Workers must press unions for safe job sites

Tom Hannah, Kingman, Ariz.

Thursday, April 3, 2008 | 2:04 a.m.

Regarding Las Vegas Sun reporter Alexandra Berzon’s stories on construction worker deaths on the Las Vegas Strip, which began with Sunday’s story “Pace is new peril”:

As an ex-construction worker who spent a lifetime working on some of the biggest projects in California, I am appalled at the flimsy excuses given by the Las Vegas contractors, unions and OSHA for their lack of providing a safe workplace for the construction workers of Las Vegas.

General contractors and owners using subcontractors against one another to accelerate projects are nothing new. What is new is the unions find themselves weakened by a lack of membership and hamstrung by anti-labor laws passed in the past two decades.

The first responsibility of any union is to protect its members as it relates to safety. If the union cannot execute this fundamental protection of its members, then it has truly become a “hiring hall.” As pointed out in the Sun’s articles, employees are trying to be good workers by “hurrying up construction.” This type of behavior, when it comes to construction, is a path to injury or worse.

If you’re a worker on one of these troubled jobs, you may as well forget getting any help from contractors or OSHA. If you want a safe environment to work in, you have to create it yourselves.

You have to put pressure on your union agents and your fellow members to shut down these unsafe jobs until they are safe workplaces. It is every worker’s responsibility to himself and his fellow workers to work safe. “Hiring hall” or union make your choice.