Yesterday, an article written by David Chen and published in the New York Times included the following statistics on construction-related deaths and injuries in New York City:
“Seven workers have died on the job since July, including three in a nine-day stretch before Labor Day, according to records of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA.
“The city’s Buildings Department keeps its own count of construction deaths, injuries and accidents, offering a broader look at safety year over year. There were 10 construction-related fatalities in the most recent fiscal year, from July 2014 to July 2015, according to city figures. In contrast, the annual average over the previous four years was 5.5.
“Meanwhile, 324 workers were injured in the last fiscal year, a jump of 53 percent, and the Buildings Department recorded 314 accidents over all, an increase of 52 percent from the year before. The total was more than two and a half times what the city tallied in 2011. In comparison, permits for new construction projects grew by only 11 percent in the last fiscal year and permits for renovation and other work by 6 percent.”
Because the city is experiencing another building boom, the number of workers employed in construction has increased; so, one might expect some increase in the number of fatalities and injuries on construction sites.
But, as Chen points out, when one examines the cases more closely, it is very clear that many, if not most, of the deaths and injuries are attributable to three easily addressed factors:
1. A very high percentage of those killed and injured have been undocumented immigrants.
2. A very high percentage of those undocumented immigrants have had no training in the building trades.
3. A very high percentage of the deaths and injuries have involved falls or falling objects in which the workers were not taking such basic precautions as wearing safety harnesses or hard hats.
Meanwhile, the fines and other penalties imposed on the construction companies that have employed these undocumented and untrained workers and that have ignored the most basic safety rules for building sites have been extremely minimal. Very clearly, reduced construction costs for the owners of the buildings and increased profits for those doing the building have had priority over enforcing workplace safety laws, requiring certification of even the most basic worker training, and enforcing laws meant to prevent the exploitation of workers who are undocumented immigrants.
And all of this is occurring in New York State, which still has the highest rate of unionization in the nation, with a quarter of the workforce being unionized.
For all of the anti-immigrant rhetoric in the Red states, imagine the level of exploitation of undocumented immigrants that is almost certainly occurring in states such as Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Arizona.
This is what deregulation means. This is what the evisceration of labor law means. This is what comes from the weakening and elimination of labor unions. This is what results from political hypocrisy and the broader failure of the media to perform its most basic function in exposing such hypocrisy.
David Chen’s article is more notable today than it might have been in the relatively recent past not only because labor unions were much stronger and helped to limit such abuses but also because the article represents a type of investigative journalism that is very rapidly disappearing. In July 2014, the Pew Research Center reported that, since 2003, there has been a 53% decline in the number of reporters assigned to cover our statehouses.
The increasing corporatization of American media has paralleled the increasing corporatization of American politics and, of course, the American workplace. The previously maintained, if often tenuous balance between not just the influence but also the values of the corporate world, organized labor, the major political parties, and the media has eroded to the point that corporate influence and values now predominate more than they have had at any time since the beginning of the Progressive Era. The “New Gilded Age” refers to much more than just the increase in income inequality. The phrase highlights a skewing of American values not seen for more than a century in favor of the unchecked creation of material wealth.
David Chen’s complete article is available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/nyregion/rise-in-new-york-construction-deaths-strikes-the-poor-and-undocumented.html?_r=0.
As a resident of Colorado, I can say the problem is greatly amplified here. Whenever I walk by a construction site in the Denver metro region, I pause and observe who is working. The guys in white hats (supervisors, architects, engineers) are almost exclusively white. The guys in yellow hats (laborers) are exclusively Latino- and it appears most speak very little English.
I believe one way toward better regulation and better wages is via taxation. Those corporations with low wage scales and high profit margins should be subjected to significantly higher tax rates- while those with better wages & lower profit margins are given tax breaks.
In terms of worker safety- it comes down to regulation. I know here in Colorado that the government inspectors are vastly over-worked and simply cannot maintain vigilance on any one project- much less many. Plain & simple, we need more boots on the ground to enforce existing environmental health & OSHA standards.
In Spanish, we say this is “capitalismo salvaje”, understood easily enough. As the resident in Colorado testifies, it gets more and more “savage” as we go west, and in red states like Texas, there is giant divide between the white hats and the yellow hats, sad to say.
As long as conservative pro business, anti labor remains in power, this problem will only get worse.
Ana M. Fores Tamayo / Adjunct Justice