While pilots, air traffic controllers and airline personnel are visible faces of the aviation industry, there is another critical layer beneath them: the construction and maintenance workers who build and sustain airport infrastructure.
This group includes people we hire at Alder, including day laborers, skilled tradespeople, as well as part-time and full-time operators, inspectors and project managers who ensure that our runways, taxiways, lighting systems and terminal spaces are compliant and safe.
Many of these “invisible” safety experts, including the ones we hire to work on the AOA with us, have to be able to operate in high-risk conditions and high-pressure environments, yet we continue to leave them behind in leadership conversations.
For example, according to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, construction workers are four times more likely to die by suicide than the general population. This alarming statistic suggest that laborers from marginalized communities — the same ones many in our industry rely on for the production of goods and services — experience higher rates of injury and fatality.
Unfortunately, we aren’t entirely sure of the impact, either.
Day laborers are underrepresented in most formal reporting systems, making incidents and near-misses harder to track and harder to prevent.
The airport construction safety industry is among the most technically demanding sectors in infrastructure development. Crews often work in live, active outdoor environments that are mere feet from moving vehicles and live runways.
But perhaps more importantly, the underreporting of incidents is a direct result of laborers and other underrepresented workers not feeling safe discussing errors or accidents for fear of retaliation. This is a fact backed by the Texas Department of Insurance and other entities that recognize the dire need for better incident reporting on construction sites.
Despite this, many of the individuals responsible for carrying out this work operate without consistent access to mental health support, equitable labor protections or even adequate representation in official safety protocols. According to many sources, lower-status workers aren’t supported or protected in the same ways as full-time employees and often do not qualify to join labor unions or other worker advocacy groups.
Moreover, temporary hires may have language and cultural barriers that prevent them from getting help when they need it, but it doesn’t have to be that way anymore, and it’s leaders like us that can create the change and infrastructure needed to build safer worksites for all. Adding immigrant workers, day laborers and transient crews into the traditional frameworks of accountability and care is a great start.
Finally, the construction industry’s current safety model remains overly focused on individual behavior. Common yes-or-no questions miss the larger, systemic influences that shape behavior on a job site, such as:
- “Was personal protective equipment worn?”
- “Were proper procedures followed?”
While it’s safe to blame unrealistic deadlines or unsafe subcontracting practices, we believe that the root of the safety issue for laborers comes down to inconsistence communication and language access and a lack of trauma-informed training. These concerns impact productivity and endanger lives and perpetuate cycles of risk for already vulnerable workers.
What’s needed: care-driven cultures
There is growing interest in systems-level reform that puts people first, but that takes a shifting view of job site health as a total environment that encompasses the physical and emotional components of the human experience.
This includes:
- Expanding subcontractor audits to include labor ethics, not just qualifications.
- Embedding mental health awareness into job site safety protocols.
- Creating training programs that are multilingual and trauma-aware.
- Prioritizing leadership accountability for both physical and emotional safety outcomes.
Industry leaders like myself need to expand their understanding of safety by extending it beyond immediate compliance. Certainly, change like this requires uncomfortable conversations, systemic investment and leadership that values transparency over tradition. But it’s the right thing to do for a workforce that deserves the same protection, inclusion and support as the rest of us.
Suicide prevention resources for frontline workers
Keeping everyone physically and psychologically safe on the job site is hard. Sometimes the best we can do is pass along a few tips and resources. Because this blog post addresses the sensitive topic of suicide, here are five facts about suicide on the job site.
OSHA’s Suicide Prevention FAQs