In a new report from the New York Committee for Occupational Health and Safety (NYCOSH), titled “Deadly Skyline“, construction deaths in 2020 accounted for 22 percent of all worker deaths in New York City and 24 percent of all worker deaths in New York State, compared to 21 percent nationwide.

This year’s “Deadly Skyline” report is based on 2020 data, the most recent data available by the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (DOL BLS).

This report covers the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York State. Due to COVID, fewer workers were employed on job sites during New York State’s shut down, resulting in fewer workplace fatalities.

While the report centers around construction fatalities, it does not calculate the many construction worker lives that have been lost due to on-the-job exposure to COVID or lives lost to other occupational illnesses.

NYCOSH has been advocating for timely and accurate tracking of construction worker fatalities since this report was first published in 2014. At the end of 2020, a bill sponsored by Senator Jessica Ramos in the Senate (S8828) and Assemblywoman Carmen De La Rosa (A5965A) was signed into law.

The legislation requires that employers submit key information to the New York State Department of Labor when a construction worker dies on the job.

The report states that the construction fatality rate in New York City fell for the first time in three years—New York State’s rate increased. New York City’s rate decreased from 11.6 per 100,000 in 2019 to 7 in 2020, a startling 40% decrease.

New York State’s rate increased from 10.2 per 100,000 in 2019 to 11.1 per 100,000 in 2020–a 9% increase.

NYCOSH analyzed OSHA-inspected construction fatality cases in New York State in 2020 and found that on job sites where workers have died, employers had coincided with OSHA violations 97% of the time.

For example, if a worker died from a fatal fall, the employer was also fined for a failure to provide training and a failure to implement fall protection systems (like a harness or guard rail).

Despite these violations and fatalities, employers are not legally prevented from receiving subsidy dollars.

In addition to the ups and downs in percentages, NYCOSH also reported an increase in fines for construction safety violations. The average fine amount in 2020 was $44,779, up 39 percent from $32,719 in 2019.

In 2020, the top fine issued in New York State was against Everest Scaffolding Inc. in the amount of $300,370.

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