Pascual Barrero, 55, has held many hard jobs during his life. When he moved to New York from Mexico 15 years ago, he brought with him the memories of years of poverty, but also the hope for a better future. He found work with a small Queens company and joined the ranks of the state’s 1.5 million construction workers. Then Dec. 5, 2005 came along.
“That day I fell from a ladder while working at a warehouse in the Bronx,” Barrero remembers. “No one was holding the ladder that was old and in bad shape. I had been telling the boss for months to change it, that it was unsafe, but he never paid attention. We never were given safety belts and the tools were in bad shape.”
Barrero’s spine, right foot and right knee were broken and he has not been able to go back to work.
Had it not been for the New York Scaffold Safety Law, Barrero, not a union member, would have been left with no means of support. But under the law property owners and general contractors are responsible for providing protections for their workers. The legislation, which has been in place for more than 100 years, allows construction workers who get injured or killed on the job to sue the companies that hired them. Barrero sued his employer and won a substantial amount.
“Without the scaffold law I don’t know how I would have survived,” Barrero said. Now the law is under attack from the construction industry that is seeking to have it repealed or weakened.
Monday , just in time for International Workers Day, the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) will release a report on construction workplace deaths in New York State. It analyzes the 196 occupational fatalities in 2012. The report’s purpose is to make the case for the preservation of the Scaffold Law as it exists.
The study shows that construction was the deadliest industry but that the vast majority of fatalities in the state were preventable. Also, 60% of workers killed between 2003 and 2011 were immigrants, mostly Latinos and non-unionized. In the city, the number is even higher: 74%.
Many of these deaths, the report says, would not have happened had the employer made the worksite safer and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) could have better enforced its health and safety regulations. But OSHA fines are too small averaging less than $13,000 in 2013. Besides, there currently are only 71 OSHA health and safety inspectors in the state, the lowest number in five years. It is estimated that it would take OSHA 103 years to inspect all New York worksites once.
“That’s why the Scaffold Law must be preserved as it exists, so they can be held accountable,” said Charlene Obernauer, NYCOSH’s executive director.
The law has existed since the 1880s and has helped to make New York construction sites a lot safer. “New York is the sixth safest state in the country when it comes to number of injuries,” Obernauer said. Even so, two more workers died in the past month in the city at sites without state-approved training and apprenticeship programs.
A diverse group of workers, advocates and organizations committed to protecting construction workers launched a coalition two weeks ago to defend the law. The Center for Popular Democracy, NYCOSH, Build Up NYC, and Public Citizen are among its members.
“I am just blown away by the fact they are trying to change this law,” said Josie Duffy, a staff attorney for the Center of Popular Democracy. “These workers do dangerous work, from 2009 to 2011 there were 101 fatalities in New York alone. They need more protection, not less.”
The construction industry has tried to have the law repealed for as long as anybody can remember. They allege it allows workers who are responsible for their own injuries to collect from companies or contractors even if these are not at fault.
But Obernauer disputes that.
“The requirements they must follow not to be held liable for a worker’s accident are really very basic: They simply must have the proper safety equipment in place. An injured worker only has a case if safety protections weren’t in place. They only have to comply with the law,” she said.
It is not a lot to ask to save workers’ lives.
