In November, Harris County Commissioners Court will consider a worksite safety policy proposal seeking to standardize safety protocols countywide in order to reduce injuries and strengthen worker protections on authorized construction sites.
Harris County commissioners unanimously approved the motion during the Oct. 16 court meeting.
What we know
The motion by Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis outlined various goals and key components of the proposed policy that includes establishing clear safety monitoring and inspection standards to enforce compliance amongst stakeholders and workers.
“At a minimum, this policy shall incorporate feedback from labor and industry stakeholders, be modeled after evidence-based best practices from peer counties ... be designed to reduce worksite injuries and improve worker protection," Ellis said.
In 2021, workplace injuries across the U.S. cost $167 billion and amounted to $47.4 billion in wage and productivity losses, according to a 2024 report from a Houston-based Occupational Safety and Health Administration training organization.
OSHA Outreach found that 80%-90% of series injuries are caused by human error, which can be prevented by giving site safety training. The industry with the highest fatality rates comes from the manufacturing industry, the organization reported.
The experts
Linda Morales is the organizing coordinator at the Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation. She told Community Impact that leading up to the Nov. 13 Commissioners Court session, several meetings focused on worker safety will take place between labor representatives and county stakeholders, including officials from county administration, engineering, toll road authority and flood control.
“We want to make sure that at the end of the day, workers can go home,” Morales said. “We want to make sure that [workers] can report issues and that it can be fixed before someone gets hurt.”
How we got here
Harris County’s current contractor safety record policy is taken into account during the bidding process, Morales said, where contractor and subcontractors must show a proven safety record that complies with industry standards.
“What it does is that it helps prevent habitual violators of health and safety standards from operating on Harris County projects, but what they don’t have is a policy that addresses real-time safety issues that arise on county projects," Morales said.
The proposed countywide safety policy, Morales said, would establish clear safety standards, provide a cost-effective process when it comes to monitoring for compliance and enforcement on county projects, as well as establish a limited scope pilot program to ensure that county projects stay up-to-date when it comes to worker’s health and safety going into the future.
Going forward
More than 145 flood mitigation projects in high-flood-risk areas across Harris County have advanced with secured local, state and federal funding partnerships after the unanimous approval from Harris County Commissioners in September as part of a restructured proposal built upon the work completed from the 2018 flood bond.
With more than $3.5 billion worth of projects approved, Harris County Flood Control District will oversee at least 75 flood bond program project packages in the next couple of years.
“We’re about worker safety, and we're about ensuring cost effectiveness,” Morales said. “But the real thing is that we want to make sure that that workers can also have a say at the worksite. We want to make sure that there's no retaliation if someone speaks up about an unsafe working condition. We want to make sure that they’re not retaliated against.”
