Construction worker

“ WORKER PROTECTION.
Not later than 180 days after the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Labor shall issue an interim final regulation regulating occupational exposure to lead in the construction industry. ”

“ Они работают как строители-добровольцы. They're working as volunteer construction workers. • builder. Мы чувствуем, что мы строители социализма. We feel that we are builders of socialism.
□ инженер-строитель civil engineer.
строительство construction. На строительстве теперь нехватает специалистов. There's a shortage of experts on construction now. • building up. Все силы брошены на строительство тяжёлой промышленности. All forces are directed toward the building up of heavy industries. ”

“ Men worked five days a week on three-hour shifts in the factories, but longer hours and more pay went to the builders, to the men who had to manually control the building construction machinery, for law forbade the building of offices on the mass production scheme, since that meant an unvaried, monotonous city. ”

“ Construction occupation– The term construction occupation means an occupation defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as being within the construction industry for the purposes of publishing the Bureau's workforce statistics. ”

“ Great rigidity was thereby insured, and less temporary work required than in any other mode of construction, while it gave confidence to the workmen engaged, and offered every facility in providing for their safety, and for that of the structure itself. ”

“ Building and construction work.—Next to crop moving the building trades and construction jobs make the heaviest seasonal demands upon the labor market. Railroad construction, ditch digging, and similar occupations are generally discontinued during the winter. Carpentry, masonry, brick and concrete work are only carried on with reduced numbers of men through the cold months. ”

“ The construction industry is one of the largest sectors of the economy of this nation, providing jobs for five percent of our work force. Over the decades, this industry has played a vital role in our lives, helping us meet the need for more homes, schools, hospitals, roads, subways, factories, and recreation facilities. The American construction industry has always met the challenge, supplying us with the highest quality craftsmanship in the world and pioneering countless advances in the field. ”

“ A contracting foreman: “In the mechanic trades men are constantly presenting themselves as applicants for any positions to be had, assuring us with the greatest apparent candor that they unite all the qualifications of expert masons, carpenters, painters, plumbers, and gas-fitters. We don’t employ such men any more. A modest range of acquirements is one of the best credentials a mechanic can offer us.”
A government engineer: “The labor cost of all kinds of construction is half as much again as in the United States. ”

“ Indeed, the city can be understood as construction itself.
Never-Ending Construction
The world is full of construction officials, who, if they cannot plan some kind of project, are capable of nothing but yawning; the proprietors of construction companies, who, in order to make money, cannot rest from their labors for a minute; the pitiful part-time farmers who pay back their loans by engaging in construction work; the proprietors of cement and gravel companies who will be in a pickle if they cannot get someone to use the tons of building materials they have made ”

“ One result of this situation is that the men change employers more than any other workers in industry. Irregularity of employment is greater in building construction than in any other of the principal industries of the city. ”

“ This may be well illustrated in the construction of a great building, for which an architect gives all attention to a plan, and may require a considerable force of assistants and draftsmen to embody his ideas on paper; then contractors, one or several, secure material, employ men and direct them in placing materials in form and combination to suit the plans; but a host of workmen move as directed at the will of a foreman to pile brick, mortar, stone, iron or timber according to the plan. ”

“ The young engineer in charge of construction is tempted to nurse the job because when it is finished he may be laid off. Whether he yields or not, it is a poor kind of organization that places the temptation before him. Too frequently the construction engineer costs the company money because of his unfamiliarity with maintenance conditions. Experience in maintenance would help him in construction. Before being entrusted with authority an engineer should have experience in both maintenance and construction, regardless of the branch in which he may have happened to start. ”

“ A general view of the approach during construction is shown by Fig. 1, Plate XXV.
Contractor’s Organization.
Table 6 shows approximately the number of men employed daily on the tunnel lining, by both the contractor and the sub-contractors, their occupation, the average rate of wages and the total daily expense for labor when the work was in full swing. ”

“ Once again, new and unheard of crafts are ushered in, to engage their quota of the time and strength of the working force, and to put it to new tests of adaptability. Take the implications of the steel industry itself, in the building trades. The old time carpenter and builder gives way to the house-smith and the structural steel worker. ”

“ We honor the laborers who built our great cities brick by brick, who poured the concrete, laid the macadam, riveted the steel girders, the worker in the factory and the farmer in the field, the secretary at a desk and the trucker at the wheel of a semi hauling freight from coast to coast. ”

“ That necessity, which must do without the aid of the mechanic or the knowledge of his skill, has developed a principle in construction that has sufficient merit to warrant its use by all who wish to erect in a cheap and substantial manner any class of wooden buildings. ”

“ Our own youthfulness, and the social tone of the day and region, discouraged either. If I thought anything about it, I must have thought, as I think still, that it was a manly and satisfying matter to come to grips with the serviceable actualities of the building trades. Construction, in its various phases, still seems to me a more useful and more tonic concern than brokerage, for example, and similar forms of office life.
Johnny soon suggested that I go with him, some Saturday afternoon, to the "yard." I asked Raymond to join us. ”

“ In fact it is economy to employ a few extra men to arrange runways and keep them clean, because of the additional speed thus gained. Good organization effects more economy than special methods of hoisting as far as the labor of handling the concrete is concerned. ”

“ The building industry of the United States—and it is one of the largest and strongest of our industries—had never before been called upon to provide such expansion in an equal time. It follows that the entire building industry must have been engaged in the construction enterprise, that every available man who could drive a nail or lay a brick must have been employed upon government work. ”

“ They wish here to acknowledge, therefore, the help secured from many engineers and contractors, from the volumes of Engineering News, Engineering Record and Engineering-Contracting, and from the Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the proceedings and papers of various other civil engineering societies and organizations of concrete workers. The work done by these journals and societies in gathering and publishing information on concrete construction is of great and enduring value and deserves full acknowledgment. ”

“ The work of construction having been duly attended to, it is no less important to provide for regular and constant care. Any rutting that comes of heavy traffic in bad weather should be obliterated either by raking, or, better still, by filling the ruts with gravel or ashes. If such work is attended to immediately on the occasion for it arising, the amount of labor required will be very slight ”

“ The general constructor, therefore, can readily delegate these special parts of his concrete bridge or building to specialists at frequently less cost to himself and nearly always with greater certainty of good results than if he installed molds and organized a trained gang for doing the work. ”

“ Builders, burgh engineers, and private individuals in any way connected with the construction of dwellings in town or country have been put upon their mettle, and constrained to keep themselves abreast with the wholesome truths which the engineering staff of all these Sanitary Associations are the means of disseminating. ”

“ Bridge-work in towns is more costly than in the country, as a higher class of work is demanded, more finish or dressed work in the masonry or brickwork, and more ornamentation in the screens and parapets in connection with the iron girder-work. The work itself has to be carried on in a confined locality, with limited space for materials and appliances, and where the thoroughfare must be kept open. ”

“ If, when the job is over, any scrimping has to take place it will not be the construction man who has to drop back. Two years hence the maintenance assistant will not give you the old song and dance about poor construction causing excessive maintenance, because he himself built the line. There is, of course, a danger that this maintenance assistant will be extravagant in construction for the sake of a future record in maintenance. ”

“ After all, even if we could legitimately assume that individuals on a given construction site might be able to resume productive activity on their own, we cannot go on to assume that everything this implies would also resume 'on its own.' What this would imply is the resumption, in an �organizational vacuum,' not only of productive activity on an isolated construction site, but also the production and transportation of construction equipment and machinery; the production and delivery of construction materials such as steel, lumber and concrete ”

“ Would the increased demand for construction lead immediately to an increase in demand for building labor sufficiently great to give employment to workmen who would not be needed on the old construction because of the increase in individual output? ”

“ Whenever it may be necessary to pump or bale water in the foundations, the contractor shall furnish the pumps or buckets, and all scaffolding and apparatus necessary to work them. He shall be allowed the net cost of all labor employed in the operations of pumping or baling water, and shall make a monthly return to the engineer of the value of such labor, provided that these operations are conducted in an economical manner, with efficient men, pumps, and tools, under the direction and to the satisfaction of the engineer. ”

“ The foundations for all structures shall be executed by the contractor for masonry in such manner and to such depth as to secure a safe and secure foundation, of which the engineer will judge. If a natural foundation cannot be procured at a reasonable depth, then the contractor shall prepare such artificial foundation as the engineer may direct. The stuff moved from the foundations, if of the proper quality, shall be deposited in the adjoining embankment, provided the site for said embankment has been cleared of all perishable material. ”

“ The essential requirement is that there be given on the plans all information necessary to enable the construction to be carried out according to the intentions of the engineer, that all parts of the work fit together, that the culverts are of the proper size and located at the proper places, ditches drain properly, grades are reduced to the predetermined rate, that excavated material is utilized and that an exact record of the work done is retained. ”

“ The highway construction industry developed a greater awareness of public need and good public relations. Soil erosion prevention and other environmental and ecological aspects became integral parts of construction practices. Ways were studied to help the construction labor force also. Where possible, activities such as winter concreting techniques were developed to help extend the construction season and to give workers more yearly income, and occupational safety measures were adopted to improve the working conditions for the construction work force. ”

“ The construction of each building has been studied with very great care, so as to secure the minimum amount of material, the least possible amount of work in construction or erection, and the means of arranging all the parts in separate packages capable each of being carried by two men; and the result is that each building is the cheapest and lightest that has yet been constructed in proportion to the area covered. ”

“ General Construction.—On the question of general construction there is little to be said, except that buildings are now being properly designed in more permanent form than were some of the earlier buildings. On the whole there is little fault to be found with factories in general, except in so far as the output has outgrown the accommodation. ”

“ The construction people may be awaiting material or men. Meantime my work train cannot be used by the superintendent for maintenance purposes. The chief dispatcher has so little sympathy with new construction that the young assistant engineer dare not let go of my engine lest au revoir may mean good-by. Another delightful but expensive duplication occurs frequently in the matter of stores. Look around and see how many separate stores your construction bureau is maintaining, some of them within a stone’s throw of a well stocked permanent store. ”

“ But the cost of construction has far exceeded our expectations, and the difficulties of working a system so totally different from that to which everybody, traveller as well as workmen, is accustomed, have proved too great ”