Syracuse Injury Lawyer Blog
A new scaffold design was selected by the City of New York to protect laborers working at a height and appease store owners. According to Syracuse New York construction accident lawyers Bottar Law, PLLC, a scaffold is a temporary structure built by construction workers to elevate contractors and protect the public from falling objects. In most cases, scaffolding consists of anchors, metal pipes and planks or platforms.
The new design is called “Urban Umbrella.” Like the name suggests, the new design resembles an umbrella – only upside down. Opponents to the design complain that scaffolds are already dangerous and it is reckless, at a time when scaffolding fabrication and assembly should be standardized, to encourage form over function. That is, property owners and contractors should be working toward ensuring that support posts are properly bolted to support beams, and that support beams are properly secured to planks, rather than investing time and money into whether scaffolding is pleasing to the eye of building and store owners.
Scaffolding accidents happen every day. All too often because of negligence. Indeed, 25% of laborers injured in a scaffold accident reported that they had never been trained on how to work safely on or from a scaffold. To cut down on New York construction, industrial and workplace accidents, the legislature adopted very specific laws that afford injured laborers compensation for, e.g., falls from a height. These worker protection laws are known as “Labor Laws.”
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