Workplace safety might get a boost in Nashville, pending negotiations on Metro’s budget

Stronger protections for construction workers have been taken up by the Metro Council. While many councilmembers have expressed early support, the bill, if approved, would require alterations to the city’s proposed budget if it is to secure funding right away.

Before Tuesday’s council meeting, Councilmember Sandra Sepulveda introduced the legislation at a press conference on the steps of the Metro Courthouse. The idea is to create a new board overseeing Metro projects: It would inspect the city’s construction sites, investigate complaints and audit contracts.

Sepulveda says the plan has been priced at around $500,000, which includes the cost of hiring four inspectors and an executive director.

“(Metro) holds a significant role as one of the largest purchasers of construction projects in Nashville,” Sepulveda said. “It’s imperative that we set the standard for safety moving forward.”

Sepulveda stood alongside representatives from the International Union of Painters and Applied Trades, Central Labor Council of Nashville and Middle Tennessee, Ironworkers Local Union 492, a host of councilmembers, and a cousin of Denis Geovani Ba Ché — a construction worker who died last year while working at Glencliff High School.

“If we’re going to do anything, now is the time,” said Jacen Davidson, attending on behalf of the local ironworkers’ union. “We don’t need to wait for another 16-year-old teenage boy to fall through a gymnasium roof or another 16-year-old masonry worker to fall off a scaffold 60 feet to his death. The families deserve better.”

This isn’t the first time Sepulveda has tried to tackle workplace safety.

Back in 2021, she tried to hold contractors accountable for safety violations, temporarily blocking them from city contracts. However, a state law preempted that bill, and then-Mayor John Cooper backed down.

Now, with a new administration in office, Sepulveda is taking another pass at protecting workers. The bill entered its first reading with more than two dozen councilmembers signed on as co-sponsors and with the attention of Mayor Freddie O’Connell.

“It’s one of the worst things that happens in the workplace — when somebody works an honest day’s work and then can’t secure the payment for that,” O’Connell told reporters last week.

But O’Connell says he needs to make sure that a new board wouldn’t be too costly, and it’s not currently included in his budget proposal.

In response, councilmembers are working to devise a substitute budget that includes funding for the legislation. The leader of the council’s budget and finance committee, Delishia Porterfield, is a sponsor of the bill. And Sepulveda says she is encouraging her colleagues to place the bill at the top of their “budget wish lists.”

The body has until the end of June to alter and finalize the spending plan through a series of three votes. If they don’t approve a substitute budget by June 30, the mayor’s budget will go into effect.