New federal data show that the state had more construction industry deaths than any other in the 1980s. California and New York, with larger populations, had 990 and 481 construction deaths, respectively. In 1992, the last year for which complete data are available, Texas construction workers died on the job at a rate 50 percent higher than the national average. The 94 men and one woman killed in Texas that year fell from scaffolds and were electrocuted, asphyxiated, poisoned, crushed, blown up and hit by vehicles. There is no way to know how many others developed work-related cancer, asbestosis, silicosis, lead poisoning and other serious ailments.
People are most concerned about their immediate survival.
EVEN more troubling than the numbers are the reasons building trades workers in Texas and throughout the United States continue to die, get hurt and fall ill at rates far above those in other industrialized nations and some Canadian provinces. Denial or minimization of risk are commonplace not only among employers, but also among industry-oriented doctors and politically pressured government officials. There's a deep trait that goes through the American culture, and that is that once you're in a workplace you're part of production and the democratic rights you would typically take for granted do not operate. It's a tough situation for the worker. Management doesn't like to be slowed down, because time is money, and they don't want to educate you.