Workplace heat-safety measures: Training vs. temperature triggers

Ahead of a month or more of vacation for some Washington, D.C. regulars, the White House instructed the Department of Labor to issue a first ever Hazard Alert in response to an unusually hot July. The agency will ramp up enforcement of heat-safety violations, increasing inspections in high-risk industries like construction, while its Occupational Safety and Health Administration belabors a…

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ENERGETIC POURS

Advance Ready Mix paces 500,000-yd. Battery Park contract BY DON MARSH Batching and deliveries for one of the largest concrete supply contracts in North America are proceeding six days a week, two 10-to 12-hour shifts per day on a 2.3-square-mile, Glendale, Ky. site. Advance Ready Mix and fellow project principals have no wiggle room on the schedule as owners Ford…

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CalPortland v. Teamsters narrows NLRA gray area

A willingness to take a deep dive into ready mixed concrete production and revisit a tired National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) interpretation guided the highest court in the land to appropriate action in Glacier Northwest, Inc., dba CalPortland v. International Brotherhood Of Teamsters Local Union No. 174—a case we first examined here in December 2022.  In last month’s 8-1 ruling,…

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California cement plant deal spotlights feds’ misdirected market concentration concerns

by Don Marsh Through direct action or implication of costly, prolonged legal measures, the Federal Trade Commission has helped quell a second cement plant sale in as many years. In 2021, the agency challenged the proposed sale of Giant Cement Holdings’ Keystone Cement mill in Bath, Pa. to Heidelberg Materials, then operating as Lehigh Hanson Inc. FTC officials cited concerns…

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Cement Roadstone’s Wall Street destiny

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CRH Plc guidance on 2022 performance—to which Americas Materials Solutions and Building Solutions segments comfortably contributed—offers some of the most definitive U.S. and Canadian market aspirations we’ve heard from the company during its 45 years of mining aggregate, milling cement, bagging dry mix, fabricating precast, molding masonry and delivering ready mixed concrete or asphalt this side of the pond. The…

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Contractors challenge safety status quo

Organizations whose members and market objectives align closely with those of concrete producers have launched campaigns challenging the most basic of job site safety provisions, or delineating who owns what part of the accident prevention equation.  The ASCC Education, Research & Development Foundation is live with www.hardhatstohelmets.org, stating the case for what sponsors view as stronger construction worker protection than…

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Village Green

Unilock, LPS Pavement, PICP underpin stormwater management upgrade The Village of Kenilworth (Ill.) Public Works Department closed a 10-year stormwater management project in late 2022, signing off on nearly 84,000 square feet of permeable interlocking concrete pavement (PICP) from one of the Midwest’s best producer-installer tag teams: Unilock Chicago Inc. of Aurora, Ill. and LPS Pavement Co. of Oswego, Ill. …

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Oldcastle, Cemstone veteran pens definitive dispatch/customer service playbook

Success in a typical ready mixed concrete operation can turn on the performance of a small team with outsized influence on human capital and physical asset utilization, as well as customer loyalty and profitability. In Making It Happen – Achieving Excellence in RMC Transportation & Customer Service, Jack Delperdang seeks to fill a void in industry references for building an…

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Topping the 2023 radar

Major industry developments last year did not match the eventful 2021, when a dealmaking flourish put leading admixture, plant equipment and ready mixed or manufactured concrete brands or market stakes on track to change hands. But 2022 served up its share of surprises. A review of the year’s most impactful content from these pages and our companion Concrete Currents weekly…

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Carbon (fiber) embodiment

The CPC entry was among 133 organizers booked in the 2022 bauma Innovation Award Construction, Climate Protection, Digitalization, Mechanical Engineering and Research categories. The competition is a joint project of VDMA Construction – Equipment and Plant Engineering and bauma host Messe München, plus the Federation of the German Construction Industry, German Construction Confederation and German Building Materials Association. Companies and…

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