The Flip-Side of the Building Boom
As will come as no surprise to regular readers, scofflaw development and unsafe building practices around the city have been reaching new highs (or lows, depending on how you look at it) as the construction booms continues apace: There were 31 construction-related deaths in 2006, the most in five years and twice as many as…
As will come as no surprise to regular readers, scofflaw development and unsafe building practices around the city have been reaching new highs (or lows, depending on how you look at it) as the construction booms continues apace: There were 31 construction-related deaths in 2006, the most in five years and twice as many as in 2000. One of the problems, notes The Daily News, is the large number of off-the-books workers, who developers can get away with paying a fraction of the prevailing wage. And because these workers have little recourse against their employers, safety conditions tend to be much worse than for documented workers. DOB is trying to play catch up by adding another 34 inspectors this year to its 350-person force, but with construction permits continuing to grow, it’s hard to believe this will have any meaningful impact. In addition to emperiling the lives of the largely immigrant workforce, the Fiscal Policy Institute, a New York-based research group, estimates that the government is losing out on about $85 million in payroll and income taxes a year.
Danger & Ripoffs Are On the Rise [NY Daily News]
Fatal Gaps in the Safety System [NY Daily News]
Photo by Sarah Goldsmith
And guess who’s side is Bloomberg on!
I’ve said it before and it bares repeating –
The true cost to the tax paying public, for these inferior pieces of crap, runs into the millions (maybe billions).
The developers are getting away with murder and reaping billions in profits while the tax paying public is left to pay for the damage done to life, limb and property.
Lesser crimes have resulted in long term jail sentences, and the ruination of lives.
Given that number of deaths, it would be revealing (and impossible) to examine the number of INJURIES, including serious and/or disabling ones. (As an epidemiologist once told me, “Toes up are easy to count.”) For the most part, these would consist of uninsured and undocumented workers receiving charity care in ERs, a shared public cost that would be hard to capture given that such patients would fall outside of any reportable workman’s comp system. The human cost to these guys, who have already risked so much for the opportunity to work like coolies, is of course incalculable. I can’t make law, but I do tell any contractor I use that his workers will need OSHA-compliant eye and respiratory protection for hazardous jobs; I’ve seen guys ripping out asbestos or lead paint with $1 filter masks and, always, guys using jackhammers, sanders, saws without eye protection…but who cares, these guys are a replaceable commodity and, as undocumented illegals, beneath our concern, right?
And the public is getting a substandard product at the end of the day.