Construction in Manhattan is a dangerous line of work and
first responders here are used to being called for accidents on job sites.
But when fire officials arrived on the site of a Midtown
hotel renovation on April 2, they were confronted with a strange situation,
according to news reports: the site, bustling with workers moments earlier, was
completely deserted save for the body of a construction worker, the hotel
management and a number of onlookers.
The worker, it turned out, had been doing façade work on
the upper floors of a hotel, when he slipped between loose planks, fell off the
scaffolding and died.
This much witnesses could say. But the man’s identity
remained a mystery, and eight hours after the accident the police still hadn’t
identified him. Apparently, none of his co-workers had returned to the site. In
all likelihood, many of them were undocumented immigrants.
BaustellenschattenIllegal immigrants in the U.S. tend to
avoid contact with authorities out of fear of being caught and deported.
In the construction industry, this reluctance has left
them with a disproportionate risk of injury or death. Fearful of reporting
unsafe working conditions, they are vulnerable to negligent and abusive
employers.
For these workers, Barack Obama’s executive action on
immigration, announced last week, could be a game changer. By protecting
millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation and offering the prospect
of work permits to some, it offers undocumented construction workers the
leverage needed to fight for safer working conditions. The result could be far
fewer deaths on job sites.
There is little reliable data on deaths and injuries
among undocumented immigrants. But the data available shows a disproportionately
high injury risk for both Latinos and immigrants as a whole — two groups in
which undocumented immigrants feature strongly.
A 2010 study by Xiuwen Sue Dong, Yurong Men and Knut
Ringen in the American Journal of Internal Medicine found Hispanic construction
workers were almost 30 percent more likely to get work-related injuries than
their white counterparts across the U.S., after controlling for risk factors
such as age or type of work.
In New York State, immigrants accounted for 60 percent of
all fall-related deaths or injuries between 2003 and 2011, according to the
Center for Popular Democracy.
This share is disproportionately high for their share of
the work force. Since incidents involving undocumented immigrants often go
unreported, their injury risk is likely to be significantly higher.
The problem is particularly obvious in Manhattan, which
is currently in the midst of an unprecedented construction boom. A few blocks
from the site of the April 2 accident, at least half a dozen skyscrapers are
rising around a rail yard. Further uptown, three new luxury apartment towers
will soon stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Empire State Building — once
unquestionably the tallest building in Manhattan. And downtown, the city’s most
famous construction site has already churned out three new World Trade Center
towers, with more to follow.
“New York City’s construction market is operating at full
capacity for both union and non-union companies like I have never seen before,”
said Lou Coletti, head of the Building Trade Employers’ Association (BTEA).
Rents and condo prices are at record highs and penthouses
in new developments regularly sell for tens of millions of dollars. But
competition among contractors is fierce, and many are forced to resort to
low-wage workers in order to undercut competitors. Coletti estimates that half
of all residential construction projects — once the exclusive domain of
organized labor — now involve non-union workers. Some of Manhattan’s most
expensive condo developments are regularly picketed for alleged wage dumping.
In some ways, the rise of the open shop has benefitted
undocumented immigrants, who are often the first choice for contractors looking
for cheap labor. But employers who hire the cheapest labor available often also
try to cut costs by skipping safety training and equipment, explained Charlene
Obernauer, director of the advocacy group New York Center for Occupational
Safety and Health (NYCOSH).
It is hard to find an undocumented construction worker
who doesn’t recall working on sites without basic safety training and
equipment, such as helmets, harnesses and secure scaffolding. Once the almost
inevitable injury occurs, they are often left to fend for themselves — despite
the fact that employers are legally liable for most injuries on work sites.
Pablo*, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, worked
for a plumbing firm in Brooklyn for a daily pay of $100 in cash. About six
months ago, he was installing pipes in a basement when a loose piece of wood
dropped on his head, causing him to fall down a flight of stairs and knocking
him out cold.
After he came to, his employer dropped him off outside a
hospital, urging him not to tell the hospital staff he was injured on a work
site. In return, Pablo claims, the employer promised to foot his medical bill.
After telling the doctors that he had tripped on the
curb, Pablo was surprised to find out that his employer changed his mind and
wouldn’t pay for his treatment. But lacking alternatives, Pablo went back to
work for him – until he got injured again.
He was standing on the back of a pick-up truck when an
unsecured pile of manhole covers fell on his foot, crushing his toes and
pushing the bone of his big toe into his right foot. Once again, he was left
with no compensation or support from his employer and had to get most of his
hospital bill covered by a state program for low-income patients.
“I called my employer’s secretary, but the secretary said
he wouldn’t care. And he hasn’t called me back,” Pablo said, sitting in the
hallway of his shared apartment in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. “I am worried because
I don’t have any family members here, haven’t worked in a month and the rent is
due soon.”
With no income or injury compensation, Pablo may soon
find himself on the street and unable to pay off the $7,000 he borrowed to pay
for the trafficker that brought him from Guatemala to the U.S.
“After you get useless, companies don’t hire you
anymore,” said Arturo, also an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala. He
recalled the case of a colleague who fell from a 40-foot ladder and broke his
back, only to find out that his employer didn’t have any insurance or license.
“He couldn’t claim support and didn’t know how to sue, so he had to pay for the
hospital bill himself,” he said. Undocumented workers like Pablo are often
reluctant to report unsafe conditions or injuries out of fear of losing their
jobs or getting deported, explained Ligia Guallpa, head of the advocacy group
Worker’s Justice Project. By removing the immediate threat of deportation from
most undocumented immigrants, Obama’s immigration plan could help overcome that
reluctance.
“The plan will make a world of difference for
undocumented construction workers,” Said Haeyoung Yoon, deputy program director
of the advocacy group National Employment Law Project. “Undocumented workers
live in a culture of fear because unscrupulous employers often use immigration
status to retaliate against workers who want to assert their rights,” she
added. “The fact that they can work legally takes away that huge fear.”
But while immigration reform will likely help improve the
bargaining power of undocumented construction workers, activists argue that
more is needed to ensure they enjoy protections similar to their unionized
peers. A particularly glaring issue is a lack of enforcement of safety
regulations. Even if undocumented immigrants don’t have to fear deportation,
they still tend to have little job security and might still be reluctant to
report unsafe conditions so as not to antagonize employers. Moreover, a lack of
training and language barriers mean many workers don’t know what kind of safety
regulations are mandatory, according to workers and activists.
New York State requires all construction workers to
complete a 10-hour safety training by the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA), and its controversial Scaffold Law holds employers
accountable for all fall-related injuries on their sites – regardless of
whether they were actually at fault.
But while the laws are strict, enforcement is lacking.
OSHA, the government body responsible for ensuring safe working conditions, is
notoriously understaffed, leaving many sites un-inspected. Moreover, its fines
and temporary work-stop orders often do little to deter bad behavior and OSHA’s
list of repeat offenders is long.
According to activists, a flourishing black market for
fake OSHA-10 training certificates has sprung up. A report by the advocacy
group Public Citizen found that 72 percent of construction-site deaths in New
York City in 2011 and 2012 occurred on sites where workers had not participated
in state-approved safety training.
NGOs like Worker’s Justice Project or Build Up NYC have
improved working conditions for many by offering safety training and auditing
job sites. But they still only reach a fraction of the workforce. In order to
ensure safe conditions for all workers, stricter laws and public oversight are
needed, activists argue. NYCOSH’s 2014 report on workplace deaths calls for an
increase in the number of public safety inspectors and a minimum $50,000 fine
for any safety violation that causes the death of a worker.
In the meantime, many undocumented immigrants are trapped
with two bad choices: complain about unsafe conditions and risk getting fired,
or keep working and risk a potentially devastating injury. Jose, an
undocumented immigrant from Ecuador, chose the former option and hasn’t
regretted it.
Jose spent the past spring installing floors in a
high-rise luxury condo building in downtown Manhattan. He recalls carrying
heavy plywood planks on the building’s 23rd floor, trying not to trip over the
numerous nails sticking out of the scaffolding. He says he was given a harness,
but it wasn’t connected to anything.
He repeatedly complained to his employer about the unsafe
working conditions, but his co-workers, mainly undocumented immigrants, were
loathe to join him. “Of course they wouldn’t speak up. Whenever workers started
to argue, our employer would threaten to fire them and tell them there were
many other people that wanted the job,” he said.
Eventually, Jose decided to quit the job and has since
found a safer construction job on Long Island. “I had arguments with the
employer and the foreman. I told them that I’m not their slave and that I’m
here to work safely,” he recalled. “I was lucky I didn’t get injured before I
left.”
*the names of all construction workers mentioned in this
article have been changed
Source: Real
Estate Weekly
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