News
School Rules
November 14, 2008
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| The construction industry is experiencing an overall deteriorationin quality of work, with master builders dying out and more people working without proper educational and safety training. That's whatVincent Battista says, whom we caught up with recently at theInstitute of Design and Construction's Brooklyn campus, which he leads as president. New York has been developing so fast over the past two years that equipment has gone from site to site withoutsequential inspections, and workers find themselves in dangerous situations without the skills to get through them. Although the City has responded with new training and safety initiatives, many were implemented after unfortunate events. |
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| “When there's a boom, a worker's mentality has been, ‘Why should I go to school?'†Vincent says. In turn, he's been trying to impress upon the industry that education is an investment for all workers, and they only need to attend relevant training and classes. Foremployers, it's a small amount of money, but the payback in the end is greater because workers are smarter and safer. If you listen closely, the Moses statue in the school lobby is saying, “Let your people go!†|
