As unions decline, construction workers are dying at alarming rates.
[We should also remember that many of the construction workers being victimized at unsafe non-union sites are undocumented. These workers often fail to resist or even report dangerous work conditions because they fear that their employers will respond by calling in the ICE agents. The article points out the drastic underfunding of OSHA. In 2015 the government's budget request for immigration enforcement was $18.5 billion for the two agencies; for OSHA the Obama administration requested just $565 million. In other words, we spend 1/33 as much on protecting workers' health and safety as we do on making immigrants' lives miserable. We can expect still worse under Trump--unless we fight back.--TPOI]
By Sam Pizzigati, Other Words
February 1, 2017
Try this the next time you find yourself standing on a Wall Street corner. Ask the first power suit you see why Wall Street’s finest deserve to be making $25 billion in bonuses a year.
Wall Streeters actually have a ready response for impertinent questions like this: We deserve the big bucks, they’ll tell you, because we take risks.
Truth be told, risk-takers do abound in the canyons of Manhattan. But to see them, you have to lift your line of sight off street level — and beyond the corner offices of Wall Street’s high-finance movers and shakers.
You have to look skyward, up into the “high steel” world of construction workers continually adding new towers to the city’s skyline.[...]
Read the full article:
http://otherwords.org/americas-construction-carnage/
[We should also remember that many of the construction workers being victimized at unsafe non-union sites are undocumented. These workers often fail to resist or even report dangerous work conditions because they fear that their employers will respond by calling in the ICE agents. The article points out the drastic underfunding of OSHA. In 2015 the government's budget request for immigration enforcement was $18.5 billion for the two agencies; for OSHA the Obama administration requested just $565 million. In other words, we spend 1/33 as much on protecting workers' health and safety as we do on making immigrants' lives miserable. We can expect still worse under Trump--unless we fight back.--TPOI]
By Sam Pizzigati, Other Words
February 1, 2017
Try this the next time you find yourself standing on a Wall Street corner. Ask the first power suit you see why Wall Street’s finest deserve to be making $25 billion in bonuses a year.
Wall Streeters actually have a ready response for impertinent questions like this: We deserve the big bucks, they’ll tell you, because we take risks.
Truth be told, risk-takers do abound in the canyons of Manhattan. But to see them, you have to lift your line of sight off street level — and beyond the corner offices of Wall Street’s high-finance movers and shakers.
You have to look skyward, up into the “high steel” world of construction workers continually adding new towers to the city’s skyline.[...]
Read the full article:
http://otherwords.org/americas-construction-carnage/