City raiding job sites in search of fake safety certifications

NYC agencies amp up response to increase in construction deaths and accidents

NYC Construction
Construction site near the High Line in Chelsea

With construction-related work deaths on the rise, city investigators are discreetly appearing at job sites and arresting workers with fake safety training cards.

Construction workers are required to take safety courses run by the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration to reduce accidents at job sites, but there has been a growing problem with workers blowing off the courses and using fraudulent OSHA cards claiming they received training.




Behind the story:

Department of Buildings

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More than 20 workers with the bogus cards have been busted at city construction sites since the beginning of the year, according to the New York Daily News. The sweep comes as construction injuries and deaths in the city have jumped sharply in the past several years.

The Department of Buildings, which is among the city agencies coordinating the sweeps, has taken increased action against contractors in response – revoking Brooklyn-based MRMD NY’s license last month and pulling that of Kenneth Hart’s Harco Construction, which is facing criminal charges for the death of a worker at the Restoration Hardware site in Chelsea earlier this year, in August.

Last month also saw a 19-year-old construction worker killed at a Bedford-Stuyvesant building undergoing conversion and a 30-year-old man fall 13 floors to his death from scaffolding at an Upper East Side co-op building. [NYDN]Rey Mashayekhi