BANGOR – In an effort to prevent accidents at the Hollywood Slots at Bangor construction site on Main Street, Pittsfield-based Cianbro Corp. has entered into an official safety partnership with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Maine Department of Labor.

The safety plan, which takes advantage of a federal partnership program started in 1998, includes a comprehensive OSHA inspection and an ongoing training program that aims to provide at least 10 hours of safety training to every worker on the site.

“We really believe people deserve to go home in the same condition they came to work in, or better,” said Scott Knowlen, health and environment manager for Cianbro, which is the general contractor for the $131 million construction project. Though Cianbro has built a reputation for its interest in employee health and safety, Knowlen said Tuesday, “We know we’re not perfect. This partnership forces us to be better.”

With some 450 workers, including employees of about 24 different subcontractors, expected to spend time at the job site before construction wraps up later this year, Knowlen said it behooves Cianbro to set high standards for protecting them.

Under the terms of the agreement, OSHA this week conducted a scheduled top-to-bottom inspection of the job site, including private interviews with several workers. Knowlen called it a “verification audit,” and it was in progress for the second day on Tuesday.

Based on its inspection, OSHA will make recommendations as needed to improve work conditions, while any serious violations of federal safety standards would be reported and penalized as they would normally be, Knowlen said. He added that there have been no serious worker injuries at the Hollywood Slots site to date, and no serious safety infractions other than two episodes in September and October of last year when workers hit and ruptured natural gas lines at the site.

After the initial inspection, OSHA inspectors will refrain from making random unannounced visits but will still respond to any complaints from workers or reports of job-site injuries or accidents until the work is completed.

More to the point, Knowlen said, the federal agency will provide site-specific safety training and materials to Cianbro managers and officials from the Maine Department of Labor’s occupational safety program. The goal is for those individuals to provide every worker on the site between now and the end of the project a minimum of 10 hours of on-site safety training, resulting in fewer accidents and injuries.

At the Maine OSHA office in Augusta, area director Bill Coffin said Cianbro is the first company in Maine to take advantage of the federal Labor Department’s Strategic Partnership program, which was started in 1998. Nationally, more than 500 partnerships have been formed, with 10 agreements currently in effect in New England, according to federal OSHA records.

Traditionally, Coffin said, “It’s very seldom that a job site will invite OSHA in – in fact, it’s never.” But the partnership program creates a less adversarial relationship between employers and the federal safety program, resulting in safer workplaces and healthier employees – without forfeiting OSHA’s ability to leverage significant penalties against companies that flout workplace safety standards.

Coffin said Cianbro initiated discussion of the partnership in the early summer of 2007, shortly after work on the site began. Paperwork and other bureaucratic slowdowns resulted in the delayed completion of the agreement, he said.

On Tuesday afternoon, Jim Foley, Cianbro’s safety supervisor at the Hollywood Slots job site, said the verification audit went smoothly. A formal report will be compiled soon, he said, but no major safety violations were uncovered by the OSHA inspector from the Bangor office, he said.

Foley said the most dangerous phase of construction is over – the erection of the steel-beam supports. “We had to focus on that pretty heavily,” he said. So far, Foley said, the only accidents on the site reported have been minor – finger injuries, bruises and so forth.

Between now and the anticipated wrap-up of the project at the end of the summer, Foley said, electrical lines will be among the most hazardous elements on the site.

mhaskell@bangordailynews.net

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