‘ZERO TOLERANCE’
Crackdown cut hardhat deaths to zero: Buildings Dept.
A citywide crackdown on construction sites sparked by seven fatalities in the first five months of 2021 produced more than 3,600 safety violations and nearly 1,500 stop-work orders, said Buildings Commissioner Melanie La Rocca.
The “zero tolerance” program conducted sweeps at roughly 7,500 building construction sites since its June 1 launch, with not a single fatal workplace accident reported in the city since then, she said.
According to La Rocca, the inspections done during the campaign were in addition to the usual hundreds of thousands of regular enforcement visits conducted year-round.
Seven hardhats perished on the job before the new program kicked in, including three in May alone, authorities said.
Diego Lliguicota, 32, plunged down a sixth-floor elevator shaft in Long Island City, Queens, on May 22, just five days before a 49-year-old construction worker fell to his death from the roof of a bank in Flatbush, Brooklyn, during a demolition.
At the time, La Rocca described the deaths as “tragic, senseless — and even worse, entirely avoidable.”
Manhattan was hit with the most stop-work orders under “zero tolerance” with 545, while Brooklyn outpaced the other boroughs by racking up 1,252 violations.
In all, the city inspectors visited a total of 7,443 new buildings, with 1,499 stop-work orders issued.
In the other boroughs,
authorities reported 425 stopwork orders in Brooklyn, 339 in Queens, 144 in the Bronx and 46 on Staten Island.
Many of the shutdowns were rescinded after contractors corrected the unsafe conditions and the sites passed a followup visit by Buildings Department inspectors, officials said.
La Rocca said it was vital for city officials and construction
companies to work collaboratively on keeping work sites safe.
City Buildings Department “enforcement is of critical importance in promoting safety at construction sites, but the reality is we can’t be in all places at all times,” she said.
“To protect the lives of the working men and women who are building this city, we need our partners in the construction
industry to step up and join us in pushing for enhanced roundthe-clock supervision and greater accountability.”
The seven deaths were just one less than in all of 2020, when nonessential construction was shut down for two months by the pandemic. The total deaths in 2018 and 2019 were 12.
According to a Buildings Department Construction Safety
Report, most of the injuries are the result of workers falling due to improper harnessing while working on higher floors.
The Buildings Department said the “zero tolerance” campaign will continue with unannounced inspections at larger construction sites, a new push to enact safety legislation and interventions at sites found to have serious safety violations.