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A sanctioned one-day strike by the Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council in June on the two Las Vegas projects was led by picketing workers chanting “No More Deaths.”
The action fostered immediate improvements at the sites, which include six high-rise towers. At first, general contractor Perini Construction asserted that increased accidents were the fault of the individuals working on the mixed retail, gaming and residential project.

The building trades called attention to the critical need for improved training and access prior to the strike. The next day, the parties negotiated a memorandum of agreement providing for all workers without OSHA 10 certification on the job site to be given the training on the employers’ time and authorizing the Center for Construction Research and Training, a building trades-sponsored non-profit research organization, perform a third-party independent safety assessment.

Since the Las Vegas settlement, the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, has advocated immediate steps to improve federal construction safety standards and inspections.

Las Vegas Local 357 Business Manager David Jones had worked with signatory contractors to set up a new safety training program for foremen and general foreman months before the walkout.

“Every one of our members deserves a safe workplace,” says Jones, who has asked his members for input into the new safety training for supervisors. “We understand that contractually the employer is responsible for safety,” he says. But IBEW foremen and represent the employers and direct the activities of the crews.

“Our members are fully engaged,” says Jones, who had 18 stewards volunteer to take the safety course. Electrical contractors have mostly cooperated with the union on safety, says Ernest Austin, a Newport News, Va. Local 1340 traveler. Austin, who has been working in Las Vegas since last December, said more hopeful that the other trades will be working more safely to protect electricians from collateral damage.

Local 357’s efforts are motivated by the local’s own losses. In April, Mark Wescoat, a journeyman wireman traveler from Folsom, N.J., Local 351, was killed in a fall at Las Vegas City Center. In 2004, Local 357 journeyman wireman Walter Krause died after suffering severe burns at the Bellagio Suites Tower as he was energizing a switch gear. In 2003, Keith Martin spent two weeks in a burn unit and died after an arc flash on an outage at MGM Hotel/Casino. Martin had turned out of his apprenticeship only two months before the accident.

Unionists say that worker safety on the projects is compromised by a number of factors. The huge revenue stream that flows from slot machines and gaming tables leads owners to pressure contractors for exact completion dates. The pressure is global. Dubai World, the official investment agency of the Persian Gulf state of Dubai has nearly $5 billion invested in CityCenter and owns almost 10 percent of MGM Mirage.

Trades are literally working on top of each other, says Jones, increasing the risk of accidents. Meanwhile, declining tax revenues as a result of the mortgage foreclosure crisis—combined with a fall-off in gaming revenues—have left Nevada OSHA and Clark County’s occupational safety agency with less money for safety inspectors.

Construction Safety Facts

Four workers are killed every day on average at U.S. construction sites.

Construction fatalities equal 10 times the number of firemen and policemen killed on the job each year.

Construction workers make up only 8 percent of the U.S. workforce, but account for more than 22 percent of all work-related deaths

It would take OSHA an average of 17.6 years to inspect all of U.S. construction sites under current funding.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s budget for research into construction safety has fallen over the last 13 years.

For additional facts, read the congressional testimony of Mark Ayers, President, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, “Is OSHA Failing to Adequately Enforce Construction Safety Rules?”

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