from enforcing its mission of addressing complaints, fatalities, serious accidents, nor does it infringe on the rights of employees to report workplace hazards.