It was less than a day after the passage of Intro 1447 — the controversial bill that will require the city’s construction workers to complete a 40-hour safety training course — that Real Estate Board of New York president John Banks joined The Real Deal‘s Hiten Samtani for an exclusive interview.
“Given the number of people to try and train in safety modules that not even had been developed yet, we felt was a bad piece of public policy,” Banks said in defense of REBNY’s criticism of the legislation. “At least we anticipate that it would result in thousands upon thousands of people not having jobs because they couldn’t get the training in the time frames that were under discussion.”
Banks also raised the question of just who will foot the bill for the training program. Though the legislation includes incentives for developers to cover some costs, the financial responsibility will also be placed contractors.
To see Banks talk more about Intro 1447, watch the video above. See the full interview here.
Produced by Jhila Farzaneh and Kerry Barger. Interview conducted by Hiten Samtani