Recently, a construction crew was using a drilling rig at a construction site in Long Island City when the rig hit a high-pressure gas line. According to the New York Post, a “geyser of flame erupted” after the gas line was hit.  Fortunately, the two-alarm fire was contained in the rig and the fire did not spread. The fire burned so hot that the windows on a factory nearby melted.  Workers were able to flee the area when the drilling rig hit the gas line because they smelled the gas.  Only one worker sustained a minor injury and none of the other 40 workers who

Many news reports, newsletter pieces and other types of articles deal with the controversy of New York Labor Law 240 and the environment that New York construction workers often face while on the job. Some sources go deeper into the reality of labor environments by discussing statistics in order to talk about what happens within a given industry. In a previous article posted on Real Estate Weekly Online, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimated that of the 3,929 work fatalities that occurred in the private industry in 2013 across the country, 20 percent of those