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Construction Workers Walk Off Las Vegas Site Where Six Workers Recently Killed |
Several thousand Nevada construction workers walked off the job last night at the $9.2 billion MGM Mirage’s CityCenter in Las Vegas—where six workers have been killed on the job—when the project’s general contractor failed to meet the unions’ demands to improve safety on the troubled job site. The most recent death occurred Saturday.
The workers, members of the construction unions of the Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council, say the pressure to finish the work quickly, crowded worksites and excessive overtime leading to fatigue contribute to unsafe working conditions, according to the Las Vegas Sun. There are some 6,000 workers, mostly union members on the site.
Unions have been seeking safety improvements from the general contractor, Perini Building Co. But Steve Ross, the building council’s executive secretary-treasurer, told a news conference yesterday:
It’s time to stop talking about worker safety and time to start putting into place policies that are going to improve worker safety on this job site….We will not send our workers to an unsafe job.
The council says Perini must:
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Submit to an immediate worksite safety assessment by the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department’s (BCTD’s) Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR).
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Institute and pay for on-site training administered by the center.
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Grant full job site access to union and safety officials.
On Saturday, Dustin Tarter, 39, a crane oiler, was killed when he was crushed between the crane’s counterweight system and the crane track. During the past 18 months at the CityCenter job site, two workers fell to their deaths, two others were crushed when two 3,000-pound steel walls fell on them and another died when he became stuck and his body was severed by an elevator counterweight system.
Along with the six deaths at the CityCenter site, in the past year and a half, three other workers were killed on projects where Perini is the general contractor and two other construction workers were killed on other Las Vegas Strip projects.
In March, the Las Vegas Sun reported on the high number of construction deaths during the current building boom in the city—more deaths than during the 1990’s building expansion. The paper reported that safety inspectors from the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
found that a pattern of contractor safety violations contributed to deaths on numerous Strip construction sites. Those violations included inadequate training of workers, the use of faulty equipment and failure to cover holes in decking or place temporary safety floors or nets beneath workers to break any falls. Many of those findings were later overturned during informal conferences between employers and Nevada [OSHA].
Following last week’s crane collapse in New York City that killed two workers and the rash of worker deaths in Las Vegas, the AFL-CIO’s BCTD announced it is holding a special meeting this week to develop a new action plan to improve construction job safety. Said BCTD President Mark Ayers:
Construction workers suffer more than 22 percent of all work-related deaths, but these workers make up only 8 percent of the workforce.
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.
Yesterday in Las Vegas, John Smirk, secretary-treasurer of the Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT)District Council 15, told reporters that construction workers
have a right to earn a living and go home to their families at night.
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It appears that the Building & Construction Trades did the right thing:WALK OFF! Unfortunatley bosses tend to understand one thing and one thing only: MONEY!
As a former shop steward for the Teamsters at a building materials plant in Houston we threatened and then did walk off the job due to various reasons including job safety (or lack of it)
After six hours the bosses asked us to “talk” and the issue was then resolved. Call me old fashioned, but nothing replaces worker action when the bosses fail to respond to grievances and vital job issues!
FROM THE WEB SITE WWW.UNIONSONG.COM
WHERE THERE IS AN MP3 TO LISTEN TO THE SONG!!
I OFFER THE WORDS FROM THE WEB SITE
AN AUSTRAILIAN WORKERS SONG
Mark Allen
A Song by John Warner©John Warner 1997
(Tune: Derby Ram)
play mp3 or
The roof Mark Allen fell from
Was a hangman’s trap of shame,
But from the day Mark Allen died
The Union sings his fame
Chorus
He’s every worker’s brother,
He is the Union’s son,
And in Mark Allen’s memory
We’ll fight till we have won.
He went to inspect safety,
A Union- worker’s right,
But those who had the contract
Tried to bar him from the site.
You contractors* with cheap, tin souls,
The truth you can’t deny,
It was your unsafe practices
That let Mark Allen die.
“The Union doesn’t pay your wage,
You climb back up that wall” -
So frightened young men went back up
And saw Mark Allen fall.
You bureaucrats of government
Who blame him for his death,
His blood is on your murderer’s hands,
You lie with every breath.
Mark Allen’s aching mother weeps,
Mark Allen’s father grieves,
The Union’s weeping with them,
But it’s rolling up its sleeves,
* more forceful noun may be substituted
Notes
Mark Allen was a union safety officer who died recently on a Perth buiding site. The CD ‘Union Is Strength’ issued in 1996 is dedicated to his memory and to a fund in his name.
Enquiries to Walters & Warner
PO Box 615 Glebe NSW 2037 Australia
Tel (02) 9698 2206 or (02) 9557 7556 Fax (02) 9698 2115
Email mwalters@mail.usyd.edu.au
Workplace Safety must be Job 1 on any work site. This important responsibility must be put in place and fully supported by the Employer and or General Contractor. As this process now goes forward, the true measure of success for this Employer Driven Responsibility can be, and will be determined by the RESULTS! Death and Injury to any worker on any job site is simply not acceptable in this day and age, Period!
This is a HUGE Project with Billions being spent, and all too often these large projects simply accept Death and Injury as a part of the “Cost of Doing Business!” This is not an acceptable practice in this 21st Century and every effort must be taken, and every dollar spent to make sure that workers return home to their friends and families every night!
It’s time to Change the Perspective that Death and Injury on the Job in this 21st Century is simply a part of the “Cost of Doing Business!” It’s a signal of the cheap price that someone is willing to pay for FAILURE!! Ask the Families that are left behind of those Dead and Injured Workers how they feel about the Price they must now Pay as they must now go forward with only the memory of what could have or should have been!
It’s time that the Public be fully exposed to the true facts and actual costs behind these words and actions. It’s time that the Working Public finally sees that far too often “Cost Containment” begins with cutting costs on issues related to workplace safety, and then ends up with further steps and legal tactics only to lower or eliminate the Full Cost and Liability of the Employer’s Responsibility after the damage has already done!
It’s The High Price of a Low Value placed on Human Life!
Remember, It’s the Healthy Workers of today, that live to become the Death and Injury Statistics of another Day!
SAFETY IS JOB 1! Every Day, in Every Way!!
If you work for a living, Your in this fight whether you know it, whether you like it or not… Work Safe & Smart!
Don’t Give Up the Fight!!
Craig Michie
NvVIAW@aol.com
Nevada Voters Injured at Work