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Industrial Safety »News & culture
Construction work injuries on the rise
Milo Plurnbottom about 2 years ago
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1 response
Construction is dangerous enough even under the best of conditions, but what happens when the conditions are not so great? Serious injury and death increases, turning a dangerous business into a deadly one.
Despite a struggling economy, the building business continue to boom, and with it has come increased rates of accidents and fatalities. Construction related deaths have risen from 1,121 in 2003 to 1,226 in 2006. In contrast, there were 836 deaths in mining incidents and 447 in manufacturing last year. The government reports approximately 6-7 deaths per 1,000 construction workers.
While regulations exist to protect workers, and more are always on the way, a variety of factors come into play. A rise in untrained immigrant workers, lax attention to safety procedures and training, and profit-minded contractors and business owners who are willing to cut corners in labor and materials to increase revenue.
The sad thing is that there are no real consequences for employers who violate regulations. Fines are ridiculously low, averaging only $1,600 per incident, according to Joel Shufro, executive director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. A worker death has a maximum punishment of six months in jail.
“Fines for harassing a burro on federal land are greater,” Shufro said. “But they do the best they can with limited resources”
Unions are typically the single best defense for the worker in maintaining workplace safety. An individual worker, especially illegal immigrants, has no chance of confronting a foreman about unsafe work conditions.
Sadly, lawsuits after serious injuries and death seem to be the only real punishment to businesses who do nothing about unsafe work conditions and rush workers for the sake of an extra buck. One worker received an $18 million dollar award after falling from a ladder and suffering a brain injury. In another case involving a 53-year-old man who fell 10 feet on his head and is now suffering from dementia and permanent mood disorder received $11.1 million. In January 2008 three people were injured and one immigrant worker was decapitated when high-rise concrete forms collapsed at the site of Donald Trump’s hotel and condo complex in Lower Manhattan. Who knows what the settlement will be in this case, but receiving a permanent life changing injury or dying is too high a price to pay for retroactive punishment.
To be fair though, many contractors and businesses do care and do their best to ensure they are in compliance with safety regulations, often going above and beyond to ensure worker safety. We commend those businesses.
In the meantime, it is up to you, the worker, to be safe, work at a reasonable place, and as I’ve heard on job sites before (from a Union Steward), “My job is to make sure you go home with all your fingers and toes!”
Take care and be safe.
This post used facts and information from the ABC News article, Construction Worker Deaths Spike by Susan Donaldson James.
Image is courtesy of ttstam at Flickr entitled Acrobatic Construction Workers 001 and is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
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about 2 years ago beingzoe said ...
We appreciate your ongoing commitment to the news tradition and informing the common man, but how about some news that isn’t so depressing. :)
Nice article though Milo, but I especially like the pic of the bamboo scaffolding.