Barton Malow Co. was the 38th largest contractor in the nation last year in terms of revenue - and the largest in Michigan - according to annual rankings released last month by the Engineering News Record.

Acting as a general contractor, the firm earned $969 million in 1999, according to Crain's Detroit Business. Other Michigan-based contractors in the top 100 are Walbridge-Aldinger (No. 45, earning $775 million as a general) and Ellis-Don Michigan Inc. (No. 62, $105 million). Angelo Iafrate came in on the list at No. 64.

Other non-Michigan-based contractors appearing on the list that are familiar to Hardhats in our state are the Bechtel Group Inc. (No. 1); Turner Corp. (No. 4); Raytheon Engineers and Constructors (No. 12); Clark Construction Group Inc. (No. 15); Black & Veatch (No 16); Huber, Hunt and Nichols, Inc. (No. 22), Perini Corp. (No. 34); J.S. Alberici Construction Co., Inc. (No. 55), Oscar J. Boldt (No. 90) and W.E. O'Neil Construction (No. 95).

Michigan's booming economy and low unemployment produced a 30-year low in claims for state jobless benefits in 1999.

"The number of claims handled by the Unemployment Agency dropped by slightly more than 13 percent in 1999," said agency Director Jack Wheatley last week. "The total number of weeks of unemployment that jobless workers claimed last year fell to 4.9 million from 5.6 million in 1998."

The last time unemployment claims were lower was in 1969, when the state processed claims for 3.5 million unemployed.

The strength of the state's construction industry is evident in the jobless numbers. Leading the pack among the jobless claimants were workers in manufacturing, who filed 25 percent of the claims. They were followed by the service sector (21.9 percent) and then the construction industry (17.8 percent).

Women made up 47 percent of the entire U.S. workforce, but only 14 percent of the construction industry.

The report released on April 20 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, used 1998 numbers and said 94,263 of the nation's 769,253 construction workers were women.

"We know and the industry as a whole knows that we've got our work cut out for us," said Dede Hughes, executive vice president of the National Association of Women in Construction, to the Construction Labor Report. She added that between 1995 and 1998, the number of women in construction rose by 3 percent.

Now, wood dust is being considered for addition to the list of "known or probable human carcinogens."

Other potential bad-guy substances being looked at by the National Toxicology Program include talc, vinyl bromide and vinyl fluoride. Nominated chemicals undergo three separate reviews by federal government scientists and an outside peer review panel.

If any are declared carcinogens, it would take years - if ever - for OSHA and the federal government to draw up regulations for working safely around the substances.

Job-related injuries that require a day or more away from work in the construction industry dropped to a six-year low of 1.7 million, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last month.

Among construction laborers, for example, injuries and illness dropped from 91,300 in 1997 to 84,100 in 1998. Overall, among all crafts, the better injury and illness numbers represent a drop of 4 percent from 1997 to 1998.