Contractors, Ethnicity, Insurance, and a Contractor's License
LURKER: THANK YOU!. I am tired of encountering it in my job just as much as anyone else would not like it at an office in manhattan. we are not talking about types of food here – like belgian chocolate, german beer, chinese food, we are talking about people. and as a polish american, i would not want anyone thinking of all the Polish jokes they have heard (and lousy kielbasa they have eaten) and think “why would i call him?”. here we are told “that saying things like this is wrong” and then people, sometimes the very victims of it, propagate it. its time to push back where we encounter it – not only with our bigger institutions – but also in this industry. i do hope when you use the term “racist stereotype” you agree it is wrong.
Now, back to the insurance and what Green Thinker says: here is why i want the insurance and i am saying this for the benefit of everyone reading this (and keep in mind, i worked in corporate facilities and we were NOT permitted to bring uninsured contractors into the buildings). this contractor will be working on the common drive behind the houses. i am not worried about the contractor screwing something up in my yard. he can break something here and i might not even care. i am worried about a third party walking down the alley and tripping either on my neighbor’s side and landing on my side or over something the contractor leaves on my side. if this happen (and it happens all the time), i WILL become part of a lawsuit whether i like it or not. My insurance co will have to defend it. If the contractor does not have insurance though, i may not be secondary to the claim, but may become the TARGET of the lawsuit. that is what i do not want. i am going through this now in an MVA in which i was not at fault; the injured party does not care who is at fault (they were a passenger in a for hire vehicle) they just want a settlement. my insurance still has to defend it though. we want as many “layers” around us as possible.
stevecym
in General Discussion 5 years ago
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6 replies
stevecym | 5 years ago
i am trying to figure ALL of this out.
my neighbor came to me and told me she wanted to have concrete work done up against my property. i told her “do what ever you want so long as the contractor is licensed and insured”.
she told me, “they are licensed but NOT insured”. i looked at her kind of funny on hearing this so she said “they are chinese”. Now, you folks on Brownstoner know how i am about mentioning ethnicity in relation to hiring contractors, right? someone recommended and “Irish” contractor the other day and i said something about it. and i would not want people recommending me based on that i am a “Polish” contractor (that might not work to my advantage). so i have to ask, what does being “chinese” have to do with them being licensed but not insured? This is what i frequently tell people who say things like this to me when they suggest hires to me based on ethnicity; “i don’t care if they are green martians with antennas so long as they can get the job done correctly and safely”. (it sounds backwards, would one not get insurance first? w hen i started my business i had insurance before i had a license. can someone tell me, do they not have insurance in china?)
this is what i told her and her husband: “america is an equal opportunity country, my insurance broker will sell chinese contractors insurance just as fast as they will sell me insurance.” i ended it by telling her someone without insurance is not coming on my property (they will be working right against it, and worse than that, they will be finish against my concrete and if that is not done right, we can have a trip hazard).
as you all know, i am a contractor. in truth, i do not give a damn if someone has a license so long as they carry insurance and i know who they are and that they are not criminals (that is really what the city is trying to do by licensing us, identify us and fingerprint us). but this is what bothers me about all of this in NYC:
NYC is the only jurisdiction around here (out of Nassau, Westchester, Rockland, and the entire state of NJ) that does not require HOC contractors to have insurance as a prerequisite to getting a license. so for me, if my neighbor decides to bring the licensed but uninsured contractor here to work, i cannot call the DOCA and demand they stop them because the city does not have an insurance requirement.
None of this, the conversation with the neighbor and the city’s laws, makes any sense to me.
One would think that out of the surrounding jurisdictions, NYC would be the one that had the proper legislation on the books to protect its citizen. and in is instead, ass backwards. i don’t get it. can anyone else make any sense out of this?
stevecym | 5 years ago
i am still curious as to some parts of what i write above and very curious as to why the city seems negligent in requiring us to carry insurance. but since the conversation, my neighbor found an insured contractor to do the project for only 400 more than the uninsured folks and now i am having the concrete work done on my side as well.
GreenThinker | 5 years ago
I always felt when people include ethnicity in the conversation, in a general context; it’s just a way to differentiate and describe the person; as not to just say “the guy”. Now, in the context of construction, some mention it in the sense of someone being less/more expensive or of better/lesser quality. It’s only human nature for our minds to divide, group people together, and lean on stereotypes and our own favoritism’s. Lots of contractors work and hire within their own ethnic/religious group. A individual can prefer to hire a Chinese company in the perceived notion that they’ll receive quality work at a low price. The matter of insurance for a lot of people is just an afterthought or something not even on the radar; cause realistically if something happens you’re gonna have a bad time and spend money on a lawyer no matter what.
Lurker | 5 years ago
Ethnicity is absolutely used as a shorthand to imply price/quality/work ethic/legality and a host of other racist stereotypes. There’s no reason to mention it other than for it to imply something that the person doesn’t want to state directly (although many people do that too). We were guided to use various trades for specific jobs based on their ethnicity, both by trades and other homeowners.
cate | 5 years ago
Glad they were able to find an insured contractor and you’re all fixing up your concrete. (No idea re the city and its insurance rules but it doesn’t surprise me to hear there are issues.) Hope it goes smoothly.
stevecym | 5 years ago
I understand some of that, I suppose. the person who put the “irish” carpenter forward a few weeks back might have been implying that in the 1980’s and 90’s a lot of these guys did a lot of work building out bars and restaurants in a very traditional style, and therefor they have that experience (and they pick a lot up because they are easy to communicate with). sort of the way i say to people i really like beer from belgium or better still, chocolate from belgium as opposed to that crap chocolate made in Pennsylvania (in a town called Hershey)
but there was something i failed to mention about this; the person who said “chinese” to me is chinese. so what she was saying was her own needed some sort of allowance for being that – and that is not right. As a contractor i get tired of hearing about this group needs dispensation from this or this group is better based on their ethnicity (and in truth, i watch a lot of who is doing what in this city and i am aware that some groups do better at some things – but i also think that has more to do with an openness to lear ning). i don’t advertise myself as “american” or “polish american” when i put myself forth – and i find it troubling when others try to use it as i do think they are asking for something – some sort of dispensation. if this were being done with bigger businesses that made it into the media, lawsuits would be flying all over the place accusing people of being discriminatory.
what my coming on here is really about is the city not requiring us to have liability insurance (if my neighbor had brought the contractor here and they were performing in what i deemed an unsafe manner, i simply could not call the DOCA and demanded that they shut them down for not having insurance). to me, this is all inter related that is why i brought it up together. i feel like the city has some bias here about the insurance requirement. what a lot of people don’t get about insurance (and i bet if i watched over my neighbors “chinese” contractors they would have done a fine job – not all people who are uninsured perform poorly just like insurance is no guarantee of anything either) and licenses is that with every loop the city make us contractors jump through to exist (legally) you weed out those less serious and less committed and therefor less skilled. you get rid of the people who are in it for an easy buck and there is no such thing as an easy buck in this business (if there is, you are taking advantage of someone). it is a way of cleaning up the complaints we read about on this board. (it also gets rid of the construction debris dumped on the side of the highway).
i have taken the issue of the insurance requirement to the city council and the mayor and public advocate. the mayor and public advocate should be concerned with protecting the public – at every other turn these people do something that costs business owners money, so why would not care about this? i want to hear what they say. it is just gross incompetence.