More than 88,000 Nevada construction workers have only four work weeks left to complete mandatory safety training if they want to keep their jobs.

Assembly Bill 148, passed this year by the state Legislature, requires all construction workers and their supervisors complete a training session with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) by Jan. 1, 2010. The bill was passed in the wake of the deaths of 12 workers in Las Vegas in the past two years.

Bruce Carl, safety director for Q&D Construction, said the company is in the process of helping its construction workers complete the training.

“I’d guess we’ve got about 65 to 70 percent of our workers who have completed the training,” Carl said. “The others are in the process of completing it.”

Nevada workers have several options to get their training done. Carl said Q&D, a unionized company, was helped a good deal by the Association of General Contractors, which received grant money to offer classes free of charge to union members.

Q&D currently has projects in Winnemucca, Battle Mountain and Elko and is still working on renovations at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

Carl said some of those projects will run well beyond Jan. 1.

“Training in those remote areas is going to be difficult,” he said, "so I was just putting together a list for the boss so we can conduct that training and it will probably be in mid-December.”

Another option is being offered by Sierra Nevada Community Access TV (SNCAT). According to executive director Les Smith, SNCAT has solidified its relationship with the Truckee Meadows Community College’s Division of Workforce Development and Continuing Education and will offer classes via live Web streaming to satellite locations.

Scott Alquist, director of safety training at TMCC, will teach a class at SNCAT’s studios in the Meadowood Mall in Reno. Smith said as the beta testing is completed, Alquist’s sessions will stream to the TMCC Redfield and Edison campuses, which will have about 50 workers per location and a proctor in each class to help answer questions.

The first training is scheduled for Nov. 6 and 7.

Smith said different configurations for the classes had been considered, such as scheduling two and a half hour classes four nights in a week, but it seemed more convenient for most workers to have it split between a Friday and a Saturday.

The training provides information on safety and hazard awareness, covering situations that construction workers would encounter on a construction site, said Scott MacKay, director of the OSHA Training Institute Education Center at the University of California, San Diego.

Workers are required to have 10 hours of training; supervisors must have 30.

“California does not have this requirement,” MacKay said, "but your governor and Legislature are extremely serious about safety at the work site. … It’s a really big impetus. It’s a humanitarian gesture. You have this huge building boom and every time an accident happens, (OSHA) shuts down the site and you have all these investigations that go on and most accidents are clearly preventable.”

MacKay said many good construction companies would require this training even if it weren’t a law and even if some workers don’t think it’s necessary.

“Construction workers just feel it’s kind of a macho thing,” he said. “ ‘Why do I need to wear a hat or safety goggles or protective gear?’ And that’s part of the construction world where machismo, whether it among men or women. The one power you have over a worker is his paycheck and if he’s going to lose his job, it’s because he’s not paying attention in safety. That’s his choice.”

According to employment figures in an analysis recently conducted by the Association of General Contractors of America, Nevada took the biggest loss in construction employment, down by 31,100 workers. Only one state, Louisiana, added jobs and 41 states all declined in employment numbers by double-digits during the past year.

Carl said there is some flexibility in meeting the Jan. 1 deadline.

“There’s a stipulation that will give (the workers) 15 days (after Jan. 1) to complete the training,” he said. “If some absolutely can’t do the training, they’ll have additional time to provide us (proof they completed the training) before we’d have to take action.”

Carl said if a worker doesn’t complete the training by Jan. 15, Q&D likely would have to lay them off until they do, but the company would not terminate that person.

“I think we can benefit (from this law),” Carl said.

Ultimately, the intention is to heighten the importance of safety in the industry, MacKay said.

“You want moms and dads to go home to their kids at night with all 10 fingers and all 10 toes and not in an ambulance or a hearse,” MacKay said.

To register for the SNCAT classes, workers can visit www.nvosha.com and select which type of training they’ll need. Smith said the dates for more classes will be posted as that information becomes available.