First day on the job, untrained worker sent to his death and no one gives a f--k!

[Omaha Steve]

http://anti-union.blogspot.com/2008/01/blatant-racism-another-death-and-injury.html

FROM: NY1

Family members are mourning the loss of a man who died Wednesday during his first day on the job at a construction site in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. Police say 43-year-old construction worker Jose Palacios plummeted 13 floors to his death when a scaffolding collapsed on Clinton Avenue. Officials with the Department of Buildings say fast winds caused the scaffolding to give way.

(Fellow worker Ricardo) Uribe said it was Palacios' first day on the job.

Palacios leaves behind a wife and 17-year-old daughter in Mexico City. He left them behind once before when he came to the States seeking more opportunities. "He comes here for work, to give his family a better life. Just for that," nephew Octavio Solis. Now his family in the States, the niece and nephew he lived with in Astoria, Queens, have the grueling task of telling his family in Mexico."All his family is in Mexico. How are we talk to them?" said Solis. Palacios' mother's health is fragile, Solis says. "She's 74 years. She's old. She's sick with diabetes. She could die, too," said Solis.

The DOB had sent out an advisory Wednesday morning about the high winds, urging all builders, contractors, developers and property owners to secure their construction sites and buildings.

Another illegal alien Hispanic construction worker has died right here in Brooklyn, this time it was his very first day on the job. While my heart goes out to the families affected by this tragedy. I cannot help but wonder if this is possibly another sweatshop construction accident?

The workers allegedly were building or working off a 3 tier or suspended scaffold on the rooftop of a 13 story building to do stucco work, by OSHA regulations if the scaffold was being erected they should have been wearing an independent safety harness, the DOB warning about winds should have stopped that detail from taking place and the relative interviewed, who also worked on the site, did not speak a word of English. The New York Times has pointed out that the deceased was here illegally. Could this be yet another death caused by the underground construction industry in New York? Those companies that employ and abuse undocumented workers every day of the week. How bad is it to be a undocumented worker here in New York? It's real bad, it's a modern slavery and it's in every industry. From blatant racism to horrendously unsafe working conditions and without the proper equipment.

Let us focus once again on my term sweatshop construction, or what one could call the underground work force and the modern day slave like conditions in which undocumented immigrant workers must endure to maintain a job for unscrupulous contractors and the effect it has on it's competition, the state and the public.

FULL story at link.

Why anti-union.blogspot.com ?
This site is dedicated to Lawyer/PR man, Rick Berman, who works as a lobbyist for the corporate war against unions and the working class. His MO is to start websites who falsely claim to be factual and through truth, half truth and out right lies, misinform the public, unions are not his first campaign and I'm sure it will not be his last.
Heres an interview from 60 Minutes and a Full Story I wrote.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/05/60minutes/main2653020.shtml

http://unionreview.com/center-union-facts-anti-union-lobby-its-worst

[ursi]

1. all for profit ...

[aquart]

2. Isn't it Bush policy not to enforce OSHA regulations?

Did they cut inspectors to the bone?

BTW, just rehiring or hiring sufficient inspectors to enforce government regulations would be a shot in the arm for local economies.

We need to look at every Bush-starved nook and cranny of our government to see where we can hire Americans to work in America.

[JackintheGreen]

3. I did OSHA inspections for 2 years

back when Clinton was president. Nobody gave a f**k what I had to say then either.