NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A group of workers at Best Super Cleaning, a demolition and construction cleanup company, are picketing outside the contractor’s Brooklyn offices to push for safer working conditions and higher wages.
Staff started organizing in May 2022 after graduating from a year-long labor leadership institute hosted by the Laundry Workers Center, a New York City non-profit that trains immigrants to organize their workplaces.
Wilson Diaz, a worker and organizer at BSC, said the company failed to provide workers with the tools and safety equipment necessary to do their jobs.
“We don’t have access to basic PPE [personal protective equipment] like masks, goggles. We work in very dangerous workplaces,” said Diaz in Spanish through a translator. “We’ve been working in very high [places] where we don’t have harnesses. We were risking our lives.”
A failure to provide PPE is a violation of Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations, though OSHA has not issued a citation for the alleged infractions.
When contacted, a person who declined to give his name told 1010 WINS the company has no comment on the allegations.
Rosanna Aran, an organizer at Laundry Workers Center who has been acting as a liaison to the BSC campaign, told 1010 WINS workers would often scavenge equipment from the job sites they were cleaning up or pay for their own protective gear.
Masks and respirators were a particular concern for Diaz, who worries about the health tolls of going without.
“Those old buildings have leaks, they can have asbestos and all the chemicals,” he said.
OSHA fined BSC twice for violating health and safety standards.
The federal agency fined BSC $14,500 for failing to provide guardrails and fall nets at high-up job sites and failing to guard high-voltage electrical equipment in August 2017, according to the OSHA’s database.
In August 2020, OSHA issued a $10,796 citation for failing to conduct falling object training for employees and failing to provide ladders at work sites with large gaps.
Five other investigations, including four in 2022, did not yield citations. The two that did came about through complaints. The ones that did not were part of routine inspections or follow-ups for previous violations.
A little over a year after the workers launched their campaign, the company now provides proper supplies to its staff, according to Aran. She said the workers started seeing changes in their workplace about a month after they started agitating for better conditions by forming a health and safety committee.
Those gains were hard won, and have come at the cost of retaliation from management, said workers.
Management had promised workers a 50-cent annual raise before the campaign, but rescinded the offer after staff started organizing around workplace safety, according to Diaz. He also claimed some of his co-workers involved in organizing had their hours cut or were fired.
Aran said some of the workers who didn’t participate in the campaign received raises, while organizers wages stagnated.
“It’s a tactic to lower the morale of the workers and also to divide workers and prevent others from joining the campaign,” she said.
BSC refused to comment on these allegations.
In Feb. 2021, a worker at BSC suffered a life-altering hip and knee injury.
David Davila, a 49-year-old father of three, can no longer walk, let alone work his physically demanding demolition job. He’s slated for surgery later this month, according to Aran.
Diaz said Davila was pushed to work faster and harder than was safe, and cited the injury as inspiration for the campaign.
“When he had an accident, it was because the employer was putting a lot of pressure on us. They wanted us to do the work very fast,” he said.
“I remember one time I went to work with David, and he was complaining about pain in the leg and hip. But we never thought it was something serious,” he continued. “We realized it was really bad when he didn’t come to work anymore. This is something that can happen to me and my other coworkers too. That’s why we’re organizing.”
The Laundry Workers Center launched a GoFundMe campaign to support Davila during his recovery last week.
With gains on the safety front, the organizers have recently turned their attention toward wage increases.
Workers claim the starting wage at the company is $15 an hour, the minimum wage in New York City.
The online job board Zip Recruiter estimated the average demolition worker earns $17.45 in New York State, though Salary.com estimated $19.93 and Salary Expert estimated $23.69. Indeed estimated demolition workers in Manhattan make $22.16 an hour on average.
Organizers at BSC are pushing for a $21 starting wage.
MIT’s living wage calculator estimates a living wage for an adult with no children in New York City to be $25.65 an hour. The cost of living rises dramatically for workers supporting children.
Community activist groups like the Food Chain Workers Alliance, T’ruah, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, the Street Vendor Project and others have been holding weekly pickets on Fridays at noon in front of one of BSC’s offices at 139 Tompkins Avenue in Bed-Stuy to pressure the company to negotiate higher wages with workers.
Aran said the groups called off the weekly pickets at the end of last year when management entered mediation with workers, but when those talks fell apart in January, the protests resumed.
The workers pass out flyers on their lunch break to rally community members to their cause and bolster the ranks of the picket line.
“I’m here in this company to support my family, my parents. I’m doing this hard work and risking my life,” said Diaz. “Right now, I don’t have any injury, but my body can be injured doing this work. And we don’t have a living wage. It impacts me a lot.”
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