Journal of Commerce | Don Procter | September 16, 2025
“Landmark legislation” just introduced in New York City proposes construction workers and supervisors carrying Site Safety Training (SST) cards – required on worksites that need building permits – to complete additional training focused on mental health and wellness.
The additional training would cover suicide risk and prevention along with alcohol and substance misuse education.
The aim is to help tradespeople on projects recognize warning signs their colleagues might be experiencing mental health problems or facing a crisis, says Elizabeth Crowley, president and CEO of the Building Trades Employers Association (BTEA).
Mental health training is “incredibly important,” Crowley says, adding the construction industry and society are facing a mental health epidemic.
“We have to become more comfortable talking with one another about mental health.”
The BTEA is the umbrella organization for union-affiliated construction contractors in New York City, representing more than two dozen contractor associations working with union labor.
If passed, the legislation will require union project and non-union projects to receive at least two hours of dedicated instruction on mental health and related risks.
Addressing alcohol and substance-misuse as well as the risk of suicide and understanding what it takes to prevent someone from taking their life are vital, she says.
Crowley is optimistic the legislation will pass this fall because, she says, city council and the mayor are prioritizing it.
In 2017, the city passed Local Law 196, changing safety training requirements for construction and demolition workers. It mandated workers on jobsites requiring a Site Safety Plan must complete 40 hours of training to obtain an SST Worker Card. The proposed legislation would add mental health training.
Crowley says each year tens of thousands of workers complete safety training as a condition of receiving an SST card from the Department of Buildings.
Another bill just introduced in the city would require all construction sites to be equipped with Naloxone, a drug that rapidly reduces the effects of an opioid overdose, she says.
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will train site safety professionals in its administration.
“We have had an epidemic in substance abuse, certainly opioids, for the past couple of years,” she says.
The initiative would require the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to provide five opioid antagonist kits for free to every major building construction site for administration to anyone suffering an opioid overdose. Training would be for site safety professionals and construction workers.
On another front, Crowley, while recognizing the complexity of solving the city’s affordable housing shortage and homelessness crisis, says recent stories written on blue states such as New York constructing fewer affordable housing units than red states is in part due to overregulation in the city.
“We want to cut the red tape and make sure the thought leaders in this city are coming together to build our way into the future,” she says.
In some construction sectors NYC is ahead of the game. As an example, the John F. Kennedy International Airport has earmarked $24 billion, including $9.5 billion for a new Terminal One.
“I could rattle off a long list of major (public) projects but when it comes to affordable housing or housing, we don’t have enough. Let’s look deeper at the problem.”
The city of New York faces construction hurdles unlike most other U.S. cities. It has the highest construction insurance costs in the U.S. and settlements can be up to six times higher than elsewhere, Crowley says.
“We need the legislature to address that this is a litigation state and how it trickles down to every household paying (the equivalent of) $7,000 in insurance settlement claims every year.”
The findings are available from a report titled Excessive Litigation is Driving New York’s Affordability Crisis, published by the Partnership for New York City.