The number of deaths on construction sites has skyrocketed in New York with the recent building boom. With more deaths occurring, it becomes more important than ever for employees and their families to understand their rights and get help from a New York workers’ compensation law firm if a problem arises.
Understanding the risk factors and increased causes of death has also become increasingly important to try to stop the rising fatality rate and save lives. As part of efforts to better understand how and why so many workplace fatalities are happening, labor groups and politicians are asking the city to begin classifying whether a reported injury or a fatality has occurred on a union or non-union construction site. The goal is to determine if union sites are safer.
Labor Groups Ask for Data on Union Status After Workplace Injuries
Labor activists argue that union worksites are substantially safer than worksites that are not unionized. With intense competition for building contracts, knowing whether this is true or not could be very important. Unfortunately, within New York, it is difficult to determine if unions actually are safer or not as a result of the fact that data is not collected on whether a worksite is union-organized or not when workplace injuries and fatalities are reported.
The matter of workplace safety has taken on increased importance during New York’s building boom over the last two years, since the number of building violations, stop-work orders, worker injuries and worker deaths have skyrocketed. In 2015 alone, 471 injuries and 433 accidents happened on worksites in and around New York City. This is approximately twice as many injuries and accidents as compared with just one year prior. There were also 12 fatalities recorded in 2015, which is a significant increase from the eight deaths in 2014.
While the Department of Buildings makes this information on total accidents, injuries and deaths available, it currently doesn’t keep track of whether the worksites where the accidents happen are unionized or not. According to the New York Daily News, a local councilman and the chairman of the Committee on Housing and Buildings has spoken out in favor of recording the union status of workplaces where injuries and fatalities occur. The councilman said: “Tracking it may actually be helpful in finding out what’s actually going on.”
New York Daily News cited one example of a non-unionized worksite where employers had repeatedly been warned by safety inspectors about a hazardous trench at a location in the Meatpacking district. The warnings were ignored, and in 2015, a 22-year-old immigrant worker from Ecuador was killed when the unfortified trench collapsed. The contractor was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter, but received a conditional sentence and agreed to make workplace safety announcements.
It is not clear if the problem would have been corrected in a more timely manner if the workplace was unionized instead of a non-union worksite. It is also not clear whether the majority of deaths are happening on nonunion sites like this one. Tracking the union-status of worksites would be helpful in making these determinations.
Both union and nonunion workers should also understand their rights after a work injury. Rosenberg, Minc, Falkoff & Wolff can provide assistance to any injured employee regardless of his or her union status. Contact us today.
