Highbury Concrete

Importance of Workplace Distancing in Minimizing COVID-19 Risks

Undertaking high profile projects across the greater New York City area, Highbury Concrete specializes in high-rise superstructure work. In a time of the pandemic, Highbury Concrete has set in place coordinated measures designed to minimize COVID-19 transmission risks in the workplace.

A foundation of this is workplace distancing, which mandates that all tasks and meetings must be conducted with workers maintaining a distance of at least six feet. This is enforced through the use of an in-house Employee Disciplinary Ticket (EDT) system.

When consistently practiced, workplace distancing is described by experts as the most effective strategy for saving lives, as it significantly curtails the spread of infectious agents. Decreasing the number and duration of social contacts makes it much less likely that the virus will spread through airborne mechanisms, such as sneezing, coughing, or simply breathing.

Even among healthy younger people who are at less risk of succumbing to severe forms of the disease, the risks of transmission are considerable. This has to do with the fact that, even without symptoms, infected people can still spread the coronavirus to older and immunocompromised people that they come in contact with.

With safety at the forefront, Highbury Concrete has also set in place mandates encompassing wearing personal protective equipment and undergoing temperature checks at the start of each shift.

CDC COVID-19 Guidelines for Employers

Highbury Concrete, a prominent construction contractor in the New York City area, focuses on concrete placement and related services. To protect its workforce and the public, Highbury Concrete works to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission through workplace distancing.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that all companies take steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19. On its website, the CDC suggests that employers conduct a comprehensive hazard assessment of the workplace to identify potential COVID-19-related workplace hazards.

After identifying hazards, employers should determine what controls and personal protective equipment (PPE) are needed for employees to safely fulfill certain job duties. Employers should provide the identified PPE to their workers at no cost and train employees on their correct use.

Even when hazard assessments determine there is no need for PPE, the CDC recommends that employers encourage workers to use a cloth to cover their nose and mouth at work. Any employee showing symptoms should be sent home immediately.

Highbury Concrete Deploys Hazmat Responders as a COVID-19 Measure

Highbury Concrete is a superstructure contracting firm that meets the needs of clients involved in many of Manhattan’s high-profile building projects. In response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Highbury Concrete has instituted special workplace distancing arrangements and also employed hazmat responders at the full range of its job sites.

These designated employees are responsible for spraying all common surfaces within the work site at periodic intervals throughout the day. They are equipped with an A70 body suit, neoprene gloves, and a full face respirator with organic vapor P95 filters.

With this protective gear in place, the hazmat responders utilize portable battery-powered electrostatic sprayers and spray disinfectant on high-risk surfaces. When walking around the job site or climbing stairs, ramps, or ladders, the responders wear these sprayers on their backs.

A key requirement of this job is that the trained hazmat responders be physically fit and have passed respiratory exams that provide medical clearance and allow them to wear full-face masks.

Employing Workplace Distancing Guidelines in NY Construction

Highbury Concrete is a construction contractor in the New York City area that focuses on concrete placement, among other specialties. Like many businesses in the construction industry, Highbury Concrete has developed a strategy for reducing the risk of its employees contracting COVID-19 through workplace distancing.

In New York, social distancing has resulted in the closure of most businesses outside of construction. Recently, even employers in construction are devising workplace distancing strategies so that construction workers are not working close to each other and spreading the virus.

While there is a need for construction, building luxury condos is not a pressing need, and with the rapid spread and contraction of the virus, many questions allowing construction on affordable housing. Instead, as of last week, the mayor was considering redefining what “essential” construction workers were and sending everyone else home.

One construction outfit has established standards that dictate how close workers can stand next to each other and have completely prohibited shared lunches. Another strategy adopted by this outfit was to alternate schedules. The workers’ shifts would be broken into two, allowing an hour for the site to be disinfected before the second shift begins their work.

Highbury Concrete has established protocols that would reduce the transmission of the virus. In addition to supplying workers with toolbox topics on how to remain healthy, routine meetings are held to keep workers abreast of information.

Temperature Screening – Employee Privacy Versus Public Safety

Superstructure contractor Highbury Concrete has made safety orders a part of their construction protocols. More recently, Highbury Concrete began requiring its employees to undergo temperature screening in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the last few weeks, non-essential businesses around the country have been ordered to close to prevent the spread of the virus. Construction, being deemed as essential, is still in operation. To ensure that workers are safe, some construction sites have implemented temperature screening to reduce exposure to the virus.

However, even in the midst of one of the worst pandemics in modern history, the right to autonomy confronts public safety. While some might say it is obvious that employees submit to temperature screening, others see the potential for encroachment on privacy.

The American with Disabilities Act (ADA) laid out stipulations about the types of questions businesses could ask their employees. It also establishes protocols for when a person has symptoms of a disease that dictate when they can be sent home. ADA guidelines also allow employers to inquire about the health of an employee returning to work who was previously ill.

More significantly, the law allows for the screening of all employees, albeit temporarily. In an instance of a worldwide pandemic, the law makes for these allowances, ones that would not be allowed outside the parameters of a pandemic.

St. Baldrick’s Foundation Grant Types

Concrete superstructure specialists, Highbury Concrete is a New York-based construction firm that received the 2018 Roger H. Corbetta Award for contributions to the construction field. Highbury Concrete proudly supports a number of charitable organizations, including St. Baldrick’s Foundation to conquer childhood cancer.

St. Baldrick’s provides grants to numerous efforts in the field of childhood cancer research. Its most common grant is an individual research grant that is awarded to fund year-long research projects mostly focused on cures for childhood cancers.

The cooperative research grant is a multi-million dollar endowment for the Children’s Oncology Group that is distributed to over 200 institutions qualified to treat childhood cancers. Another collaborative grant is the consortium research grant, which is given to groups of researchers working on promising projects in pediatric oncology.

St. Baldrick’s also supports research through international beneficiary grants and international scholar grants. These share funding from St. Baldrick’s fundraising efforts to train researchers in the recipient country.

FAQs About Lean Construction

Highbury Concrete is a contractor specializing in concrete superstructures and is a pioneer in construction safety and technology. Founded in 2013, Highbury Concrete’s team of professionals has extensive experience in concrete placement, environmental safety practices, and all aspects of class concrete operations.

In the construction industry, performance is often unsatisfactory when compared to benchmarks in other industries. Many methods have been proposed to try to bridge that gap, including the idea of Lean Construction. Studies into concrete construction projects have proved that lean principles can be successfully applied at the operational and the project level. Here’s what you need to know about lean construction:

Q: What is lean construction?
A: Borrowing certain concepts from the lean manufacturing methods derived from the “Toyota Way,” lean construction uses those principles to streamline and optimize the construction process and eliminate waste.

Q: What is the difference between lean construction and traditional methods?
A: Lean construction aims to put the design and management of a project into the hands of the people who are working on the project. This prevents individuals from working at odds from the overall goal of the project and in their own interest.

Q: What are the principles of lean construction?
A: Lean construction advocates focus on three basic areas: transforming input into output with minimal waste, ensuring a smooth workflow, and maximizing value for the customer or end-user.

ASSP Endorses Public Funding Increases for OSHA

New York-focused construction firm Highbury Concrete has completed award-winning building projects in Coney Island, Long Island City, and Brooklyn. As part of its mission to exceed industry safety standards, Highbury Concrete is affiliated with several professional organizations, including the American Society of Safety Professionals.

Established in 1911, the American Society of Safety Professionals represents the interests of professionals in the workplace health and safety sector. In 2019, the society affirmed its support for the continuation and increase of federal and state funding for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. This funding enables the administration to enforce safety regulations in the public and private sectors.

Federal funding also supports the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program, which enables small businesses to train their staff members in hazard mitigation and workplace safety. These grants also pay for programs for underserved worker populations, such as people with low English proficiency and short-term contract workers.

New Drug Tests to Begin for the Treatment of Angelman Syndrome

Highbury Concrete, a superstructure contractor based in Maspeth, New York, adapts, creates, and integrates modern technology into concrete operations to promote quality and safety. Active in the community, Highbury Concrete organizes a charity golf tournament on behalf of the Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics (FAST).

Dedicated to accelerating a cure and treatments for Angelman syndrome (AS), FAST regularly invests in high-risk, high-reward research grants. In addition, FAST launched GeneTx Biotherapeutics, LLC, a startup with an executive team that includes Allyson Berent, the chief science officer of FAST.

Recently, GeneTx announced that its application for a clinical trial of a new drug was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This new drug is called GTX-102.

GTX-102 targets the UBE3A gene that is passed to children from their father. This gene is silent in people with AS and other neurogenetic disorders.

To test the efficacy of the new drug, GeneTx is partnering with Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical to create a study. The first half of the study will look at the safety and side effects of different doses of GTX-102, while the second phase will study the effectiveness of the treatment.

Now is the Time for the Construction Worker

New York City-based Highbury Concrete, Inc. is a superstructure contractor. Founded in 2013, Highbury Concrete’s focus is on safety, the environment, employees, and the public has awarded it the prestigious Roger H. Corbetta Award. and it is considered a pioneer in the industry. In recent years the construction industry has been on an upswing, even with the labor shortage.

The construction industry has been around forever, but today, the lack of labor has created problems for the entire industry. With older workers aging out of the industry, contractors are facing a workforce (primarily made up millennials) who are not as skilled or not interested in the field. To complicate matters, the field is increasingly requiring craftsmen and other highly-skilled workers to work on special projects and with advanced equipment.

At a time when the construction industry is in good shape, the irony is there are not enough workers for the numerous projects, but working in construction has many benefits. As stated previously, this industry is projected to grow, so job stability is not an issue, and salaries in this industry are higher, providing workers with a living wage. The industry also provides its workers with variety, with many being able to specialize or work in different roles on the site. Not only do construction workers have variety, the industry provides them with the flexibility to choose from the projects they are interested in, whether it is a residential home, skyscraper, or some other structure.

For those interested in owning a construction business, it can be done by starting small. Beginning with small projects, those in charge of a construction start-up have a little bit of flexibility on how many construction workers to hire, depending on the project. By paying close detail to overhead, once they have the requisite training and experience, they can scale their businesses up.