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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

2 Years after Fatal Crane Accidents: Questions on NY Safety Enforcement

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Monday, March 15, 2010   

NEW YORK - Two years ago today, a high-rise construction crane collapsed in Manhattan, killing seven workers. It was the first of two fatal crane accidents in 2008 that prompted the city council and mayor to craft more than 20 new safety rules.

Louis Coletti, the president of BTEA, New York's Alliance of Union Contractors, says the response was appropriate, but all those new rules have put a strain on both contractors and building inspectors. Two years after the accident, the perception is that city inspectors are concentrating on high-rise union jobs, he says, even though evidence shows that more workers are dying on low-rise non-union sites.

"OSHA statistics show that, when you take out 2008, for the previous six years 75 percent of the fatalities are on non-union jobs below 10 stories."

The owner of the construction crane and a mechanic involved in the the second accident, which killed two workers in May 2008, entered not guilty pleas to manslaughter charges last week. The Manhattan district attorney contends the accident could have been prevented if safety rules had been followed to ensure that earlier repairs to the crane had been conducted properly.

New York City Buildings Department spokesperson Tony Sclafani defends his department's actions, which he says resulted in an 84 percent decrease in fatalities at both union and non-union sites.

"Our outreach as well as our increased enforcement is what has helped to bring down the number of construction-related fatalities."

OSHA regional deputy administrator Richard Mendelson says his agency targets two-thirds of their enforcement activity at low-rise sites, because that's where two-thirds of the fatalities are happening. He says the non-union jobs rely more on day laborers and tend to have less supervision and safety resources.

"On union jobs, we cite an average of 1.7 violations per inspection; on non-union jobs, it's an average of 2.8 violations per inspection. So it's a whole other violation per inspection on non-union sites."





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