Background:

The City of Philadelphia, the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative's (NTI) Prime Contractors, and OSHA's Region III Philadelphia Area Office first developed an OSHA Strategic Partnership (OSP) in November of 2004. The Partnership was formed to reduce injuries, illnesses, and fatalities for demolition contractors during the City of Philadelphia's initiative involving the removal of dangerous buildings throughout the city. The Partnership is based on three guiding principles: 1) conduct demolition in a safe, orderly manner; 2) minimize community disruption; and 3) structure bid documents to decrease costs and meet goals for community participation.

The Partnership encourages participating demolition contractors to improve their safety and health performance, to eliminate serious accidents in the construction industry, and to recognize contractors with exemplary safety and health management systems (SHMS). The Partnership was renewed in August 2006.

Success Impact:

Dangerous Demolition Initiative Results in No Fatalities

The chart below represents some of the injury and illness data collected over the past year from the Partnership's most recent annual evaluation. The Partnership's Total Case Incident Rate (TCIR) was 18% below the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) national average for that industry. Also, during the duration of the NTI Partnership, a total of 2,558 homes/structures were demolished with no fatal accidents during this high-risk activity.

Improvements made to Participating Employers' Safety and Health Management Systems

By participating in the Partnership, all of the participating employers improved their SHMS. Some specific improvements included working with site safety management to develop and implement new types of fall protection measures. Other improvements included increasing employee buy-in and involvement by developing a standardized Safety and Health Orientation PowerPoint that portrayed the importance of focusing on safety while accomplishing day-to-day tasks at work.

Partnership Objectives:

The key objective of this Partnership is to reduce occupationally-related fatalities by 3% and serious injuries in this industry by 4% each year. The Partnership hopes it will meet this objective through conducting day-to-day business in a safe manner, minimizing community disruption, and structuring bid documents to decrease costs and meet goals for community participation.

• Origin: Region III, Philadelphia Area Office
• Partners: SJ Enterprises, General Excavation & Demolition, Inc., Plus General Contracting, Inc., Topside Demolition & Construction, Inc., Hazeez & Associates, Inc., One Man Gang Construction, Inc., Ednic Construction Company, Inc., Brock Brothers Construction, Young & Brothers Construction, Inc., Take Down Construction, Inc., Economical Construction, Inc., Parlow & Riddick Construction, LLC, Luzon, Inc., Riddick & Riddick General Contracting, Raul Santos General Contracting, USA Environmental Management, Inc., Hart Enterprises & Associates, Inc., W & W Contracting, Inc., JPC Group, Inc., Molly Construction, Alfa Nedce, Inc., LP Group 2, Inc., Inner City Construction, Inc., Ray's Home Repair & Demolition, Inc., Nicholas Della Vacchia, James Wilson Construction, S & D Masonry Company.
• Partnership Signed: November 2004; renewed August 2006
• Industry: Construction, NAICS Code 23891, 23814, SIC Code 1795, 1741, respectively
• Employees: 207
• Employers: 27
• Source: James Touey, Region III, Philadelphia Area Office / April 2008