Courtesy CII-Godrej GBC The CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre in Hyderabad was one of the first commercial buildings in India to have a green roof. There are strong incentives against litigating disputes that may arise in the future from similar projects. Related Links: Industry Participants Outline Added Green-Building Risks Where are the green lawsuits? If you are wondering why you haven't read or heard about more litigation related to green projects, we have some ideas about why. If you think you can drop your guard and forget about the risks involved, please don't. The first reason we haven't seen more
Related Links: Judges Overturn Same-Sex Harass Verdict Against Boh Bros. Kerry S. Woods' wait for justice regarding his sexual harassment case will have to wait longer. Last month, a federal appeals court reversed a jury verdict and an award of $301,000 that Woods and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission won last year from contractor Boh Brothers Construction Cos. In effect, the ruling said the case did not meet the legal threshold because the victim exhibited traditional masculine behavior.The case involves a Boh supervisor who tormented Woods by calling him "homo" and "faggot" while they worked in New Orleans on
Related Links: Engineering News Record Architectural Record Now that the new highway-and-transit funding bill is finally signed into law, prime contractors that hate disadvantaged-business-enterprise, or DBE, goal programs shouldn't waste time hoping a potential President Romney will wipe them away in the same way he has pledged to nullify the 2010 health-care act just blessed by the Supreme Court. Not even the Tea Party has expressed interest in transportation DBEs. But it's a mistaketo believe that nothing needs to be fixed in DBE requirements, which have existed since 1983. This would be a good time to adjust the rules and
Related Links: Judge Acquits NYC Crane Owner Lawyers Trade Contradictory Facts as N.Y. Crane Collapse Criminal Trial Restarts The acquittal of crane owner James F. Lomma on criminal charges related to a 2008 crane collapse in New York City leaves the public's opinion of crane safety in the cramped, complicated city very much in doubt. Some owners and contractors have not shown they are capable of operating cranes safely without serious accident for a sustained period of time. The extreme density of Manhattan requires extra precautions.So far, neither criminal prosecutions nor financial liability by the crane owners and operators has
Related Links: Obama Makes Three Recess Appointments to NLRB Business Groups Challenge New NLRB Rule NLRB Members Vote in Favor of Streamlining Union Election Process Let's make sure the U.S. never again has to hang up multiple vacancy signs for unfilled board seats at the National Labor Relations Board headquarters at 14th Street, N.W., in Washington, D.C. One way to avoid long vacancies in the first place is to lift the NLRB above the politics of business and unions so that the board's sole concern is the fair enforcement of U.S. labor law.To do that, we'll need longer-serving board members.President
The U.S. Labor Dept.'s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is an important agency with a difficult mission. One thing made clear by OSHA's current leadership is that the agency isn't getting the full picture of what's taking place on U.S. construction sites, partly because of underreporting of injuries and partly because of a lack of timeliness in the information it receives about accidents. To that end, OSHA has proposed changes—and thecomment period has just closed—to Recordkeeping Standard 29 CFR1904. One of the most important changes, for example, would require employers to report all inpatient hospitalizations within eight hours and all
Every pipeline is ugly, intrusive and potentially dangerous, no matter how barren the land that it crosses. In the best of all worlds, we would be charging our car batteries with hundreds of thousands of megawatts of electrical power from solar panels or wind turbines.
Sept. 5, 2011, was not a happy Labor Day celebration for the New York City area's building-trades unions, especially with the upcoming anniversary of the 9/11 attacks bringing back memories of union members' self-sacrificing rescue-and-recovery work. In the months leading up to the holiday, building-trades employers were busy bringing unions to reluctant agreement on the new post-recession realities. Unions for electricians, paint-ers and crane operators have come to terms on work-rule changes and limits on overtime that cut costs to employers by about 20%. New contracts with other unions still remain unsettled.At different times, the news media have mentioned that
iStockphoto Do concerns about liability limit the expansion of ethical engineering practice? The American Society of Civil Engineers has taken many steps to transform engineering and champion infrastructure. In 2009, the society produced a road map for the future of the profession; just recently, it produced a report documenting the economic costs of diminished spending on infrastructure. But a transformation so sweeping is bound to have rough spots, just as some of the most ardent supporters of a revolution are destined to be disap-pointed. Officially, ASCE policy supports engineers doing everything possible to promote safety. Making that happen in practice
The deaths of firefighters Joseph P. Graffagnino and Robert Beddia at the Deutsche Bank building at Ground Zero in 2007 needlessly replayed in miniature the tragedy that unfolded on Sept. 11, 2001, when 343 of New York's Bravest died. The high-rise bank building, adjacent to the World Trade Center, was damaged in the attack and, six years later, was being cleaned of asbestos and demolished. State Supreme Court Judge Rena Uviller and a jury in Manhattan now are deciding whether to convict three contractor site supervisors as well as subcontracting firm John Galt Corp. on criminal charges in connection with
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