A new report identifies an “astounding” increase in worker fatalities in New York State and New York City, as well as safety violations at 90 percent of construction fatality sites.
"Deadly Skyline: An Annual Report on Construction Fatalities in New York State,” released by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), alleges that that employers routinely violate legal regulations with impunity.
Latinos are the largest minority group in the U.S., and statistics show that only Mexico has a higher number of Latinos. Latinos now comprise 17% of the population, a figure expected to grow to 31% by 2060, according the U.S. Census Bureau. This increase will have significant demographic and business implications.
In a response to New York City’s alarming construction fatality rate, the Big Apple’s City Council is considering tough new legislation that would punish contractors who violate safety regulations.
“One of the greatest challenges in occupational safety and health is ensuring that promising research findings become safer practices on the jobsite,” according to Pete Stafford, Executive Director of the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR).
The American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently renewed their alliance, signing a five-year agreement that will focus on construction safety, temporary workers and hazards within general industry.
NYCOSH wants safety violators to face criminal charges
May 12, 2015
Although construction accounts for less than four percent of the jobs in New York City, it represents 20 percent of the on-the-job deaths, according to a report released yesterday by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety & Health (NYCOSH).
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released its final count of workplace fatalities for 2013 (the latest year calculated) showing California’s death toll that year to be 396 — more than one worker killed every day — with 21 more fatalities than in 2012. The 2013 figure is the highest number of deaths since 2009.
According to a new report released by the AFL-CIO, 4,585 workers were killed in the United States during 2013 due to workplace injuries. An additional estimated 50,000 died from occupational diseases, resulting in a loss of nearly 150 workers each day from preventable workplace conditions.
With two million Latinos – mostly foreign-born – employed in the U.S. construction industry, the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) has translated its image-driven Hazard Alerts (on topics like silica, trenches, and aerial lifts) into Spanish. The eye-catching Alerts are available for free download.
As Latino workers take on more and more of the nation’s toughest and dirtiest jobs, they increasingly are paying for it with their lives. Preliminary federal figures released last week showed that of the 4,405 U.S. workers killed on the job in 2013, 797 were Latinos. That equates to 3.8 of every 100,000 full-time Latino employees in the U.S. dying in workplace accidents during the year.