Construction of NY's greenest building on National Gegraphic's Man Made

1 Bryant Park, The Bank Of America tower

The most amazing job I have had the honor of working on is on the tube right now, I see a lot of friends. This is an amazing green structure, I'm glad I got the call right after it began(thanks Greg). My girl is gonna Tivo it for me too. I hope it's not the last great job I'm on.

The show's called Man Made and it's on the National Geographic Channel

It's airing Friday at 12:00AM (that's Fri. morning if you're like me and need to think about it)
Saturday Nov. 8th at 4:00PM
and next Thursday Nov.13th. at 5:00PM

From the NGC Man Made site

• Overview
• Photos

In the city that never sleeps, one architects dream for a greener future has been realized. The One Bryant Park building in New York City is not only going to be the second tallest building in the city, but is set to be one of the most energy efficient skyscrapers in the world. Richard Cook and his team have taken on an exhilarating challenge to transform the modern approach to green technology. Both groups envisioned breaking new ground in the arena of environmentally conscious skyscrapers, a significant step forward in a city known for massive energy consumption. Join National Geographic as we examine the trials and triumphs of erecting a skyscraper whose blueprints just might map out a new design for our planets future.

So set your Tivo's and DVR's people and get a small look into the craftsmanship of some of the worlds finest construction workers.

Staten Island and Brooklyn need Mike McMahon in Congress

"Not until we return dignity and respect to our workplace will our nation ever live up to the great ideals upon which it was founded." - Mike McMahon

->Click the image to the right for large printable card you can take with you when you vote

What can I say, we had many years of Republican Vito Fosella as our Congressman, and while there were a few items I agreed upon with him, for the most part he didn't see the same picture as me. He ignored my stance on media consolidation, stating in a mass generated e-mail that if corporations owned more TV, radio and newspapers, it would be better for all of us. He also did not respond to my offer to do anything in my power to help keep my local hospital, Victory Memorial, open. So I was a bit discouraged, but that was then, this is a new day.

First let me explain a bit about my Congressional district

My district, the 13th. Congressional district of New York, which encompasses all of Staten Island and the southern part of Brooklyn, has the highest density of any Congressional district in the entire United States, with over 92,000 union households. For too long we had a person in office at the Congressional level that didn't quite understand what difficulties workers face on a daily basis. Now we have a chance to elect someone who knows who his neighbors are, so here's what Mr. McMahon has to say about labor, in excerpt:

My neighbors and friends in both Staten Island and Brooklyn leave their homes and families early each morning to put in a hard day’s work, helping our City function and supporting their families. As a child I learned from them the values that continue to guide me today – the honor of hard work, the importance of family, and the power that we have when we stand together.

The great American ideals of justice and fairness demand that we treat each and every hard working man and woman - from fire fighters to teachers, from police office officers to sanitation workers, from construction workers to nurses, and so many other important but often overlooked jobs -, with dignity and respect. First and foremost this means a fair wage for a fair days work, appropriate benefits so that they and their family have health care access, financial security, and time off to spend as a family.

Employee Free Choice Act:

Sadly the fight for dignity and respect on the job has never been more difficult then today. Far too often, when workers courageously stand up and demand union representation , unscrupulous employers respond with illegal threats and intimidation. Firing workers, changing shift times, and even threatening to close places of work are becoming all the more common in union organizing campaigns. The nation’s foremost enforcer of labor law, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), is simply ill-equipped and unable to decide these cases in a timely fashion. This means that even when illegal acts are found, the ruling often comes years after workers have been intimidated from voting for union representation, and the atmosphere for union organizing has been poisoned beyond the point when a free and fair election is possible. This, clearly, is not what was envisioned by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he and Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act over 70 years ago. As Americans, we must stand together to say that this type of harassment is unacceptable anywhere in the world, let alone in our nation’s own work places.

It is for these reasons that I strongly and proudly support the Employee Free Choice Act. This vital legislation will return the decision about union representation to the rightful decision makers – the workers. Once this most important piece of legislation is enacted into law, workers will be able to declare their desire for union representation through the signing of union authorization cards. The union will be able to hold those cards until a majority have been signed, at which time they will be submitted to the NLRB. No longer will employers be able to hire union busting law firms that employ vicious campaigns of threat and intimidation in preparation for a union election date. No longer will workers’ votes be cast under the watchful eye of their employer. The Employee Free Choice Act will finally begin to return democracy and fairness to our nation’s workplaces.

I am proud to have stood with the hardworking men and women of my City to protect their jobs and living conditions. When the sons and daughters of our City were called up to active military duty and temporarily forced to leave their families and municipal jobs to proudly serve our country in the War on Terror, I fought to make sure that the housing and food compensation that they received with their deployment was not subtracted from their City pay checks. Before I and my colleagues on the City Council demanded this change in City policy, City employees that were called up to active duty were required to return to the City the lesser of their City salary or their military compensation, including the cost of housing and food.

Just as I successfully fought in 2003 to save nearly two hundred good paying Teamster jobs at the City’s Department of Sanitation, I will fight with equal vigor for:

• Labor and Environmental Standards in all International Trade Agreements. Our country needs fair trade that raises the wages and standards of all workers, not trade that makes it free for employers to export jobs and exploit workers.
• Increased funding for the Occupational Safety & Health Administration and other Similar Federal Agencies. Federal agencies charged with enforcement of our nation’s labor laws need to be sufficiently resourced and empowered to do their jobs. Needless and senseless workplace accidents must be stopped before they happen, and when they do, employers that are at fault must be held accountable for their actions. In this day and age workers should not be dying on our construction sites -as has tragically been the recent case in New York City - or in our nation’s mines. We have the technology and ability to do this work safely and we owe it to the hard working men and women of our nation and their families to ensure their safety.
• Increasing the National Minimum Wage. The legal minimum wage needs to be raised further and we must ensure that all levels of government are vigorously enforcing the law and prosecuting those who violate it. Men and woman should be paid equal and fair wages for a fair days work, and in order to support their families these wages must keep pace with inflation and the rising cost of living.
• Ensuring that all Government Funded Projects Pay a Prevailing Wage for All Construction Work. If there is a single dollar of federal funding in a development project, all construction should be done at the prevailing wage rate. The practice of segregating Federal and local government funding and structuring the project to minimize the work done at a prevailing rate, as is far too often the case in New York City, simply must come to an end. As a member of the New York City Council I fought to end this practice by introducing legislation, Introduction 733, requiring that all City subsidized projects, whether directly or indirectly funded, pay a prevailing wage rate. I will continue this fight once elected to the United States Congress.

Not until we return dignity and respect to our workplace will our nation ever live up to the great ideals upon which it was founded. I will work hand and hand with my partners in organized labor in the fight for economic justice both here at home and abroad.

Every single labor union in the New York City area is endorsing Mike McMahon, his stance on our returning veterans and infrastructure are also top notch, and from some friends and colleagues of mine, he is the real deal. Mike McMahon can also be voted under the Working Families Party, Line E.

More info on Mike McMahon can be found on Mike McMahon For Congress
More info on who Working Families supports and their issues can be found at WFP.org

Father Brian Jordan will run the NYC Marathon on behalf of killed and injured construction workers

Father Brian will run for both deceased union and nonunion workers during the marathon. "God loves us equally during life and death" says Father Brian "However, your chances for survival are far greater if you join the construction workers' unions and receive the proper safety training."

NYC IMMEDIATE RELEASE: OCTOBER 20, 2008
ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST TO RUN NYC MARATHON FOR CONSTRUCTION WORKERS WHO WERE KILLED OR SEVERELY INJURED ON THE WORKSITE

On Sunday, November 2, 2008, Father Brian Jordan will run in the annual New York City Marathon on behalf New York City construction workers who have either been killed or severely injured this past year.

Father Brian is the chaplain for the Building Trades and Construction Council of New York City. He began ministering among construction workers when he was a chaplain at Ground Zero from September, 2001 till June, 2002. He has attended many wakes, funeral Masses and memorial services for many of the deceased during the past year. Among them were the six construction workers killed on March 15 when a crane collapsed on Second Avenue and 52nd Street. Also two were killed on May 30 when another crane collapsed on First Avenue and 91st. Street. According to the Dept. of Buildings, 19 construction workers were killed so far this year. Construction workers have a higher rate of being killed on the job than police officers and firefighters. Particularly, among nonunion workers who do not have the sufficient training and safety equipment that is expected from their employers. Recent statistics point out that 1 out of every 5 Latino construction workers nationwide are either killed or injured on the worksite each year. The majority of these Latino workers are immigrants and work for nonunion contractors.

Coincidentally, November 2 is the Feast of All Souls on the Christian calendar. This solemn feast recalls the deceased by loved ones, family members and friends. Their continued prayers will help raise their souls into Heaven. In Latino culture(especially among Mexicans) they call November 2 the Day of the Dead

(El Dia de Los Muertos.) Father Brian will run for both deceased union and nonunion workers during the marathon. "God loves us equally during life and death" says Father Brian "However, your chances for survival are far greater if you join the construction workers' unions and receive the proper safety training."

Father Brian requests that the public give generously to a new fund that will dispense money gifts to family members of future victims of worksite accidents. This fund will be known as the Construction Workers' Relief Fund. It will be effective after the Nov. 2 Marathon. A special committee will be appointed to carefully distribute these funds on an as needed basis. Please make your checks out to:

CONSTRUCTION WORKERS' RELIEF FUND c/o

Building Trades and Construction Council

71 W. 23rd Street Suite 501

New York, New York 10010

Father Brian Jordan is well known for being there for our construction workers, in the above picture Father Brian blesses the I-Beam cross which was discovered under the debri at the World Trade Canter site, Father Brian is also an immigration counselor at St.Francis in NYC, and known as a spiritual adviser to the labor movement

Here's a video interview with Father Brian Jordan from April,2007 on immigration

Emergency Labor mobilization on Bailout this THURSDAY!

From the E-mail, and my friends at METRO Labor communicators

Dear Joseph, This Thursday at noon, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney will join hundreds of members of the New York City Central Labor Council for an emergency mobilization on Wall Street to protest the current bailout package. As written, the package gives a blank check to the Bush administration and bails out corporate executives at the expense of working people. Please join us at Broad and Exchange Place at noon this Thursday. The current bailout package is unacceptable, and we must state our opposition loud and clear. To truly build an economy that works for all, any bailout package must: Be governed by an independent board with transparency and effective public and congressional oversight. Use the full array of financial and legal tools available to the government to stop foreclosures and restructure home mortgage loans for working families. Address the causes of the crisis on Main Street in addition to the symptoms on Wall Street. Congress should pass a second stimulus package in its entirety. Work to address the weaknesses in our financial regulatory system and corporate governance system that allowed this disaster to happen. Say NO to the blank check for the Bush administration. Join President Sweeney and hundreds of union members for an emergency mobilization at Broad and Exchange Place at noon Thursday. In solidarity, Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO MEDIA ADVISORY for Thursday, September 25, 2008 NEW YORK CITY CENTRAL LABOR COUNCIL EXECUTIVE BOARD URGES CONGRESS TO PROTECT THE AMERICAN WORKER WHEN ACTING ON WALL STREET BAILOUT PLAN New York City's Labor Leaders To Propose "Seven Conditions for $700 Billion" Bush Big Bailout to provide stronger protections for working families and impose aggressive public oversight on financial institutions WHO: New York City Central Labor Council WHAT: Labor Rally Calling on Congress to Protect Workers In Bush Bailout WHEN: Thursday, September 25, 2008 at 12:00 p.m. WHERE: Broad Street and Exchange Place (Wall Street District, Manhattan) CONTACT: Carolyn Daly, NYC Central Labor Council 917-705-4740 For more information, please contact the Central Labor Council at 212-604-9552 or visit www.nycclc.org.

Got This from Talking Union

NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 25, 2008 — With the country facing the biggest financial crisis of our time, threatening the homes, livelihoods, retirement savings and financial accounts of millions of working people, the labor movement of New York City today called on Congress to put responsible conditions on the risky Bush Administration “Big Bailout” plan before any action is taken to ensure government accountability and financial benefits for the American worker.

The principals and members of the Central Labor Council Executive Board joined the national AFL-CIO and Change to win organizations to call on Congress to apply strict conditions and oversight to any plan that would bailout troubled businesses and risk worker’s hard-earned money. The Bush bailout proposal comes as the FBI announced it will investigate fraud at the companies whose failure led to the financial crisis, including such powerhouses as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, and American International Group.

In rising anger, labor leaders proclaimed that “Wall Street’s crisis” has become “Main Street’s problem” as workers struggle to pay their bills, hold on to their jobs and keep their homes. The union delegation urged Congress to approve only a bailout plan that includes a payback and equity investment return strategy for working people who are footing the bill and addresses the concerns of our nation’s health care, education, energy, infrastructure and jobs crisis.

In response to the growing concerns for worker’s needs, the Central Labor Council Executive Board today announced the following “Seven Conditions for $700 Billion Bailout Plan”:

1.Tap Into Financial and Legal Tools to Stop Home Foreclosures. Use the full array of financial and legal tools available to the government to stop home foreclosures and restructure home mortgage loans for working families.
2.Institute Aggressive Public Oversight. Any action of the $700 billion bailout must be governed by an independent board with transparency and effective public and congressional oversight.
3.Stop the CEO Party Train. Restrict executive compensation at any companies that directly benefit from the bailout.
4.Repeal the Bush Tax Cuts. Repeal of Bush tax cuts to finance the bailout; invest money towards national infrastructure investments in highway, bridge and rail maintenance and improvements, and improvements in public educational systems and preservation of public services, mass transit and health care services.
5.Let Wall Street Pay for Wall Street’s Mistakes. Every company that benefits financially from the bailout must present a secure return investment plan.
6.Prey on the predators. Crackdown on predatory lending practices by corrupt financial institutions by using full force of the law.
7.Address Corporate Governance Imbalances. Work to address the disastrous weaknesses in our financial regulatory system and corporate governance structure that allowed our financial future to become so vulnerable.

The Central Labor Council urged Congress and members of the New York Congressional Delegation to act quickly and responsibly, and hold those who caused our national financial crisis accountable.

MTA worker, use bathroom, lose your job?

Need to go, your sh!t out of luck

Here's a story which actually shows how bad it is when you have to go to the restroom in the New York City subways, this guy works for the NYC Mass Transit Authority. It's the story of James Mitchel, a NYC transit conductor and member of TWU local100, who has a health problem which causes him to need restroom relief, and even though they won't try to fire him for using the restrooms when he has to go, it seems that they may be going after him on other ways.

From YouTube via NY1


Now, I have had to go to the bathroom when being on a train in New York, it's an amazingly bad experience. While I have actually noticed at least one station with a restroom, they are few and far between. I would think that stopping public urination would be a lot easier if there was more restrooms, hell it could be done very simply, add a few port-o-johns on all the stations, it might not be the greatest restroom break, but at least you wont find a homeless person sleeping in one. It's a nice temporary solution to the discomfort of every subway rider, it would get more users and it would create more jobs as the port-o-johns would need to be trained off to a cleaning location and replaced with a new one each day.

Sometimes a solution is really easy, how much would it possibly cost? Mayor Bloomberg has been stretching for something to leave as his legacy, from the Olympic ready Jet's stadium, to windmills on skyscrapers. He could have his name emboldened on every toilet in the MTA system. We could even call them port-o-bloomies, hell we could possibly curtail the scratcher graffitti in the city if we all one side of the john to be opened to the workings of local artists as long as they get permits for the sites they want to create on, with the stipulation that they are allowed to express themselves as long as they vow to end the scratching and use other mediums such as paint markers and acrylics. The other side could have advertising. This project could give us art, a place to go, more workers and another advertising venue, which probably would pay for it in full.
So without further ado, here's my version, minus the stainless steel, the artwork, the real advertising, and the video camera pointing at it.

The Bloomie

Mike Fishman. President of 32BJ, speaks of whats wrong and what must be done to avert the collapse of the middle class in America

Just trying to put everything together. Please if you have some time, check out the other stories I tagged on this subject, while they're not the only related articles, I learned a lot of how we got here, and what it's going to take to get us out of this mess.

• The collapse of the middle class part 1: Letters from Vermont
• Video: The collapse of the middle class Part 2: Revealing lecture by Elizabeth Warren
• Ed Ott, Executive Director of NY Central Labor Council: Lifting the bottom can avert the collapse of the middle class
• Bill Moyers on LA Labor, the march and what it takes to get bye in today's America
  

Here again we have some more honest writing on the matter in an opinion piece by Mike Fishman(President 32/BJ), from City Limits entitled "Low wages, High wages and nothing in between" (7/28/08):

America must correct its vast earnings gap, or the 'working poor' will continue to include far too many of us.
Last week’s national minimum wage bump to $6.55 an hour didn’t affect New Yorkers who were already earning a higher $7.15 minimum set by the state. But the extra income does little for those who had been earning the previous federal minimum of $5.85 an hour – or the 6.1 million residents of New York state who are struggling to cover the skyrocketing prices of milk, bread and gas with low wages.

Today, nearly one-third of all Americans are trying to make ends meet on low wages. And the number of low-wage jobs – primarily service jobs in hotels, food prep, home health care and office cleaning – is growing. In the next decade, 5 million new jobs will pay poverty-level wages unless something is done.

Valentino Stronza, a security officer working at a Midtown office building owned by the Paramount Group, lives this struggle daily. He's doing his best to make ends meet, but earning only $10 an hour from Apollo Security isn't enough for him to provide the home he wants his son to have. To keep costs down, he and his son share a bedroom in his sister's apartment. He works overnight three days a week trying to put money aside so he and his son can move into their own place, but so far, the extra money has gone to paying off past medical expenses.

Valentino’s not alone – according to Mayor Bloomberg’s new poverty measurement, nearly one in four New Yorkers lives in poverty. Despite working hard to create better futures for their families, they are making little headway in an economy that's producing low-wage jobs like there's no tomorrow.

At the same time, this past year marked the fifth straight year in which the number of millionaires in our country grew – now at 10 million. The top 1 percent of households take home 21.8 percent of all income – more than double the 9 percent rate of 30 years ago. This is the highest concentration of income in the hands of the wealthiest 1 percent since 1928, a year before the great stock market crash.

At no time in our history has the disparity in income been so wide and in no other industrialized country does the disparity come close. CEO compensation is more than 400 times the take-home pay of an average American worker. For an industrialized country, there is no parallel to this growing income divide between the highest- and lowest-paid workers. Corporate executives in England make half as much as those in America, while the lowest-paid workers there earn a higher wage than their American counterparts.

As we look toward the upcoming election, which will put the fate of our country in new hands, we must demand national policies to change the direction of our economy. Pegging the minimum wage to a percentage of median income would raise it and then keep the lowest paid workers on pace with future increases of the rest of the workforce. Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit – a cost that would be offset by closing tax loopholes for the very wealthy – would also help those low-income families teetering on the brink of poverty.

Locally, a citywide policy requiring publicly financed development projects to pay prevailing wages and benefits to the workers who build and maintain the sites would ensure that newly created jobs provide what New York families need to get by. At Willets Point and Greenpoint-Williamsburg developments where these provisions have already been set in motion, hundreds of good jobs will be created for working New Yorkers.

Aside from government action, companies, particularly those benefiting from tax breaks, must raise pay in low-wage industries if we are to make an immediate and wide-scale impact on poverty. Government programs alone will fall short of the mark, and unions have shown they can work with business responsibly to bring low-wage workers out of poverty.

In New York, low-wage union workers make 16 percent more in wages than their non-union counterparts and are 25 percent more likely to get employer-paid health care and a pension. But joining a union can be hard for many workers who fear employer retribution. Federal passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bipartisan bill which would create a more neutral environment for workers to decide on union membership, would help low-wage workers join a union and get the raises they need.

Americans have long held to the notion that having a job means you can make ends meet. But unless steps are taken to address the growing imbalance in our economy, we could wake up one day in a city of just the very rich and the working poor.

- Mike Fishman

Mike Fishman is president of SEIU Local 32BJ, with more than 100,000 members, including 70,000 in New York City, making it the largest private sector union on the East Coast.

NY: They don't want you to know that harmful bovine growth hormones are in your milk, tell NY commissioner of Agriculture "this is not acceptable"

From Consumers Union

Dear Joseph, Monsanto wants you to get less information from your food label—and bureaucrats at a big New York state agency (the Department of Agriculture and Markets) might help them do it. Don’t let them get away with it! Some dairy farmers use an artificial growth hormone, produced and sold by Monsanto, to make cows produce more milk. But many retailers, as well as all organic dairies, sell milk products from cows that are not injected with this synthetic growth hormone. You can buy that milk by reading the label. If Monsanto has its way, this distinction may become a secret kept from most shoppers. Monsanto has tried to eliminate rbGH labels all over the country. Don’t let them succeed in New York. Tell the New York Commissioner of Agriculture and Markets to stop this foolishness. The federal government has already said these labels are not misleading. There is no reason for New York to make shopping more difficult for you and your family. Take action today, and when you are done please forward this message on to your friends and family in New York so they can join their voices with yours. Thank you, Jean Halloran NotInMyFood.org A project of Consumers Union

NY: Nonunion construction, workers win back wages for unpaid overtime, why are companies like this allowed to stay in business?

“New York’s construction workers are the backbone of this city’s economy, but these companies sought to stiff almost 300 Bronx construction workers out of the overtime pay they earned and deserve,” - Andrew Cuomo, NYS Attorney General

Unreal, they will do anything to do the job as cheap as humanly possible, from hiring undocumented workers to not paying overtime, could you imagine how they cut corners on the building materials? Using employees with little or no training and little or no workplace voice, they are killing our area standards. I could go on and on about the reasons to use union and/or quality construction companies, who play by the rules, but I must go to sleep sometime

Found this over at Gangbox, a big thanks to Steven Greenhouse at the New York Times for writing articles of substance for working class people, from "Construction Workers in Bronx Split $1.23 Million in Back Pay " (7/22/08):

Two hundred and eighty-four construction workers in the Bronx will receive a total of $1.23 million in back pay as part of a settlement over unpaid overtime, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Monday.

Mr. Cuomo said the construction workers had not received time and a half for the overtime they had worked while renovating a dozen apartment buildings on the Grand Concourse, Gerard Avenue and elsewhere in the Bronx. He said the workers had received straight pay, regardless of how many hours they worked above 40 each week.

Mr. Cuomo’s office reached a settlement with two companies, J. Siebold Construction and Finkelstein-Morgan, which owns and manages real estate, without bringing a lawsuit against them.

“New York’s construction workers are the backbone of this city’s economy, but these companies sought to stiff almost 300 Bronx construction workers out of the overtime pay they earned and deserve,” Mr. Cuomo said.

“Today’s settlement will turn over $1.2 million to these workers and also send a serious message to employers across the state: Time-and-a-half pay for work over 40 hours a week is the law in New York State, and if an employer ignores that law, we will take action.”

The settlement is part of efforts by the attorney general and the State Labor Department to crack down on wage theft, which includes forcing employees to work off the clock, erasing hours they have worked and not paying time and a half for overtime.

The agreement calls for J. Siebold to pay $1.07 million in back wages and $160,000 in interest and penalties, while Finkelstein-Morgan serves as the guarantor of the payments. The violations occurred from October 2002 to August 2006, according to the attorney general’s office.

Under the settlement, the attorney general’s office will monitor the companies’ time and payroll practices to ensure their compliance until 2010.

Also under the settlement, the two companies are banned from retaliating in any way against employees who cooperated or were perceived as cooperating in the investigation.

Dennis A. Lalli, a lawyer for J. Siebold and Finkelstein-Morgan, said, “We cooperated fully with the agency, and I think the parties are in agreement that the final settlement was fair to all involved.”

Steven Finkelstein, a partner in Finkelstein-Morgan, said that his company owned the buildings and that J. Siebold was doing the renovations. Mr. Finkelstein said that because Mr. Cuomo came after both companies, “I had to be part of the settlement.” Of J. Siebold, he said, “They’re as embarrassed about this as we are.”

Wheres the jail time? That's grand larceny in my book. If I stole $1.2 million, I'm damn sure I would wind up in jail. Embarrassed? They should have a date with a fellow inmate. Hell, I wrote a comment over at the Times, if it gets published it will state:

Wheres the jail time? If I were to steal $1.2 million from my contractor, you bet you butt I would be spending time in Riker's, why the double standard for wealthy developers and construction companies who commit grand larceny?

I was kinda glad when I was reading this, then I thought about if it were the other way around, now I think it's a step in the right direction, a very, very small step.

While I appreciate what Mr.Cuomo has done, like I said, it's just not enough, not for the workers, not for the people of New York. We need higher standards for those who build in our city, higher standards for people who work in our city. Every single day I see, a most likely undocumented worker, on a scaffold with no safety equipment, is our governing body blind? How is this allowed to happen? Is this the building of the cross country railroads all over over again? Have we slipped into the early 1900's?

NY: Teamster local 282, the concrete drivers, back to work with tenative agreement, ending 10 day strike

“The strike is officially over. Workers will be back to work on Monday.” -Carolyn Daly, a spokeswoman for IBT Local 282

Steven Greenhouse at The NY Times (7/11/08) reports:

The union local representing striking concrete truck drivers in New York City announced on Thursday night that it had reached a tentative contract with the city’s concrete producers.

Carolyn Daly, a spokeswoman for the union, which has been on strike since July 2, said: “The strike is officially over. Workers will be back to work on Monday.”

The strike, which affected 450 concrete-mixing trucks, has halted or greatly slowed construction at scores of projects across the city, including the Freedom Tower at ground zero; the Second Avenue subway; the new Yankee Stadium; Citi Field, the ballpark that will replace Shea Stadium; and many high-rise apartment buildings.

Ms. Daly said the union, Local 282 of the Teamsters, and the Association of New York City Concrete Producers reached the agreement after three days of intense negotiations.

On Thursday afternoon, the Quadrozzi Concrete Corporation, which provides concrete for the Freedom Tower, among other major projects, announced that it had reached an agreement with Local 282.

John Quadrozzi Jr., president of Quadrozzi Concrete, said his company, which has 50 trucks, decided it would be better to negotiate independently of the concrete producers’ association.

“We reached an understanding and I think everyone’s happy about it,” he said. “Most important, we’ll get concrete to our sites, starting tomorrow.”

Neither management nor the union would discuss details of the association’s settlement or the separate Quadrozzi agreement.

Read it in it's entirety at the Times

Labor bloggers to promote Employee Free Choice Act at NYC Labor Day parade? Strike updates, got a Joe's MySpace, and HR676 US National Health Care Act

Firstly, Labor Day 2008 in New York, trying to promote the Employee Free Choice Act

Myself, Richard from Union Review and Kirsten from Uniongal, the Women, Unions and Our Stories blog, are looking for sponsors to get some Employee Free Choice Act shirts, with our sites listed as supporters, to be given away at this years Labor Day Parade in New York, if all goes well we will have a major labor union donation to help us get our message out there, we are hoping that all our readers, and some people who are not as active out there in the streets will get educated on the Bill and spread the word of the facts on this legislation. It is possibly the most important bill in my lifetime.

Many law firms stand to lose a tremendous cash cow if The Employee Free Choice Act is enacted

Usually, unless the company agrees to a card check vote, when a MAJORITY of workers signs cards to be in a union there is a wait time, usually over a month later, when the employees get a chance to vote via "secret ballot" to be in a union. That's where the Lawyers and Union Avoidance law firms come into play, they make multi-billions in figuring ways to turn workers against the idea of being in a union, turning workers against one another and using any means , such as unlawful firing. . These law firms thrive on fear. They make companies whose workers are engaged in organizing drives terrified of a collective voice , which unfortunately in today's day and age is really not looking at the facts at all.

Many companies could stand to gain a great deal if they mimicked the business practices of COSTCO, who has a hands off policy and allows their workers to join a union by a simple MAJORITY card signing, some stores sign up and some do not, but their employees all benefit from not being denied that basic right. Consider how disgruntled almost every Home Depot employee is, it's a down right shame, they don't care about their shit job one bit, give them a fairs day wage, nice pension to worry about keeping, and decent medical and they would likely make the Home Depot experiance a much better one for customers and would most likely raise their share value far beyond just the next quarter. Corporations however usually do not think like that, you can learn more at "The Corporation- 23 chapters in YouTube playlist form", but let's get back to the facts in this matter.

What employers and law firms do to keep workers from joining unions and who's on their side, why America needs the Employee Free Choice Act

FACT: Many companies have closed door meetings with employees without their own pro-union workers in attendance, brain washing them to fear being in a union and in fact fear to even mention the word. In one recent article I wrote about a construction contractor here in New York, whose MAJORITY of employees signed cards to be in a union, were sent to another jobsite for a closed door meeting, were told they would get a $5 an hour raise if they voted against joining a union and in fact a former supervisor, who stood to gain nothing testifying, in an affidavit to Federal labor officials, stated when he asked his boss about the union:"He said he had about six guns on the job, and he had people there who would do whatever needed to be done. He said that he could dig a hole and put me in it and make the records showing I worked for the company disappear.", the workers fearing reprisal and thinking they were going to get a raise wound up voting overwhelmingly against the union. From: "High-Cost Condos, Low-Cost Labor—and Threats of Violence to Union Organizers"- Village Voice (6/24/08)

Last November, the NLRB ordered Auringer to post a notice promising not to make such threats. A new vote was canceled after Auringer fired 10 pro-union employees on the election's eve.

This is a good reason that America needs the Employee Free Choice Act. They sign the cards, they get into a union. No guns, no threats, no bullshit propaganda.

More reasons that the current NLRB "secret ballot' hurts working Americans

FACT: 30% of pro union employees are fired during an organizing drive, even though it is against the law, they just don't care as the NLRB has been battered by lobbyist and mega-corporations to the point of intellectuality. This is in no small part due to President Bush's appointment as NLRB Chairman, Robert Battista who just recently declined the reappointment to join a union avoidence and union busting law firm, from American Rights at Work, which I first published here on 5/5 in a story, titled "Former Bush NLRB Chairman Robert Battista, joins union avoidance law firm" which highlights the deterioration of the rights of workers during his tenure at the NLRB:

For years I've been writing that Robert Battista, former chair of the National Labor Relations Board, has been doing the bidding of anti-union employers by dismantling protections for workers under the law. Apparently, he's now going to be doing the bidding of anti-union employers and making a lot more money at notorious unionbusting firm Littler Mendelson (see a sample of their unionbusting strategies: Littler Mendelson’s Dos & Don’ts).

Battista asked Bush to withdraw his nomination as Labor Board chair, which was going nowhere, and joined the firm that John Logan of the London School of Economics called one of the "nation’s first law firms to conduct aggressive union avoidance campaigns."

Now Battista can make money telling employers how to exploit the law he helped to weaken in order to prevent their workers from organizing.

Battista is not alone, spin-doctor lawyer and lobbyist Rick Berman, the self proclaimed "Dr.Evil", corporate lobbyist for Big tobacco and the liquor industry among others, and creator of such fun filled sites as The Center for Union Facts is working hard on getting the American public against the Employee Free Choice Act, by advertising on local networks against the bill, using that d1ckhead who played Johnny Sachs in the Sopranos (probably a rank-and-file SAG member like Ronald Reagan, except a hell of a lot less talented), to scare people into thinking that if the Bill is

passed that their Democracy will be erased by ending 'secret ballot'. It's more like it will end

Mr.Berman's and other lawyers cash cow. Lawyers, corrupt politicians and corporations are the modern day gangsters, I'm starting that when they went after the Mafia they really wanted to eliminate their competition.

The commercial shows a gangster over the card signers shoulder, yeah maybe it should show a corporate lawyer counting money if this doesn't get passed

**Click the image to add your name to the petition that will wind up on the desk of the next US President

---

Strike News and Job Loss
UA LU 699, IBT 282 NY Concrete drivers, American Axle updates

Lots of news going on, I've been trying to contact the Business Manager for UA Local 699 Sprinklerfitters to see if I can get any more info on the strike in Seattle Washington, last night I sent him an e-mail, still waiting for a response, I'm sure the guy is busy.

I have read that the New York concrete truck Teamsters Local 282 have gone back to the negotiating table as of yesterday, the NY Times reports that there is some progress.

Also received news of American Axle, who I recently wrote is gearing up to destroy the environment, is now looking to get rid of 400 white collar workers in the United States, now that they are escaping the land of labor rights to distant shores. What a disgrace, maybe they can rename the company to "3rd. World Nation Axle"

---

Health Care For All, supported by doctors and now the Mayors Council

Big news, the single payer health care bill is being endorsed by the US Conference of Mayors(The U.S. Conference of Mayors is a nonpartisan organization of mayors representing cities with a population of 30,000 or more. It currently has about 1,100 members.), this is a bill that would get health insurance for all Americans and is strongly endorsed by a whopping 59% of American doctors, here's the text of the resolution in support of the United States National Health Insurance Act, H.R. 676:

Submitted By:
The Honorable Lois J. Frankel, Mayor of West Palm Beach, Fla.
The Honorable Wayne J. Hall Sr., Mayor of Mayor of Hempstead, N.Y.
The Honorable Carolyn K. Peterson, Mayor of Ithaca, N.Y.
The Honorable John E. Marks, III, Mayor of Tallahassee, Fla.
The Honorable Sheila Dixon, Mayor of Baltimore, Md.
The Honorable Becky Tooley, Mayor of Coconut Creek, Fla.
The Honorable Ryan Coonerty, Mayor of Santa Cruz, Calif.

WHEREAS, every person deserves access to affordable quality health care; and

WHEREAS, the number of Americans without health insurance now exceeds 47 million; and

WHEREAS, millions with insurance have coverage so inadequate that a major illness would lead to financial ruin, and medical illness and bills contribute to one-half of all bankruptcies; and

WHEREAS, proposals for “consumer directed health care” such as Health Savings Accounts or Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRAs) would only worsen this situation by penalizing the sick, discouraging prevention and saddling many working families with huge medical bills; and

WHEREAS, managed care and other market-based reforms have failed to contain health care costs, which now threaten the international competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers; and

WHEREAS, administrative waste stemming from our reliance on private insurers consumes one-third of private health spending while the single payer Medicare system has administrative costs of less than 5 percent; and

WHEREAS, U.S. hospitals spend 24.3 percent of their budgets on billing and administration while hospitals under Canada’s single payer system spend only 12.9 percent; and

WHEREAS, Harvard researchers estimate that more than $300 billion could be recovered by replacing private insurance companies with a single public payer, enough to cover the uninsured and to improve coverage for all those who now have only partial coverage; and

WHEREAS, entrusting care to profit-oriented firms diverts billions of dollars to outrageous incomes for CEOs and threatens the quality of care; and

WHEREAS, The United States National Health Insurance Act (H.R. 676) would assure universal coverage of all medically necessary services, contain costs by slashing bureaucracy, protect the doctor patient relationship, assure patients a completely free choice of doctors, and allow physicians a free choice of practice settings; and

WHEREAS, most polls show that the majority of Americans support universal health care; and

WHEREAS, as of the date of this resolution, the majority of American physicians (59 percent) believe that Single Payer is the best method of securing universal health care; and

WHEREAS, The United States National Health Insurance Act (H.R. 676) will guarantee every mayor that all residents and employees of his/her city will be fully covered for health care and save millions of taxpayer dollars now spent on premiums to provide less than full health insurance coverage for government employees; and

NOW, THEREFORE,

BE IT RESOLVED, that the United States Conference of Mayors expresses its support for The United States National Health Insurance Act (H.R. 676), and calls upon federal legislators to work towards its immediate enactment and further urges the adoption of a process to insure that health care providers justify any increase in health care costs.

---

Got the MySpace up, and a shoutbox. Next we will change the layout here.

Finally did it, got a dedicated Joe's Union Review MySpace account that mirrors the blog here into the MySpace social network, it's how I met Richard at union review, theres a whole lot more to that story, but in a nutshell, I'm looking to meet more Richard's, Joe's and Kirsten's.

I also added a "shoutbox' to this site, you can easily add messages onto the site by entering text into the box and submitting it, try it out, it's right under the title "Say something even if it's wrong"

Seriously thinking of updating the site, I have been working with a layout that has more features, like having just the story introduction on the front page, with a read more lnk, ala Union review and the Building Bridges Radio blog i have been working on, let me know what you think.

Working behind the scenes a bit lately, a great win for the future of New York's labor solidarity was achieved yesterday, I'm waiting for a press release to write on it, stay tuned, and finally I leave you with...

NY: City’s Top Crane Inspector Is Arrested

"this is what happens when u have someone making $50,000 in charge of handing out licenses worth millions to ventures worth billions."- Posted by atruh, in the comments

From The New York Times blog (6/6/08):

City’s Top Crane Inspector Is Arrested
By William K. Rashbaum

The city’s chief crane inspector was arrested on Friday and charged with taking bribes to approve cranes under his review and for taking money from crane operators who sought to ensure that they would pass the required licensing exam, an official involved in the case said.

James Delayo, the acting chief inspector for cranes and derricks at the city Department of Buildings, was in charge of overseeing the issuance of city licenses for crane operators. He is also facing charges that he provided a copy of the crane operator’s exam and the test answers to a crane company in exchange for $3,000, the official said.

Mr. Delayo, who is being prosecuted by the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, surrendered this morning to investigators from the city’s Department of Investigation, the official said. The city investigators developed the case.

The charges against Mr. Delayo will likely include receiving an unlawful gratuity and offering a false instrument for filing, the official said, and come just a week after the city’s second fatal tower crane collapse in 10 weeks.

The accusations, however, do not involve the inspections of the large tower cranes, like those that collapsed last Friday and March 15, but smaller machines, known as Class C cranes, the official said.

Investigators believe that Mr. Delayo, since at least 2002, signed off on the annual inspection of between 20 and 30 Class C cranes without conducting any examination in exchange for “several hundred dollars” apiece, the official said.

Check out the blog, some of the comments are right on the money

It’s amazing that after every high-profile construction accident, they find someone to arrest. It’s sad to think that there is no justice in the low-profile construction deaths. Somehow, I don’t think they will find anyone culpable in the most recent death, which took place at a construction site on St. Marks Avenue in Crown Heights.
— Posted by harriet

Amazing reply, I hinted that in my article on the most recent NY disaster "Crane collapse in New York, 2 dead, 2 critical", and heres something I was speaking about recently:

this is what happens when u have someone making $50,000 in charge of handing out licenses worth millions to ventures worth billions.
— Posted by atruh

*Image by Sheldon at Picasaweb
Big thanks to Chuck at UBCNewsroom for pointing out the video

NY: City’s Top Crane Inspector Is Arrested

"this is what happens when u have someone making $50,000 in charge of handing out licenses worth millions to ventures worth billions."- Posted by atruh, in the comments

From The New York Times blog (6/6/08):

City’s Top Crane Inspector Is Arrested
By William K. Rashbaum

The city’s chief crane inspector was arrested on Friday and charged with taking bribes to approve cranes under his review and for taking money from crane operators who sought to ensure that they would pass the required licensing exam, an official involved in the case said.

James Delayo, the acting chief inspector for cranes and derricks at the city Department of Buildings, was in charge of overseeing the issuance of city licenses for crane operators. He is also facing charges that he provided a copy of the crane operator’s exam and the test answers to a crane company in exchange for $3,000, the official said.

Mr. Delayo, who is being prosecuted by the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, surrendered this morning to investigators from the city’s Department of Investigation, the official said. The city investigators developed the case.

The charges against Mr. Delayo will likely include receiving an unlawful gratuity and offering a false instrument for filing, the official said, and come just a week after the city’s second fatal tower crane collapse in 10 weeks.

The accusations, however, do not involve the inspections of the large tower cranes, like those that collapsed last Friday and March 15, but smaller machines, known as Class C cranes, the official said.

Investigators believe that Mr. Delayo, since at least 2002, signed off on the annual inspection of between 20 and 30 Class C cranes without conducting any examination in exchange for “several hundred dollars” apiece, the official said.

Check out the blog, some of the comments are right on the money

It’s amazing that after every high-profile construction accident, they find someone to arrest. It’s sad to think that there is no justice in the low-profile construction deaths. Somehow, I don’t think they will find anyone culpable in the most recent death, which took place at a construction site on St. Marks Avenue in Crown Heights.
— Posted by harriet

Amazing reply, I hinted that in my article on the most recent NY disaster "Crane collapse in New York, 2 dead, 2 critical", and heres something I was speaking about recently:

this is what happens when u have someone making $50,000 in charge of handing out licenses worth millions to ventures worth billions.
— Posted by atruh

*Image by Sheldon at Picasaweb
Big thanks to Chuck at UBCNewsroom for pointing out the video

Crane collapse in New York, 2 dead, 2 critical

"You can be safe, you can do everything you can do, but construction is a very complex and dangerous business."- Donald trump

My heart goes out to the families affected

This accident is completely different from the accident on March 15th., this crane was not being 'jumped', it was fully inspected and in service. There was no load on the crane, nothing fell and hit the crane. It just toppled at the "turn table" from the weight of the crane, boom and counterweights. This should not happen, ever.

Commenting to a reporter from the New York Times on Friday Louis J. Coletti, who is president of the Building Trades Employers' Association, said "you've seen some new regulation put into place by the City, but today we're talking about an incident where every regulation has been followed."

Bloomberg (5/31/08) follows with:

Acting Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri said he ordered the suspensions even though the city hasn't found any similarities between the cause of yesterday's accident and a March 15 collapse that killed seven.

In addition, the city plans to spend $4 million to hire about 20 ``highly specialized engineers'' who will have the authority to change practices on ``high-risk'' jobs involving cranes, concrete pouring and excavation, LiMandri said.

``They will make recommendations as they see fit,'' LiMandri told reporters a block from the Upper East Side site where a crane collapsed, killing two construction workers and seriously injuring a third. ``Once that goes into effect, we will not wait for a report.''

The engineers are part of a $9.3 million program budgeted for the department that will pay for 63 new engineers and inspectors. The plan was adopted after the March 15 accident, at 303 East 51st St., the site of numerous prior complaints from neighbors.

In the past eight years, New York City has experienced an unprecedented construction boom, with $29 billion of building forecast for 2009, an 83 percent increase from $16.4 billion in 2000, according to the New York Building Congress, an association of developers, architects and vendors.

Donald Trump chimes in at ABC News for '20/20' interview (5/30/08) :

"I'm one of the biggest builders in the world, and I tell you I hate to walk under construction sites," Trump said. "You can be safe, you can do everything you can do, but construction is a very complex and dangerous business."

New York's trendy SoHo district is the home of one of Trump's current hotel construction sites, which received one of New York City's 128 crane safety violations this year. "We built a series of many, many buildings from 72nd Street all the way down the Hudson River, and we never had a problem, and yet we did have one problem in SoHo," Trump said. "I've got a great track record, one of the best, but it's a dangerous business."
(continued)
"I'm doing buildings elsewhere, and many cranes are being shipped over to other parts of the world," Trump said, noting that he is also working on a new building in Dubai. "So I'm not sure if New York City is getting the best cranes, but to have a crane topple the way it did in New York City is an amazing thing."
(continued)
"They are big, they are strong, they are powerful, they can lift tremendous payloads, and they are dangerous," said Trump. "If a crane is an inch off, it gets dangerous. And you know you're talking about a crane that can go up 60 stories."

This time the crane maintenance is being questioned, according to speculation by Gordon Gibb at Lawyers and Settlements:

The crane, one of dozens in New York City that have been pressed into service during the current building boom in the bustling metropolis, was erected April 20th and 21st. It has been reported that city inspectors shut the crane down on two separate occasions for safety reasons, however those problems were believed to have been unrelated to the accident yesterday.

Rather, the focus is turning to a metal plate that resides at the base of the turntable underneath the cab. On May 16th 2007—just over a year prior to the fateful accident yesterday—a worker discovered a crack in the metal plate of that same crane, which at the time was being used to put up a building at 46th Street in New York. Work was promptly halted until the turntable could be replaced.

Investigators are now trying to determine just what became of that broken turntable from last year. Could it have been repaired, and put back into service? That's the million-dollar question being asked right now.

I had to wait until today to get this story out, I was a few blocks away when this happened, many of my co-workers went over to the site and the story was constantly changing, even when I got home. It gives you such a terrible feeling when you hear this type of news at work. You know it could be a good friend or a casual acquaintance. You know it could be you. I just couldn't write about this yesterday.

Inspectors from DC, Hawaii and Boston have noticed and pledged reinspections of tower cranes. according to KGMB9, Hawaii:

"One of the things we decided when we got in this morning after we heard the news is let’s send our inspectors out and let's inspect all the tower cranes," said James Hardway, Hawaii Department of Labor.

"Hawaii is one of a handful of states that requires an extensive certification of operators," said Hardway.

Construction cranes in Hawaii are usually rented from one company and set up by another. There are fewer than a dozen companies in the country that are capable of the job. The main company used in Hawaii is Northwest Tower Crane Service.

"There is an inherent risk. It's listed as one of the riskiest jobs in the United States," said Tammy Hardy, Northwest Tower Crane Service Inc.
(continued)
As for what caused the New York crane to fall, there is plenty of speculation.

"Probably shoddy oversight by the government regulators," said Hardway.

Which Hawaii is working hard to never let happen here.

While they scramble, they neglect the need for more drastic changes

Whatever the case, there definitely needs to be some drastic overhauls, I call 311 reporting sites with major violations, I have seen stuff being raised over pedestrians heads on some sites, smaller sites, nonunion sites, without basic safety necessities, and have offered to send the pictures from my phone to the DOB and they do not have the technology? That is unacceptable!

Only through acts of God have more people not been killed in New York recently. I was watching a (safety shed) scaffold being erected in midtown New York with steel I-Beams being lifted directly over pedestrians and called and waited and no one showed within the hour I waited. Imminent death to the public and it continues every single day in New York. The entire reregulating of the DOB only adds buildings over 10 stories to their scope of hard lined oversight. Meanwhile you have undocumented workers throwing asbestos into the streets of NYC in full public view and nothing is done.

Michelle Malkin puts construction safety in a nutshell, from here story "Another deadly crane collapse"

Top story right now on all the cable news stations: another deadly crane collapse in NYC that reportedly has claimed two lives. (Update: 1 dead, two seriously injured.) The NYPost has extensive coverage. NY’s Fox 5 is livestreaming. The accident is the second in 2 1/2 months in NY and comes on the heels of crane regulation revisions by the city just this week. Miami-Dade County is in the middle of heated debate and litigation over post-accident rules. Maryland, Washington, and Indiana are also drafting tighter regs.

It would be helpful for journalists to report what the background rates on crane-related deaths and injuries are. Also, the coverage should distinguish between types of accidents (human error, mechanical failure, etc.). Here’s one report on offshore crane safety that covers 1995-98. Here’s an ABC report with a little more info on stats and causes, among which they mention illegal alien labor and corporate short cuts:

At least 43 people died while working construction in New York in 2006, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, up 87 percent from the year before when 23 people died.

Across the United States, construction ranks as the most dangerous industry, representing about 20 percent of all work-related fatalities, according to federal statistics.

Deaths rose from 1,131 in 2003 to 1,226 in 2006. By comparison, 836 workers died in mining accidents last year, and 447 died in manufacturing. The government reports between six and seven construction deaths per 1,000 workers.

Nationwide, deaths from falling off scaffolding remained steady at about 88 per year…

…The rise in construction fatalities can be explained by a deadly mix of untrained immigrant workers, lax attention to safety regulations and profit-minded contractors who cut corners in all areas from labor to materials.

“There is a tremendous pressure, particularly in construction, to put pressure on workers to be productive and to take short cuts,” said Joel Shufro, executive director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health.

Fines for employers who violate regulations are low — averaging only about $1,600 an incident, according to Shufro. When a worker is killed, the maximum punishment is six months in jail.

“Fines for harassing a burro on federal land are greater,” he said. “But they do the best they can with limited resources.”

Bovis Lend Lease, the company that is handling the Trump project, released a statement to the Associated Press saying they would launch an investigation of the worker’s death.

“Our hearts go out to the family of the deceased concrete worker, and our prayers are with the injured workers,” said Mary Costello, company spokesman.

What is most startling in these accidents is the disproportionate number of immigrant deaths — and not only in New York, where illegal workers make up 86 percent of all fatalities.

While urban areas are facing a building boom, more rural areas are feeling the effects of a slowing economy, according to construction experts. Unions and employers say they face increased competition from those who hire cheap, illegal immigrants.

Here’s another round-up of links to recent crane regulation moves.

Competing with unregulated, bad contractors, using poorly crafted equipment

The constant pressures of competing with contractors who use undocumented workers is devastating the conditions on all construction sites, everyone is in a frenzy to get the lowest bid against these unscrupulous contractors and to keep themselves employed. Be it cutting corners or rushing to complete a job, the atmosphere is there. There also should be a push to use USA and other highly qualified countries materials and tools on the job sites. Shit, if the dog food ingredients and toys from China contain poison, why is it acceptable to use rigging equipment and steel from that region? A lot of Chinese equipment such as 'shackles' and wire slings do not even have a company name on them. It's up to the rigger to refuse to use them. Thats a terrible burden to put on the worker, who will then be "labeled" a trouble maker and risk losing his job. It should be against the law to use them. Many times we have had "Jet" equipment, such as furniture dollies fail with under weighted loads. The rigging equipment needs to be stringently regulated, especially if it is being used overhead. The 'sweatshop construction' practice needs to be eliminated all together. According to a piece featured here at Joe's Union Review from Al Jazeera news:

According to New York Construction Workers United, about 64 per cent of the city's 250,000 construction workers are immigrants who do the vast majority of non-union work.

Basic security equipment like harnesses and – in Juan's case - hard hats are often lacking from job sites.

Those who do receive safety equipment are often forced to pay for it themselves. Many are afraid to complain because they do not want to be blacklisted or risk being deported if they are illegal.

End the 'sweatshop construction' and the city and the United States will be a much safer place.

Currently we have a large percentage of contractors (aprox. 1/4 of all current construction in NY has employees that work off the books or are misclassified as independent contractors) here who pay their undocumented employees below the minimum wage and misclassifying them as independent contractors. Entitling them to let the "employee' bear the burden of making sure his taxes are being payed, workers comp insurance is in place, supply their own safety equipment and working conditions.

Currently our Building and Construction Unions, local politicians from a bipartisan background and a host of other agencies, like the Brennan center for Justice and the Fiscal Policy Institute have been bringing to light the reckless behavior of these unscrupulous contractors, their safety violations, their shotty and dangerous work, their unskilled workers, the slave wages (according to the Brennan report some are forced to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for $6-$12 an hour), the public safety concern, the nonpayment by employer of taxes for said employees(in fact 2 construction companies are facing jail time(NY Newsday reported one for $220,000 and another $394,788 in evading employee taxes), The Governor himself has declared an Executive order to end this misclassification of workers, this doesn't even mention the tax burden these contractors push off onto the general public and those contractors who(according to Fiscal Policy Institute) cost workers lost wages and benefits and local, state and federal governments nearly $500 million in 2005.
When one of these 50,000+ workers gets sick and winds up in the hospital who do you think winds up paying for that? We do.Who winds up paying for their kids schooling, the upkeep of our infrastructure, our public employees wages? the list goes on. What is the cost to us for the lowest bid?

So I say if the Department Of Buildings, Bloomberg and any Governmental entity really wants to make anything better and safer here in New York they should not wait until the next crane travesty, they should not focus on the 'giant accidents', they should work from the bottom up. Remember these contractors who go into business never do it to get smaller. These are the huge contractors of the future and they seem to get a free pass on everything.

There is one reason to be working, to go home in one piece at the end of the day.

Unfortunately, 2 construction workers here in New York will not have that opportunity. From the crane operator who was going to get married in 2 weeks, to the immigrant from Kosovo who was working on the sewer lines in the street, to the carpenter who was working in the stairs who is still in serious condition, to the fourth victim who I haven't read anything about, it is a terrible day indeed.

Crane collapse in New York, 2 dead, 2 critical

"You can be safe, you can do everything you can do, but construction is a very complex and dangerous business."- Donald trump

My heart goes out to the families affected

This accident is completely different from the accident on March 15th., this crane was not being 'jumped', it was fully inspected and in service. There was no load on the crane, nothing fell and hit the crane. It just toppled at the "turn table" from the weight of the crane, boom and counterweights. This should not happen, ever.

Commenting to a reporter from the New York Times on Friday Louis J. Coletti, who is president of the Building Trades Employers' Association, said "you've seen some new regulation put into place by the City, but today we're talking about an incident where every regulation has been followed."

Bloomberg (5/31/08) follows with:

Acting Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri said he ordered the suspensions even though the city hasn't found any similarities between the cause of yesterday's accident and a March 15 collapse that killed seven.

In addition, the city plans to spend $4 million to hire about 20 ``highly specialized engineers'' who will have the authority to change practices on ``high-risk'' jobs involving cranes, concrete pouring and excavation, LiMandri said.

``They will make recommendations as they see fit,'' LiMandri told reporters a block from the Upper East Side site where a crane collapsed, killing two construction workers and seriously injuring a third. ``Once that goes into effect, we will not wait for a report.''

The engineers are part of a $9.3 million program budgeted for the department that will pay for 63 new engineers and inspectors. The plan was adopted after the March 15 accident, at 303 East 51st St., the site of numerous prior complaints from neighbors.

In the past eight years, New York City has experienced an unprecedented construction boom, with $29 billion of building forecast for 2009, an 83 percent increase from $16.4 billion in 2000, according to the New York Building Congress, an association of developers, architects and vendors.

Donald Trump chimes in at ABC News for '20/20' interview (5/30/08) :

"I'm one of the biggest builders in the world, and I tell you I hate to walk under construction sites," Trump said. "You can be safe, you can do everything you can do, but construction is a very complex and dangerous business."

New York's trendy SoHo district is the home of one of Trump's current hotel construction sites, which received one of New York City's 128 crane safety violations this year. "We built a series of many, many buildings from 72nd Street all the way down the Hudson River, and we never had a problem, and yet we did have one problem in SoHo," Trump said. "I've got a great track record, one of the best, but it's a dangerous business."
(continued)
"I'm doing buildings elsewhere, and many cranes are being shipped over to other parts of the world," Trump said, noting that he is also working on a new building in Dubai. "So I'm not sure if New York City is getting the best cranes, but to have a crane topple the way it did in New York City is an amazing thing."
(continued)
"They are big, they are strong, they are powerful, they can lift tremendous payloads, and they are dangerous," said Trump. "If a crane is an inch off, it gets dangerous. And you know you're talking about a crane that can go up 60 stories."

This time the crane maintenance is being questioned, according to speculation by Gordon Gibb at Lawyers and Settlements:

The crane, one of dozens in New York City that have been pressed into service during the current building boom in the bustling metropolis, was erected April 20th and 21st. It has been reported that city inspectors shut the crane down on two separate occasions for safety reasons, however those problems were believed to have been unrelated to the accident yesterday.

Rather, the focus is turning to a metal plate that resides at the base of the turntable underneath the cab. On May 16th 2007—just over a year prior to the fateful accident yesterday—a worker discovered a crack in the metal plate of that same crane, which at the time was being used to put up a building at 46th Street in New York. Work was promptly halted until the turntable could be replaced.

Investigators are now trying to determine just what became of that broken turntable from last year. Could it have been repaired, and put back into service? That's the million-dollar question being asked right now.

I had to wait until today to get this story out, I was a few blocks away when this happened, many of my co-workers went over to the site and the story was constantly changing, even when I got home. It gives you such a terrible feeling when you hear this type of news at work. You know it could be a good friend or a casual acquaintance. You know it could be you. I just couldn't write about this yesterday.

Inspectors from DC, Hawaii and Boston have noticed and pledged reinspections of tower cranes. according to KGMB9, Hawaii:

"One of the things we decided when we got in this morning after we heard the news is let’s send our inspectors out and let's inspect all the tower cranes," said James Hardway, Hawaii Department of Labor.

"Hawaii is one of a handful of states that requires an extensive certification of operators," said Hardway.

Construction cranes in Hawaii are usually rented from one company and set up by another. There are fewer than a dozen companies in the country that are capable of the job. The main company used in Hawaii is Northwest Tower Crane Service.

"There is an inherent risk. It's listed as one of the riskiest jobs in the United States," said Tammy Hardy, Northwest Tower Crane Service Inc.
(continued)
As for what caused the New York crane to fall, there is plenty of speculation.

"Probably shoddy oversight by the government regulators," said Hardway.

Which Hawaii is working hard to never let happen here.

While they scramble, they neglect the need for more drastic changes

Whatever the case, there definitely needs to be some drastic overhauls, I call 311 reporting sites with major violations, I have seen stuff being raised over pedestrians heads on some sites, smaller sites, nonunion sites, without basic safety necessities, and have offered to send the pictures from my phone to the DOB and they do not have the technology? That is unacceptable!

Only through acts of God have more people not been killed in New York recently. I was watching a (safety shed) scaffold being erected in midtown New York with steel I-Beams being lifted directly over pedestrians and called and waited and no one showed within the hour I waited. Imminent death to the public and it continues every single day in New York. The entire reregulating of the DOB only adds buildings over 10 stories to their scope of hard lined oversight. Meanwhile you have undocumented workers throwing asbestos into the streets of NYC in full public view and nothing is done.

Michelle Malkin puts construction safety in a nutshell, from here story "Another deadly crane collapse"

Top story right now on all the cable news stations: another deadly crane collapse in NYC that reportedly has claimed two lives. (Update: 1 dead, two seriously injured.) The NYPost has extensive coverage. NY’s Fox 5 is livestreaming. The accident is the second in 2 1/2 months in NY and comes on the heels of crane regulation revisions by the city just this week. Miami-Dade County is in the middle of heated debate and litigation over post-accident rules. Maryland, Washington, and Indiana are also drafting tighter regs.

It would be helpful for journalists to report what the background rates on crane-related deaths and injuries are. Also, the coverage should distinguish between types of accidents (human error, mechanical failure, etc.). Here’s one report on offshore crane safety that covers 1995-98. Here’s an ABC report with a little more info on stats and causes, among which they mention illegal alien labor and corporate short cuts:

At least 43 people died while working construction in New York in 2006, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, up 87 percent from the year before when 23 people died.

Across the United States, construction ranks as the most dangerous industry, representing about 20 percent of all work-related fatalities, according to federal statistics.

Deaths rose from 1,131 in 2003 to 1,226 in 2006. By comparison, 836 workers died in mining accidents last year, and 447 died in manufacturing. The government reports between six and seven construction deaths per 1,000 workers.

Nationwide, deaths from falling off scaffolding remained steady at about 88 per year…

…The rise in construction fatalities can be explained by a deadly mix of untrained immigrant workers, lax attention to safety regulations and profit-minded contractors who cut corners in all areas from labor to materials.

“There is a tremendous pressure, particularly in construction, to put pressure on workers to be productive and to take short cuts,” said Joel Shufro, executive director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health.

Fines for employers who violate regulations are low — averaging only about $1,600 an incident, according to Shufro. When a worker is killed, the maximum punishment is six months in jail.

“Fines for harassing a burro on federal land are greater,” he said. “But they do the best they can with limited resources.”

Bovis Lend Lease, the company that is handling the Trump project, released a statement to the Associated Press saying they would launch an investigation of the worker’s death.

“Our hearts go out to the family of the deceased concrete worker, and our prayers are with the injured workers,” said Mary Costello, company spokesman.

What is most startling in these accidents is the disproportionate number of immigrant deaths — and not only in New York, where illegal workers make up 86 percent of all fatalities.

While urban areas are facing a building boom, more rural areas are feeling the effects of a slowing economy, according to construction experts. Unions and employers say they face increased competition from those who hire cheap, illegal immigrants.

Here’s another round-up of links to recent crane regulation moves.

Competing with unregulated, bad contractors, using poorly crafted equipment

The constant pressures of competing with contractors who use undocumented workers is devastating the conditions on all construction sites, everyone is in a frenzy to get the lowest bid against these unscrupulous contractors and to keep themselves employed. Be it cutting corners or rushing to complete a job, the atmosphere is there. There also should be a push to use USA and other highly qualified countries materials and tools on the job sites. Shit, if the dog food ingredients and toys from China contain poison, why is it acceptable to use rigging equipment and steel from that region? A lot of Chinese equipment such as 'shackles' and wire slings do not even have a company name on them. It's up to the rigger to refuse to use them. Thats a terrible burden to put on the worker, who will then be "labeled" a trouble maker and risk losing his job. It should be against the law to use them. Many times we have had "Jet" equipment, such as furniture dollies fail with under weighted loads. The rigging equipment needs to be stringently regulated, especially if it is being used overhead. The 'sweatshop construction' practice needs to be eliminated all together. According to a piece featured here at Joe's Union Review from Al Jazeera news:

According to New York Construction Workers United, about 64 per cent of the city's 250,000 construction workers are immigrants who do the vast majority of non-union work.

Basic security equipment like harnesses and – in Juan's case - hard hats are often lacking from job sites.

Those who do receive safety equipment are often forced to pay for it themselves. Many are afraid to complain because they do not want to be blacklisted or risk being deported if they are illegal.

End the 'sweatshop construction' and the city and the United States will be a much safer place.

Currently we have a large percentage of contractors (aprox. 1/4 of all current construction in NY has employees that work off the books or are misclassified as independent contractors) here who pay their undocumented employees below the minimum wage and misclassifying them as independent contractors. Entitling them to let the "employee' bear the burden of making sure his taxes are being payed, workers comp insurance is in place, supply their own safety equipment and working conditions.

Currently our Building and Construction Unions, local politicians from a bipartisan background and a host of other agencies, like the Brennan center for Justice and the Fiscal Policy Institute have been bringing to light the reckless behavior of these unscrupulous contractors, their safety violations, their shotty and dangerous work, their unskilled workers, the slave wages (according to the Brennan report some are forced to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for $6-$12 an hour), the public safety concern, the nonpayment by employer of taxes for said employees(in fact 2 construction companies are facing jail time(NY Newsday reported one for $220,000 and another $394,788 in evading employee taxes), The Governor himself has declared an Executive order to end this misclassification of workers, this doesn't even mention the tax burden these contractors push off onto the general public and those contractors who(according to Fiscal Policy Institute) cost workers lost wages and benefits and local, state and federal governments nearly $500 million in 2005.
When one of these 50,000+ workers gets sick and winds up in the hospital who do you think winds up paying for that? We do.Who winds up paying for their kids schooling, the upkeep of our infrastructure, our public employees wages? the list goes on. What is the cost to us for the lowest bid?

So I say if the Department Of Buildings, Bloomberg and any Governmental entity really wants to make anything better and safer here in New York they should not wait until the next crane travesty, they should not focus on the 'giant accidents', they should work from the bottom up. Remember these contractors who go into business never do it to get smaller. These are the huge contractors of the future and they seem to get a free pass on everything.

There is one reason to be working, to go home in one piece at the end of the day.

Unfortunately, 2 construction workers here in New York will not have that opportunity. From the crane operator who was going to get married in 2 weeks, to the immigrant from Kosovo who was working on the sewer lines in the street, to the carpenter who was working in the stairs who is still in serious condition, to the fourth victim who I haven't read anything about, it is a terrible day indeed.