How essential is construction during Covid19?
The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed life down for millions of Americans, but it hasn’t for Evan Adams, a specialty sports contractor based in Northern California. He currently has five in-progress construction projects, mostly installing school gymnasium floors, that are going full steam ahead due to contractual obligations. In construction, time is money, even during a global health crisis. “More than anything we need schools to extend deadlines and just slow the pace,” Adams says. “It is not essential to keep going at normal speeds.”
The federal government hasn’t issued specific mandates to the construction industry, so states and cities are enacting their own policies. California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on March 19 instructing all residents statewide to stay at home, but he granted exceptions for the essential workforce, which includes “construction workers who support the construction, operation, inspection, and maintenance of construction sites and construction projects, including housing construction.”
Because of the nature of his projects as a flooring subcontractor, Adams and his team are typically brought in toward the end of a project, when multiple subcontractors are also at work, and everyone is jockeying for space. He offered to pay his workers overtime, out of his own pocket, if they want to come in over the weekend and finish their job when the job site would be empty.
“My guys want to do their part, but they don’t want to crawl over everyone at the end of a project,” he says. “They just want to stay home. They have wives that might have immune system issues, they might have older parents at home that they are caring for.”
From coast to coast, stay-at-home and social-distancing orders have been issued to help stop the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. By the end of last week, 21 state orders took effect, limiting activity to critical infrastructure and services. The list of states and cities telling people to stay home is growing. While some of the essential businesses seem uncontroversial—like hospitals and grocery stores—others fall into a gray area. Construction, which employs over 7 million people nationwide, is one of them. While some cities and states are shutting construction down, others are granting exceptions, particularly where it relates to the nationwide housing shortage. Meanwhile, industry groups are pushing for federal-level designation of construction as an essential business. Individual workers and small-business owners are torn between concerns for health and safety, the very urgent need for a steady paycheck, and legal contractual obligations.
Amid a worsening pandemic, just how essential should construction be considered? Curbed spoke to construction workers, contractors, small-business owners, industry groups, and trade unions to hear what they have to say.
“It’s a crisis that’s putting a strain on construction, but it’s kind of multifaceted,” says John Doherty, communications director of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), a union that represents 160,000 construction workers in the United States and Canada. While major cities are banning or limiting construction, which is causing unemployment, some areas, particularly those that haven’t begun widespread testing and aren’t experiencing their peaks, haven’t altered activity. “A lot of our members may be in danger there. Those areas have to make sure they’re following the right protocols, like the EEOC guidance on personal protective equipment and cleaning down job sites. At the end of the day that’s the number-one priority, that these projects are safe.”
How states and cities are handling construction during the COVID-19 pandemic
In the absence of federal guidelines on construction during the pandemic, state and local governments are issuing their own rules for the industry, which has led to a lot of confusion and uncertainty.
Gov. Newsom isn’t alone in categorizing construction as an essential business. However, some California cities and counties have taken their own, and sometimes stricter, stances on what type of construction work is permissible in their jurisdictions during the pandemic.
San Francisco city and county consider “public works construction” and “construction of housing (in particularly affordable housing or housing for individuals experiencing homelessness)” as essential. The list also includes “airport operations, water, sewer, gas, electrical, oil refining, roads and highways, public transportation, solid waste collection and removal, internet, and telecommunications systems (including the provision of essential global, national, and local infrastructure for computing services, business infrastructure, communications, and web-based services).” Santa Clara and Alameda counties—in the south and east bay, respectively—have similar policies with respect to what type of construction is allowed during their shelter-in-place orders. Meanwhile, some local building departments are turning to virtual inspections to keep some projects moving.