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Every 2.5 days a construction worker dies on the job in Texas
Yesterday, an alarming new study was released that revealed Texas as the country’s deadliest state for construction workers. Coupled with the title of deadliest state for construction work, workers in the city of Austin suffer disproportionately high rates of not being paid for their work and sub-poverty level wages.
Despite the economic downturn, Texas’ state capitol, Austin, is the second fastest-growing urban area in the country, depending heavily on the construction workforce to meet the demands for new housing, commercial buildings and the city’s infrastructure system.
This celebrated boom of development, though, hides a horrible reality of worker exploitation and flagrant violation of federal and state employment regulations.
Yesterday, the Workers Defense Project and the Division of Diversity of Community Engagement of the University of Texas released a study on the “Building Austin, Building Injustice: Working Conditions in Austin’s Construction Industry.” Here is some of what they found:
- Poverty level wages. Forty-five percent of surveyed construction workers earned wages below the federal poverty line. Due to low wages, nearly half of construction workers reported not having enough financial resources to support their families.
- Failure to be paid. One in five workers reported being withheld payment for their construction work in Austin. Fifty percent of construction workers reported not being paid overtime, and for many, this has resulted in the inability to pay for food and housing.
- High rates of dangerous and unsafe working conditions. One in five surveyed construction workers has suffered a workplace injury that required medical attention. Sixty-four percent of surveyed workers lacked basic health and safety training, and many were forced to provide their own safety equipment (47% of residential construction workers provided their own hard hats).
- Death on the job. More construction workers died in Texas then in any state in the country, with 142 construction deaths in 2007. California, the runner-up for most deadly state for construction workers, only had 81 deaths in construction for the same period, little over half of Texas’ number. According to surveys, 15% of construction workers reported personally knowing someone who had died due to a construction work-related accident
(data from http://www.buildaustin.org)
Check out the full report here.
This study, as well as reports that economic recovery has largely overlooked racial inequity, shows that we have a long way to go make sure that the policies that restore our economy are equitable and empowering for workers.
Workers killed in Texas