For many years, the building at 20 Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx was valued
for its rooftop advertisement space. Now, according to an article in The New York Times, the building, which developers were transforming from an icehouse into a charter school, has become one of the deadliest construction sites in New York City in almost two decades.
The Times reports that no other worksite in the city has seen this many separate fatal construction accidents since 2003, when the Department of Buildings began keeping electronic records. In spite of the pattern of deaths, the consequences for those in charge have been negligible. The Buildings Department shut down the site for nearly two months after the second fatality, but the work began again, and another man died.
Tragic Worker Fatalities and Injuries
While government inspectors have issued numerous violations in connection with the deaths, they have only slapped $28,864 in the total amount fined. The Times reports that all three of the laborers who died in construction accidents at this site lived on the city’s margins. While two of them were undocumented immigrants, one was a homeless man. None of the men had union representation, the report stated.
Among those who died were Marco Martinez, 18, who was killed after being crushed against a ceiling by a mechanical lift in 2018. He had just arrived to the U.S. from Ecuador, his father said. A year later Michael Daves, who was living in a men’s shelter and struggling with substance abuse, died after falling through a hole.
In May 2021, Mauricio Sanchez, 41, an immigrant from Mexico, was killed and Yonin Pineda, 29, from Guatemala, was severely injured in a fall down an elevator shaft when they were trying to move containers of construction debris down to the ground. According to the Times article, Pineda is still in the hospital, his body broken and jaw wired shut.
Immigrant Workers Are Vulnerable
A recent report released by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) states that the fatality rate among construction workers statewide increased by 9% in 2020 compared with the previous year. The report also showed that a vast majority of construction workers killed on the job in New York in 2020 were not unionized. A disproportionate number of workers killed across all sectors were Latinos. Also, Latino New Yorkers are overrepresented in worker deaths across all industries, making up 10 % of the states workforce, but accounting for 18% of workplace deaths.
Experts attribute the lack of safety awareness, language barriers and lack of adequate job and safety training to this increase in construction accidents among Latino immigrant workers. Construction companies and contractors who are repeat violators often end up going unpunished. This situation is worsened by the fact that the Department of Buildings does not have enough inspectors to keep up with increase construction activity in the city. This is expected to change with the launch of the city’s construction task force with the goal of catching safety violators and imposing hefty fines on these individuals and companies.
Compensation for Injured Workers
Injured construction workers do have rights. Whether you are union or nonunion, documented or undocumented, you have legal rights if you have suffered a serious personal injury on the job. You may be entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. In addition, you may be able to file a third-party lawsuit for substantial money damages against a number of parties, and thus have two sources of compensation.
Third-party claims are filed against parties other than the employer or co-employees and may include general contractors, sub-contractors, building owners, managing agents, construction companies, etc. In cases where a worker dies from injuries suffered on the job, surviving family members may seek death benefits through workers’ compensation and/or file a wrongful death claim against a third party.
If you have been injured on the job, it is important that you take certain steps to protect your rights including reporting the incident promptly to your supervisor, getting medical attention and treatment and ensuring that crucial evidence from the accident scene is preserved. It is also important that you document all your medical and other expenses relating to the injury.
Contacting an Experienced Lawyer
If you have suffered injuries in a construction-related accident, the experienced New York personal injury attorneys at the Law Offices of Kenneth A. Wilhelm can help you better understand your legal rights and options, and also fight hard to recover just compensation for you.
Our law firm recovered $3,375,576 for a construction worker (an undocumented immigrant) who was injured on the job — one of the highest construction case settlements in New York that year. Our law firm also recovered $3,000,000 for a man who fell and suffered two broken legs when he walked into an open elevator shaft. Also, one of our clients obtained a verdict for $43,940,000 and another of our clients got a verdict for $23,500,000, both in medical malpractice cases.
Please contact us TOLL FREE 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-800-WORK-4-YOU (1-800-967-5496). WE CAN EVEN COME TO YOU. There is no attorneys’ fee unless we recover money for you. We can also help with personal injury and/or medical malpractice cases in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, or Florida. If you have been seriously injured in any of the 50 U.S. states, please call us and we will try to help you with your case.
Other TOLL FREE phone numbers for us are:
1-800-RADIO-LAW, 1-888-WYPADEK, OR 1-800-LAS-LEYES
Please visit us at: www.WORK4YOULAW.com
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/30/us/nyc-construction-deaths-immigrants.html