Workzone Safety is Sacred at Local 860
Nothing is more important to Laborers’ Local 860 than protecting the safety of our members. We are unrelenting in our effort to find better ways of improving workzone safety because we know that each year 1,000 Americans, including Laborers, are killed and another 37,000 are injured in heavy-highway workzones.
In recent years, Local 860 has engaged in various creative activities aimed at better workzone safety. These include producing television commercials with the help from the Laborers-Employers Cooperation and Education Trust (LECET), a statewide joint effort of laborers and contractors.
Moreover, each spring at the outset of the construction season, we erect some 30 highly visible, orange and black billboards at critical highway workzones, reminding drivers to slow down. This year, we put up a special attention-getting billboard near Burke Lakefront Airport during the annual Cleveland National Air Show: “Slow In Work Zones Laborers860.com.”
We are one of the few unions partnering with a university in seeking better workzone safety. In fact, Business Manager Tony Liberatore sits on the Advisory Board of the University Transportation Center (UTC) at Cleveland State University, which is headed by Dr. Stephen F. Duffy, chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Dr. Duffy has raised more than $1.5 million to support the UTC, which is conducting studies of the impact of safety signage at highway work sites. The UTC also has a simulator that replicates natural driving conditions, allowing researchers to collect data on drivers in near-crashes and other roadway incidents.
Recently, the UTC agreed to perform a study on billboard effectiveness. For 860 members who were once known as ditch diggers, you are now receiving the benefits of the scientific behavioral study.
Apart from these initiatives, we also conduct Safety Classes at our new Training Center on Prospect Avenue coordinated by Local 860 Business Representative David Pasqualone. In addition, the statewide Laborers’ Drexel J. Thrash Training Center in Millwood, Ohio, regularly holds hazardous waste and OSHA-certified safety classes.
In short, Local 860 is always thinking of new ways to promote construction zone safety.