Effective health and safety interventions with small residential contractors in the Philadelphia area: Jobsite and community approaches

Small contractors with 20 or less employers account for more than half of construction fatalities. Their workforce has little or no safety and health training. They are more likely to work with old or defective equipment. They frequently work long hours, six days a week. Many speak no or limited English. Some of them are day laborers who are hired one day at a time. For the past 1 ½ years Philaposh has been developing an aggressive program in the Philadelphia area, funded by an OSHA Susan Harwood Training Grant, to find ways to motivate small residential contractors to participate in a fall protection training program for themselves and their workforce. This has included unannounced job site visits by Philaposh staff and trainers, outreach to community development organizations, designers, and architects, and involvement of community based Hispanic immigrant organizations for direct contact with these construction workers. We will present information about what we have found to be the obstacles in engaging this target group in health and safety training, and what have been the most effective interventions and training. To present the most comprehensive overview of our findings, we would propose a presentation that includes the Director of Philaposh (the author); a Philaposh OSHA outreach trainer who has done job site training; the Director of Juntos, an organization in South Philadelphia that has been organizing construction day laborers; and a construction designer who has been organizing support for fall protection training for small residential contractors.