We know that ladder and scaffold accidents are a major cause of injury at construction sites around the country. We also know that New York has one of the strictest scaffold laws on the books. But how does this really affect safety on the job? The Construction Industry Partnership (CIP) has published a paper called “Construction Safety: A Tale of Two Cities” that really gives us some clues to some of the realities around construction in and around the five boroughs. Some Statistics This report shows, for example, that 62% of all victims in a critical survey were of Hispanic origin and 70% of fatalities

You would think that job safety is something that gets better over time. Every year, federal safety agencies and other groups work hard to promote safety practices in the workplace and more data about the biggest risks in various industries is made available for review. Still, workplace safety is not immune to some of the dangerous trends that can leave workers exposed to a greater chance of having a severe or serious accident. One illustration of this is in a prominent story from this past November in Crain’s New York Business. The story begins with the chilling tale of a worker who fell five floors

In the last federal fiscal year, there were 18 workers killed at construction job sites in New York City. This was an increase compared with 12 worker fatalities in the prior federal fiscal year, and 7 deaths two years prior.  The increase in fatalities at construction sites throughout the city has prompted concerns among workers, public officials and safety advocates.  The New York Daily News reported that thousands rallied recently to draw attention to the problem and demand greater safety measures in order for workers to be better protected. The construction field is a high risk field even under the best of circumstances. Unfortunately, employers