Construction Site Turnstiles Ensure Local Law 196 Compliance

Introduction

With the highest growth in construction starts out of any city in the country, New York City is no stranger to taking on new construction projects. New York City added 15.3 billion dollars in new construction projects in 2022, so it is safe to say that construction in New York City is booming in the post-COVID world. With increases in construction projects come increases in site safety risks. To combat the growing risk of injury and fatalities on construction sites across the five boroughs, The New York Department of Building (DOB) has implemented Local Law 196 which requires construction workers and managers to complete certain safety training course hours in order to work on job sites across the city.

Construction companies risk receiving heavy fines for allowing workers onto their sites without having completed their required safety training. Savvy construction companies are now deploying construction site turnstiles outfitted iwth specialized construction workforce management software at their job sites to help prevent unauthorized individuals from gaining access to their sites. They implement these construction site turnstiles coupled with specialized construction site access control software and facial recognition scanners to make it nearly impossible for someone without the proper site safety training to gain access to their sites. These construction site access control solutions help construction companies and general contractors avoid fines and save money over the long run.

What is Local Law 196?

Local Law 196 (also known as “LL196” for short and officially known as “Local Law 196 of 2017- Site Safety Training”) is a regulation put in place by New York City in an effort to improve safety on construction sites around the city. This law was implemented on October 16, 2017 to help combat the rising number of construction-related injuries and fatalities around the city. Enforced by the New York Department of Buildings (DOB),  LL196 requires all construction workers and supervisors to receive standardized and necessary safety training before they can work on most major projects within the five boroughs.

What Does Local Law 196 Require You to Do?

Local Law 196 requires construction workers and managers to carry an active and valid Site Safety Training Card (SST Card for short) before they can work on construction sites throughout New York City. To obtain an SST Card, workers and managers need to complete a minimum number of safety training hours. This required training is meant to teach workers and managers to be safer on the job so injuries can be reduced. Construction workers must complete a total of 40 hours of safety training, broken out into 30 hours of Site Safety Training (SST) and an additional 10 hours of specialized training. Meanwhile, supervisors must finish 62 hours of site safety training to be compliant. The SST courses a specific worker or supervisor must take will vary based on their job title and past training experience.

Who Does Local Law 196 Affect?

Broadly, Local Law 196 affects most construction workers in the five boroughs of New York City. Specifically, any construction job site that is required to designate a Construction Superintendent, Site Safety Coordinator, or Site Safety Manager must comply with Local Law 196. That means all construction workers on these job sites need to meet the LL196 training requirements. In other words, the large majority of construction workers in New York City are affected by Local Law 196. In most scenarios, if you want to work as a construction worker anywhere in the five boroughs, you will need a valid SST card and you need to keep up to date with your training.

Local Law 196 doesn’t just affect construction workers, though. Job owners, permit holders, and employers are “on the hook” and responsible for ensuring Local Law 196 compliance. It is their job to ensure that every worker on their site has completed their site safety training in full and has a valid SST card to prove it. Owners are charged steep penalties for failing to comply with Local Law 196. Specifically, owners will be charged penalties as high as $5000 for each and every untrained worker found on a construction site. Further, a proper log must be kept active and updated regularly to certify that all workers on a site are compliant and properly trained. Failure to keep an updated log of employee compliance results in a penalty of at least $2500. Apart from these fines, owners will not be issued permits for construction or demolition work while they or their employees are non-compliant.

Construction Site Turnstiles Help Prevent Local Law 196 Fines

We know that construction site owners and permit holders receive extremely steep fines for 2 reasons:

1. They have workers and managers on site without proper site safety training or without an SST card
2. They fail to maintain an accurate and current log that proves all of the workers at a site are trained

As you can see, it is crucial for permit holders to ensure only the right people gain entry into the job site while also keeping track of the coming and going of each and every employee. Some permit holders see this as a monumental task, but savvy owners and permit holders have begun to deploy construction site turnstiles at the entrances of their job sites. They fit their turnstiles with intuitive construction site management software to keep track of employee compliance, only letting people into the facility if they are permitted to be there.

Full Height Turnstiles Prevent Unauthorized Workers From Accessing Your Construction Site

Full height turnstiles are some of the most durable and affordable secured entry solutions on the market. They are designed to only let one person into a facility at a time per valid access credential. They do this by working in communication with an access control system. In the case of construction sites, full height turnstiles are often integrated with facial recognition scanners or fingerprint scanners to identify who the person is trying to enter the construction site. These biometric scanners determine “who” is trying to gain access to the job site while the construction site access control software linked to the scanner determines if that person has the proper site safety training required to enter the site. If the system determines that the person attempting to gain access has all the proper site safety training completed, it will send a signal to the turnstile to unlock and allow that one person into the site, promptly locking again after that person gains entry.

Full Height Turnstiles Help Keep Track of Who is At Your Site and When

Full height turnstiles are not only great for keeping the wrong people out of your construction site, they are also a great tool for tracking when workers come and go from the job site. Setting up a construction site where employees must enter AND exit through a turnstile enables owners/permit holders to timestamp when their employees are entering and exiting the site. These timestamps allow construction site managers and permit holders to keep accurate logs of their employees’ whereabouts, which helps them avoid the $2500 fines described above.

Full Height Turnstiles Are Easy to Implement at Construction Sites

Our SecureTurn full height turnstiles are some of the easiest full height turnstiles to install on your construction site. We designed our turnstiles with ease of installation in mind, so there is not a single turnstile component that cannot be picked up by 1-2 people. Installation is a breeze with each piece numbered to fit with corresponding pieces, much like you would see with a piece of Ikea furniture. Furthermore, the electronics within our turnstiles are extremely easy to integrate with, so you will have no problem integrating your construction site personnel management software with our products.

Some construction sites do not or cannot have level concrete pads to install turnstiles into or they require the turnstiles to be moved multiple times over the course of the job. So, we have developed our HT431P Portable Construction Turnstile with a steel baseplate so you do not have to worry about mounting your turnstile into the ground. The heavy diamond-treaded baseplate provides enough support for the turnstile to stand alone without having to be anchored to the ground. Simply place the turnstile where you want it to operate and you are good to go. Additionally, this portable full height turnstile features a forklift-movable baseplate that enables you to move the turnstile at a moment’s notice with a forklift or a large pallet jack. Being so easy to move, this turnstile is great for any job site where you know you will be moving the turnstile to a new access point frequently. Don’t want to spend man-hours assembling a turnstile? We even offer optional factory preassembly for our HT431P portable full height turnstile where we will ship you a fully preassembled portable turnstile that you can simply take off a truck and begin using right away. Most contractors find that this nominal preinstallation fee saves them time, money, and coordination effort in the long run and consider this option a no-brainer.

 

 

A Construction Site Turnstile is Only as Good as the Software it is Integrated With

Construction site access control software has been mentioned numerous times in this article. That is because using turnstiles on your construction site is only half of the picture. Turnstiles simply unlock to allow one person into or out of a facility. Some software needs to determine who is allowed into the facility and then needs to “tell” the turnstile when to unlock and allow someone through. That is where these construction-specific workforce management software systems come into play. These sophisticated yet intuitive software systems do everything from keeping employee data to logging time-in and time-out, and may even keep records of site safety training status, payroll status, certifications, licensure, and much more. A software solution like this can simply scan a construction worker’s face or read their fingerprint and instantly determine their eligibility to enter a job site based on the information stored in that employee’s file. An employee, for example, could have all licensure to be on site but their site safety training expired that day. With a built-in real-time database, the access control software determines this construction worker is unfit to be on site and does not unlock the turnstile to let them through. Thus, potentially saving the construction company from a $5000 fine.

Hayward Turnstiles partners with multiple of the top construction-specific access control software companies all around the world. We built these relationships in an effort to provide a more comprehensive solution to our clients. The creation of Local Law 196 has solidified the need for construction site turnstiles and, in turn, our desire to partner with software companies that provide solutions complementary to ours. Simply reach out to us today to be connected with one of the top construction site software companies that we partner with.