17K NYC Construction Worker Safety Cards Invalidated After Issuer Indictment

BROOKLYN, NY — Roughly 20,000 Site Safety Training Cards issued by Brooklyn-based Valor Consulting will be deactivated Tuesday, resulting in 17,000 fewer available workers at large construction sites for the time being, city officials said.

The mass deactivation stems from a a criminal indictment filed in Manhattan Criminal Court on Feb. 28 against Valor’s senior executives and employees, which accuses the Coney Island-headquartered company of selling construction safety training identification cards to laborers without providing any actual training.

“Effective immediately, any SST cards that have been issued as a result of training certificates issued by Valor have been deactivated, and construction workers with these SST cards will no longer be allowed to work on the larger and more complex work sites in New York City until they are able to acquire a new SST card from a legitimate DOB-approved course provider,” the NYC Department of Buildings said in a Tuesday news release.

The safety training cards, which are issued by more than 150 DOB-approved course providers, can be scanned by inspectors and contractors using a mobile app to ensure its legitimacy. Workers who try to enter a work site that requires the training with an invalidated card must be turned away, and contractors who look the other way will be subject to DOB enforcement actions, the agency said.

Tuesday's deactivation impacted less than 5 percent of construction workers that work on larger building construction work sites in the city, and about 360,000 active and valid cards are still in use, a spokesperson for the DOB told Patch.

"We don't believe that this announcement will have a long-term impact on construction activity in New York City," the rep said in a statement to Patch.

Affected workers can still get a job at one of tens of thousands of smaller construction project in New York City, like home renovation projects, commercial storefront build outs, and minor alterations where mandatory safety training isn't required, DOB said.

The agency said it first suspended Valor’s ability to provide new trainings and issue the safety cards last April, when it first became aware of “major inconsistencies” in training records provided by the company. About 17,000 of the total 20,000 invalidated safety cards are still active, and no new cards have been issued since the initial suspension.

Agency officials are now reaching out to the workers with the cards, as well as contractors around the city, to urge affected individuals to get retrained from a different provider and avoid work interruptions.

“The allegations made against Valor by our partners in the Manhattan DA’s office are disturbing, as they have allegedly allowed thousands of people to work on construction sites in our City without the required safety training,” NYC Buildings Commissioner Jimmy Oddo said in a statement.

“The actions of this company put profits ahead of the safety of these workers and the public, which is something we cannot tolerate … to the construction industry members impacted by today’s announcement, I urge you to sign up for training courses as soon as possible with a legitimate training provider to get this critical safety training.”