What is NYC Local Law 196 and what does it mean for New York construction workers and contractors?

Construction workers fatalities and injuries are on the rise in New York City. The boom in construction has lead to a shortage in experienced construction workers and as a result many contractors have been hiring workers with less or little experience without providing them proper safety training.  To reduce the number of injuries and deaths on NYC construction sites and make sure every construction worker is proprely trained about safety, the New York City Council introduced  new legislation “NYC Local Law 196”  that increases the minimum number of training hours for a construction worker to 59 hours.

What does NYC Local Law 196 mean for construction workers and contractors?

NYC Local Law 196 is being implemented in 3 phases

1. The first phase is already over. All NYC construction workers hired on a construction sites were required to complete 10 hours of training by March 2018.
2. Phase 2: by June 1st 2019, all hard hats will be required to carry a Limited Site Safety Training (SST) Card to work on a NYC construction site. The limited SST card indicates that the worker will have completed one of the following training:
   • OSHA-10 plus an additional 20 hours of training (eight hours of fall prevention training, an eight-hour site safety manager refresher and four hours of scaffold training)
   • OSHA-30
   • 100-hour program approved by the DOB
3. Phase 3: by September 2020 all workers will be required to have a SST card which workers can obtain by completing a total of 40 hours of the following training:
   • OSHA-10 plus an additional 30-45 hours of training
   • OSHA 30 plus an additional 10-25 hours of training
   • 100-hour program approved by the DOB

By June 1st, supervisors will be required to have completed a 62 hour site safety training and obtained their SST card.

The NYC Department of Buildings will send unannounced inspectors to construction sites to verify workers qualifications. If an untrained worker is found on the site the owner of the site, the permit holder, and the employer of the untrained worker will each be given a $5,000 penalty. The permit holder is also required to maintain a log verifying that all workers on sites are proprely trained. Failure to provide a log will result in a $2,500 penalty.