More than 100 unionized construction workers, labor brass and members of community activist groups rallied with 10 workers who claimed unsafe and abusive conditions led them to walk off the job at affordable housing projects—projects receiving city subsidies under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambitious affordable housing plan.
The rally included Iron Workers and District Council of Painters members as well as liberal minority groups like New York Communities for Change, and kicked off outside the Bronx County Courthouse before marching to two nearby city-subsidized building sites employing the controversial subcontractor U.S. Crane and Rigging. The demonstration marked the latest development in an ongoing conflict between the organized building trades and Mr. de Blasio over the mayor’s claims that requiring union wages and benefits would make many below-market housing projects financially unfeasible.
“De Blasio has turned his back on the working people, that’s the way we see it,” Eddie Jorge, an organizer for the Iron Workers union, told the Observer—arguing that more subsidized projects under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg used union labor than under the current administration.
The workers, most of them not fluent in English, claimed to have worked on several U.S Crane and Rigging jobs on affordable residential projects around the city. Those who spoke with the Observer described round-the-clock shifts without breaks for food or rest, insults from supervisors, insufficient safety equipment, not being fully compensated for hours worked and threats that the company would respond to complaints with termination or suspension.
6 comments:
Well DUH. If you're going to build "affordable housing" for people who can only command a fraction of market rate, you're going to have to use cheaper labor in order to make the numbers work. And that includes you, SEIU 32BJ, who likely won't be asked to service these buildings. How could anyone who works for a living not see this coming?
Great quote from a non-unionized guy:
“You are hungry, you are tired, you work a lot of hours, you don’t sleep,” worker David Raris told the Observer. “The boss, he says, ‘you hungry? Go home.'”
“Sometimes you work like 80 hours in a week, and they pay you, like 20 hours,” he said.
And so the de Blasio liberal dream comes full circle back to exploitation through the subcontractor U.S. Crane and Rigging.
There were more jobs. Period. Union. Non-union. All around. Now, with the communist cop-hating ass hole mayor we have, this place is going to shit fast.
Yeah....Mafiosi Union thugs!
One good side of manufacturing overseas is that labor unions aren't strangling consumers into paying $10 a quart for milk.
Those Teamsters are raping us all. That is why America can no longer compete with Europe and Asia.
During the 1930s unions were needed to protect workers from tyrannical bosses. Now the unions have become the tyrants.
For example....Albert Shanker's teachers union turned teachers into feather evaders and ruined NYC schools.
Is comparing this to building of the pyramids with slave labor apt enough?
The funny thing about there being more jobs in comparison is because Mayor Fun Size reneged on his promise to build mixed affordable housing. Even more screwy is that Mayor Big Pussy is continuing is stupid plan and these apts. are definitely not going to be available nor will not be enough for the people he feigns to be concerned about.
There needs to be proactive and diligent enforcement for these scumbag construction firms and sites, because the impunity displayed totally out in the open and these fuckers are laughing. There needs to be an untouchables type unit or NYPD squadron to scare these pigs into treating their workers better.
But The Blaz will not let justice interfere with his 10 year brain fart plan to provide affordable housing to the millenials.
The unions killed themselves by allowing corrupt self serving leadership. We have come full circle and it is time to unionize again but this time it needs to be run by honest people. As in politics be careful who you vote for, there are a lot of wolves in sheep's clothing.
There are also more illegals here than what there were in the Bloomberg era......coincidence? I think not!
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