It’s Friday, which means it’s finally time to bust out the floaties and dip our toes into this week’s construction industry news roundup. We have plenty of great stories for you to catch up on today, including changes to Ontario’s Construction Act, economic updates on new construction starts and initiatives to battle the construction worker health-crisis in Massachusetts. Come on in, the water’s fine! 

People tend to take water for granted. When we turn on the shower or hold our Brita pitchers up to the faucet, we usually anticipate clean, cool water to pour out as if by magic. Most of the time the water does just that, all without giving a thought towards the hard work and engineering that goes into transporting, cleaning and delivering it into our homes and businesses. But what happens when we reach for our sink and the water we expect comes out undrinkable or not at all?   

Another week, another round of important news from the construction industry! Today we have several critical stories to share with you, including the passage of a new bill in California set to change the classification of independent contractors, a postponement of major alterations to value added tax laws in the UK, and the creation of a new certification program for concrete pump operators in Canada. Read on for the full stories!  

This month, Komatsu announced that it will soon deploy 41 of its new 930E-5 ultra-class haul trucks to BHP’s South Flank iron ore mine in Western Australia. As we reported on earlier in the year, this development follows recent initiatives in the autonomous mining space which have contributed to Komatsu becoming among the market’s most influential players. With more tonnes of material hauled autonomously than all competitors combined, Komatsu currently leads the field with 180 autonomous trucks operating globally across 3 continents and 9 mine sites on advanced LTE mobile broadband technology.

Thanks for stopping by for our weekly News Roundup! This week’s installment features an interesting lineup of stories surrounding the future of apprenticeship programs in the United States, current economic concerns and new tech initiatives. Follow the links below for the full scoop on all the latest events shaping the construction industry of tomorrow:

John Deere recently announced a massive expansion to their TimberMatic^TM Maps and TimberManager^TM productivity solutions, which will now include full-tree equipment like feller bunchers, skidders, wheeled and tracked harvesters, forwarders and swing machines. Building upon their established foundation in the space, John Deere hopes these additions will bring the productivity and safety benefits of their management solutions to a whole new set of customers in the logging industry.

Thanks for stopping by for another weekly News Roundup! With exciting opportunities for undocumented workers unveiled in Canada, new standards for high-rise construction being discussed in the U.K. and large digitization programs launching in Singapore, the construction industry is making bold moves worldwide this week that you need to know about. Read on to stay informed!

This week, Daimler subsidiary Freightliner is delivering its first two eCascadia Class 8 Trucks to Penske Truck Leasing and NFI to test commercial integration of battery electric trucks. As part of Daimler Truck’s global electrified truck initiative dubbed the ‘Innovation Fleet’, the eCascadia joins over 100 electrified trucks and buses from the company already on the road, including FUSO’s eCanter, Thomas Built Buses’s all-electric Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley school bus, and Mercedes-Benz’s eActros and eCitaro.

Take off your hardhat, unlace those boots and crack open an ice-cold Sunny Delight from the back of the fridge: it’s finally time to unwind with your weekly construction industry news roundup. This week’s news arrives with an exciting array of topics like the regional effects of the U.S and China’s trade war, the future expansion of worker choice in relation to labor unions and a positive initiative to empower Chicago’s minority-owned contracting businesses. Read ahead for the full stories!  

This week marks the return of Safe and Sound Week, a nationwide event held each August by OSHA (Occupational Safety Hazard Association) to encourage businesses across the country to pay special attention to health and safety issues in the workplace, and take steps towards promoting greater awareness. Over 2,000 companies have already registered for the event, which runs until Friday.