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Two Construction Workers Die in Latest New York Crane Collapse |
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A huge construction crane on an Upper East Side high-rise condominium tower in New York City collapsed this morning, killing the crane operator and a worker on the ground, and seriously injuring another worker.
The collapse is the third deadly crane incident in recent months. On March 15, a 300-foot construction crane collapsed—also in Manhattan—and killed six construction workers and an out-of-town visitor. On March 25 in Miami, a 20-foot section of a construction crane tumbled 30 stories to the ground, killing two workers and injuring five others.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) estimates that between 64 and 82 construction workers are killed and 263 are injured working around cranes and derricks each year. But OSHA has failed to issue a crane and derrick safety standard, despite the urging of both industry and unions.
The New York Times reports that in today’s collapse:
The horizontal arm of the crane began to circle and then snapped off, propelling the cab and the upper portion of the arm onto a white-brick residential building across the street. The cab smashed into the top floor of the building, demolishing a portion of a 22nd story penthouse, then plunged down the north facade, knocking off balconies and leaving a trail of pockmarks down to a Duane Reade drug store on the street level.
The operator of the crane, Donald Leo of Staten Island, was sitting in the cab as the structure fell. He was pulled from the wreckage by rescue workers and pronounced dead at the scene.
More information on Leo, 30, was not available. The second man killed was Ramadan Kurtij, 27, of the Bronx.
The March 15 collapse in New York occurred as workers were “jumping,” or assembling, a new section so the crane could extend higher as the project continued.
Workers were attaching a 12-ton collar to the crane to anchor it to the 18th floor of the building. Two similar collars had been attached on lower floors earlier in the project. Before the installation was complete, the nylon supports holding the collar broke and it fell, pancaking the other two collars and leaving the crane unattached to the building. The crane then toppled backward across the street.
Following the accident, New York City issued new rules requiring city safety inspectors be on hand every time a new section was added to a crane. But those rules were lifted last week, and additional crane safety rules are under consideration but have yet to be implemented, according to news reports.
Earlier this month, the House Workforce Subcommittee announced it would hold hearings into construction safety standards and examine if OSHA is effectively developing new standards and enforcing current construction safety rules.
The subcommittee chair, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), said the hearings were prompted by crane incidents and a growing number of deaths on Las Vegas construction sites.
The Las Vegas Sun reported that 10 workers died while working on construction projects along the Las Vegas Strip in the past 17 months. A $32 billion building boom in the city has prompted project managers to take shortcuts at the expense of safety and to pressure workers to work faster, the paper said.
Said Woolsey:
What’s happening in Las Vegas and other major cities, including New York…there’s this need to move faster to build quickly and meet construction deadlines. It’s taking its toll and it’s killing or injuring our workers—all so some big buildings can get built quickly.
House Education and Labor Committee spokesman Aaron Albright said.
The failure to adequately protect these workers is a direct result of an agency that doesn’t dedicate enough resources to inspect most job sites nor the political will to hold employers accountable when they put workers at risk.
Today, Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), said the department will meet next week to formulate an action plan designed to effectively improve job site safety in the construction industry.
Training and education of workers in safety and health measures is crucial. So is training and educating the supervisory personnel and employers who control the site to ensure that safety does not fall off the daily checklist. And OSHA must step up its enforcement of job safety rules and regulations.
A big problem, however, rests with some contractors who put profits ahead of people’s lives. Contractors who supply poorly maintained equipment and tools that put workers at risk should be held accountable. Bottom line, while we care deeply about job site safety, the employer is legally and morally responsible for creating a safe work environment.
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