Once again, I present my Top 10 New Year's Resolutions for everyone in the construction industry.
10. Take time to laugh a little.
9. Be consistent in your contract drafting to avoid fighting the same battles in litigation AND in arbitration.
8. Promptly report all potential losses and claims to your insurance company and specifically request defense and indemnity for you and any employee named in the claim or lawsuit. And document your reporting!
7. Beware of lien waivers!
6. Safety first on the job site. It avoids litigation, keeps OSHA away, maintains employee morale, and most importantly–it’s the right thing to do.
5. Know who you’re contracting with and make sure they are financially viable (or have a bonding or insurance company that is). This is so important I repeated it from last year’s list and moved it up.
4. Sometimes, the best decisions you make are the decisions to turn down business. A marginal, slow, or non-paying customer that brings headaches is sometimes worse than no customer at all.
3. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. In other words, don’t rely solely on one large project, as problems with that project (including nonpayments) will put you at the upstream party’s mercy and drastically hurt your business.
2. Properly document your change orders and don’t just rely on unsigned letters or emails.
And once again, the #1 New Year’s legal resolution for 2011 for everyone in construction:
1. Read your contracts! Understand your contracts! Enforce your contracts!!!
Showing posts with label workplace safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label workplace safety. Show all posts
Friday, January 7, 2011
Monday, August 31, 2009
OSHA Keeps an Eagle Eye on Texas
Workplace safety should be the at the top of the priority list for every industry, but the construction industry should give it even more importance because of the often times dangerous nature of the business. Worker protection is a worthy goal in and of itself, but there are, of course, other advantages to injury prevention. Lower insurance premiums, fewer missed work days (and hence, increased productivity), and employee morale are all side benefits of a safe workplace.
And so is OSHA compliance. OSHA has recently increased the number of inspectors in Texas in an effort to bolster construction site safety compliance. To do so, it has brought in inspectors from outside of Texas.
OSHA announced that it is focusing on Texas because the state has the highest rate of construction site fatalities. As many companies have learned the hard way, OSHA violations can be quite costly. For example, in May 2009, the organization issued citations to a Dallas-area company for one repeat and two willful violations. The proposed penalties totaled $60,000. (The investigation was prompted by a workplace fatality, which is likely to bring litigation and significantly increased costs beyond OSHA fines.)
Attention to workplace safety should permeate every business in the construction industry. A culture of safety should be instilled from day 1 with every employee. It begins with the implementation of policies and employee training. It continues with daily vigilance on safety issues in the office and on job sites. And it is brought full circle with an intolerance for poor practices.
Fortunately, the overall trend in safety has shown steady improvement. Since OSHA was created in 1971, occupational deaths have been cut by 62% and injuries have declined by 42%. More recently, the AGC announced the results of a new analysis that found construction safety incidents dropped 38% over the last ten years and the construction fatality rate declined 47 percent since 1998, the year the federal government switched to a safety oversight approach known as "collaborative safety."
There are countless legal issues that could be discussed in the context of workplace safety, but the one that stands above them all has less to do with a courtroom and more to do with avoiding a very unpleasant conversation with a wife, mother, or parent. For that reason alone, the quest for a safe workplace is a battle worth fighting every day.
And so is OSHA compliance. OSHA has recently increased the number of inspectors in Texas in an effort to bolster construction site safety compliance. To do so, it has brought in inspectors from outside of Texas.
OSHA announced that it is focusing on Texas because the state has the highest rate of construction site fatalities. As many companies have learned the hard way, OSHA violations can be quite costly. For example, in May 2009, the organization issued citations to a Dallas-area company for one repeat and two willful violations. The proposed penalties totaled $60,000. (The investigation was prompted by a workplace fatality, which is likely to bring litigation and significantly increased costs beyond OSHA fines.)
Attention to workplace safety should permeate every business in the construction industry. A culture of safety should be instilled from day 1 with every employee. It begins with the implementation of policies and employee training. It continues with daily vigilance on safety issues in the office and on job sites. And it is brought full circle with an intolerance for poor practices.
Fortunately, the overall trend in safety has shown steady improvement. Since OSHA was created in 1971, occupational deaths have been cut by 62% and injuries have declined by 42%. More recently, the AGC announced the results of a new analysis that found construction safety incidents dropped 38% over the last ten years and the construction fatality rate declined 47 percent since 1998, the year the federal government switched to a safety oversight approach known as "collaborative safety."
There are countless legal issues that could be discussed in the context of workplace safety, but the one that stands above them all has less to do with a courtroom and more to do with avoiding a very unpleasant conversation with a wife, mother, or parent. For that reason alone, the quest for a safe workplace is a battle worth fighting every day.
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