Andrew Cuomo to New York Construction Workers: Your Money or Your Life
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has issued an executive order requiring all nonessential workers to stay home. But construction workers are still being forced to build luxury condos — more evidence that for capital, high-priced real estate is more important than workers’ lives.
Construction workers are seen working in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan as the coronavirus continues to spread across the United States on March 20, 2020 in New York City.Dia Dipasupil / Getty
“I’m genuinely concerned a lot of us could die. Most are older and already have a variety of job-related health issues.”
So Avery*, a New York City construction worker, told me yesterday. He passed along photos, shared to a Facebook group for city construction workers, taken Tuesday morning at a commercial skyscraper in Manhattan. In the pictures, workers are seen crowded together as they wait for freight elevators — no protective measures to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 are visible.
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