Thursday, June 12, 2008

Collateral damage

Nothing demonstrates more vividly that construction contractors can subject their workers to dangerous - even fatal - conditions with near total impunity than the punishments just proposed in one of the most outrageous incidents in recent memory.

New York will long remember how Edgar and Alcides Moreno plunged 47 floors when their window-washing scaffold gave way on the upper East Side in December.

Edgar was killed. Miraculously, Alcides survived incredibly serious injuries and is walking today.

As described by OSHA, Tractel and City Wide Window Cleaning are guilty, at a minimum, of gross negligence. And the agency says it is moving to impose its maximum permissible fines. A grand total of roughly $20,000 per company.

Less than the cost of a used pickup truck.

For killing a man and subjecting another to grievous injuries.

Financial penalties like that are meaningless as a deterrent to corner-cutting by contractors.


Death comes cheap

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The larger picture is people such as Bloomberg & Lancaster.... And no Lancaster, you can't call the authorities on me. I am subject to my opinion, according to our Constitution, but it evidently doesn't exist in your vocabulary.

How many more citizens and workers have to die due to the Bloomberg, DOB, & illegal or shady developers? Remember, your actions are forever etched in this dimension.

Anonymous said...

How else would Commissar Death get to be a Billionaire unless he could buy a life so cheaply?

How do you do this Commissar? Is there a daily auction conducted by developers?

"Here's one illiterate, Illegal Alien, with many wives and children. He will work day and night, off the books, for less than minimum wage, without the cost of safety measures, and he will NEVER, NEVER complain about being mistreated. He actually believes all our claptrap about our compassion for him and his hopes. The goddam fool can die for you and you will never pay - not even for the funeral. The taxpayers will pick up all the expenses.

"Going once; going twice; ... sold to the man with the big bucks!"

Anonymous said...

Fines....mere slaps on the wrist!

Let the punishment fit the crime of negligence.

Push one of the owners of these
shoddily run window cleaning companies out a window
(after being found guilty by a jury of his peers) and you'd set some example for adherence to the law
and regard for human life.

Anonymous said...

Well, again, we have to look to the inept preservation community that has failed to organize the city.

The immigration community leadership seems to be stuck on wrangling out taxpayer funded tweeder programs and BUILDING BIG BIG BIG BUILDINGS OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING while the real immigrants rots in filthy cellars and dangerous exploitative jobs that border on slavery.

I hope that cozying up the clubhouse is worth it.

So much for living in 1907. I DO hope the rest of the century holds some promise.

Anonymous said...

What have you been smoking?

WTF does the "preservation community" have to do with this?

You're nuts buddy!