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Vol. 79/No. 31 September 7, 2015
Nonunion construction
deaths on rise in NY
BY EMMA JOHNSON
NEW YORK — “I’m here to protest the conditions these guys work under,”
carpenter Mike Haggerty told the Militant on a picket line outside a
construction site here Aug. 13. “They are underpaid, they have no
benefits and no safety equipment. Did you hear about the young worker
who was killed when the trench collapsed on him?”
The picket line on 36th Street on Manhattan’s West Side was organized by
the Carpenters union to call attention to the conditions prevailing on
nonunion construction sites across the city, where workers, often
Latinos without papers, pay with life and limb for the bosses’ profit
drive.
On Aug. 5, two construction companies and two of their managers were
indicted on charges of manslaughter for recklessly causing the April 6
death of Carlos Moncayo, 22, originally from Ecuador.
An inspector that day tried to get supervisors to stop workers digging a
trench that was seven feet deep without fortifying walls. He kept
pleading for more than two hours before a boss finally told the workers
to get out. Moments later the trench, then 14 feet deep, collapsed and
Moncayo was buried alive.
Ten workers were killed on construction sites in the city and Long
Island in 2013 and 11 in 2014. So far this year 11 have lost their
lives, most of them working nonunion jobs. Latinos make up 25 percent of
construction workers, but represented 38 percent of fatalities in 2012.
“They make $10, maybe $12 an hour and lots of them don’t have papers,”
said José Zayas as he walked the picket line. “I speak Spanish, but we
can’t really talk to them, because bosses are standing around watching
and we don’t want to cause them losing their jobs or even risk
deportation. But we always tell them this is not against them.”
Most union jobs pay from $35 to $65 an hour. Nonunion workers are paid
between $8 and $30, mostly at the lower end. At least half are paid off
the books, with no Social Security, unemployment compensation, coverage
for workers’ compensation or health insurance.
The City of New York and its housing development agencies have
overwhelmingly contracted nonunion outfits to build so-called affordable
housing, making it the least unionized and lowest paying construction
segment in the city.
According to the 2015 report “The Price of Life,” 25 percent of close to
90,000 carpenters in New York state are undocumented, in addition to 40
percent of 125,000 laborers and roughly one-third of dry wallers and
roofers.
The wholesale organizing drive needed to unionize these workers faces
many obstacles, among them organizational disputes and little interest
from the existing unions, which are fractured along trades lines.
“We can’t legally bring in members who don’t have a Social Security
number, a high school diploma or a public work record,” said picket
captain Gerald Matthews, an official with the Carpenters. “But we are
reaching out to organize them. We have a provisional membership, where
we place workers in sites we organize. After two or three paychecks they
have a work record and we can bring them into full membership.”
Matthews estimates that 75 percent of construction sites in the city
today are nonunion.
Related articles:
Steelworkers fight bosses’ demands for concessions
Solidarity actions set when contracts expire Sept. 1
Mineworkers protest Patriot’s attack on union
On the Picket Line
Don Rasmussen: Stalwart of miners’ fight for safety
How coal miners’ struggles transformed union
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