Lessons Learned from Las Vegas

Details

• Personal Author:
  Watters M
• Description:
  June 3, 2008, was not just another hot day on the Las Vegas Strip. After 12 workers died in 18 months on Strip construction projects (an average of one worker every six weeks), some 7,000 construction workers on the CityCenter and Cosmopolitan work sites walked off the job over safety concerns. The Southern Nevada Building & Construction Trades Council and Perini Building Company, the general contractor on both projects, quickly sat down to talk. By the end of the day, they had forged an agreement that named CPWR. The Center for Construction Research and Training to conduct a site safety assessment of the two projects. CPWR also would coordinate OSHA 10-hour safety and health training for workers needing certification. Safety orientation efforts were sometimes skewed by the way the ideas were presented. In one session, a safety officer said others called him "Safety Hitler." He probably thought he sounded tough on "zero tolerance" for unsafe practices, but new hires could easily assume that workers and foremen reacted negatively to his enthusiasm and were not eager to practice work site safety. A review of safety program management found areas for improvement. A weekly newsletter reported work site injuries, but it went only to Perini staff, not to subcontractors whose workers often suffered the injuries. Perini held weekly safety meetings sent to Perini staff and subcontractors, but attendance was not mandatory, so many subs didn't know about problems in a timely manner. Also, no joint labor-management safety committee existed. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Construction Industry Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Safety Safety Management Workplace
• Keywords:
  Construction-industry Construction-workers Injuries Injury-prevention Occupational-hazards Occupational-safety-programs Protective-measures Safety-equipment Safety-measures Safety-personnel Safety-practices Safety-programs Safety-research Work-analysis Work-environment Work-practices Worker-health Workplace-monitoring Workplace-studies

  More +
• ISSN:
  0362-4064
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Iowa ; Maryland ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 7
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  78
• Issue:
  6
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20035584
• Citation:
  Occup Health Saf 2009 Jun; 78(6):15-16,18,20,73
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2009
• NORA Priority Area:
  Construction
• Performing Organization:
  CPWR-The Center for Construction Research and Training, Silver Spring, Maryland
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20040801
• Source Full Name:
  Occupational Health and Safety
• End Date:
  20090630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:9b28138d4e41bc15be472885f4a6dfd517c08b273bf0047fcc63d99e997e64b15f9b5763d325088fa96f81ce5e9459ce143b8cf2810f13d5d8bbbac44f9ddd83
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/187400/cdc_187400_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.21 MB ]