Reshaping the Construction Industry

This week of June 2-6 has been designated National Fall Prevention Safety Stand-Down week by OSHA to help prevent injuries and deaths due to falls on the job.According to the Department of Labor blog site and OSHA statistics, there were 806 lives lost in construction in 2012 and 300 of them were due to falls on the job.The current plan is for as many as 25,000 businesses to host “stand-downs” and educational events for over 1 million workers.  These events and the safety standards taught in the “stand-downs” will definitely save workers lives across the entire country.  During the “stand-down” on the construction sites, the companies will describe fall hazards and show ways to prevent those reportable falls on the job sites.Please urge your companies and your team members to participate in this important OSHA event.  It could save your life.  

Once when I was a kid, my parents had a truckload of dirt dumped onto our driveway.  Their intent, and the eventual result, was that the dirt was to be used to level the low spots in our lawn.  However, the immediate response to that glorious pile of dirt was that for a few weeks it became the greatest kid hangout on our block.  The neighborhood kids brought over their toy cars and trucks (both Matchbox and Tonka), and together we built the most amazing “city” complete with roads, tunnels, and bridges.Now lucky kids and their parents will be able to drive and to dig with actual construction equipment at the first construction-themed amusement park to open in the United States.  Diggerland USA is scheduled to open on Saturday, June 14 in the township of West Berlin, New Jersey, just a short drive from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  

The future of the next phase of construction for the proposed headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, DC has once again become a political football, according to a recent article in the Washington Post. The project originally proposed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks was intended to consolidate the departments that are now housed in over 50 buildings around the capitol area into one location.

Memorial Day prompts reflection and appropriately so. We must never forget all of those who gave their lives for our freedom, whether in the two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf or in the fighting that continues today. To paraphrase, Winston Churchill, “Never has so much been owed by so many to so few.”This day also prompts homage to those who returned, those heroes who then turned their talents and patriotism to making this country the great nation that it is. One group that deserves our continuous study and emulation is the veterans of World War II, that special group of men and women heralded in Tom Brokaw’s marvelous book, The Greatest Generation. Brokaw wrote this book as a tribute to his father and his buddies, all World War II vets. It is a compelling story, which every American can benefit from reading. He eloquently conveys how this group came back, and although they were owed so much, they never wanted to do anything but continue to serve and give in their companies, their communities and their country. The leaders, both officers and enlisted, went on to start and head companies, to build America into a great industrial economy, while at the same time ensuring that the men and women who had served and supported them in wartime had decent jobs in peacetime, jobs that could allow them to feed their families and realize the American Dream.