Greed is to blame for poor safety record

Norma Lembach, Las Vegas

Monday, April 7, 2008 | 2:04 a.m.

I have been the girlfriend, fiancee and wife of a union tradesman who has been in the business for more than 40 years. I have heard many of his observations and those of friends of his in the trades over the years, so I know of what I speak.

The real blame — and the only blame — for the dangers in construction is greed. It’s the greed of the corporations who have to have these multibillion-dollar projects done as soon as possible to “maximize profits.”

It’s the greed of the contractors who bid on these huge projects, then try to cut as many corners as possible to “maximize profits.” They don’t really care about worker safety, because they can buy off OSHA, and they don’t care about quality of workmanship, because nobody else does either. The mindset is bang, bang, git ’er done.

My husband paused one day for a few seconds to inspect a scrape he had just gotten on his knuckle. He was “reported” for standing around. Yet another worker who is either on his cell phone or has an Ipod in his ears all day never gets “caught.” I guess he knows how to hide really well.

There are also contractors that somehow manage to have workers on site who can’t even speak English, yet some of them have the nerve to blame out-of-state workers for some of the safety problems. Union tradesmen are trained through apprenticeship programs that are uniform throughout the country. They know what they are doing, and they understand when you communicate with them. But I’m sure the contractors save a lot of money hiring non-English speaking workers, and they have to “maximize profits.”