New York City had 23 fatalities in 1996 for 91,000 workers. That's roughly double the U.S. construction death rate average of 13.9 per hundred thousand. But the national figures themselves are nothing for construction industry executives to be proud of. No urban-based industry has a higher death rate than construction. Construction deaths occur at four times higher than the rate in manufacturing.
Iron workers are spectacularly at risk.
And ten times more dangerous than plumbers - who themselves are twice as likely to die on the job as factory workers. The wide variance of death rates within the trades undermines the companies' argument that construction deaths result simply from the negligence or drunkenness of individual workers. Given proper precautions, iron working can be made as safe as stock selling. In fact, the increasing death rates suffered by construction workers can be understood only in terms of an industry where losing workers' lives is cost effective. The incentive to ignore construction safety is as towering as the cost of capital.