According to Mr. Duta the inspector said that “a 30-foot bar was missing.” To correct that problem, Mr. Duta explains that “my boss told me to take a bar, cut it in half and stick it into the concrete. Make it look like it was a 30-foot bar.” And when the inspector returned to witness the correction, Mr. Duta was instructed to tell the inspector that “I put a 30-foot bar in.” The boss added that if Mr. Duta refused to lie to the inspector that Duta would lose his job.

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This story raises several alarming questions. First, is that floor stronger because it doesn’t have the engineer-specified metal support in it? How much money did Parkside save by this single deception, or was this lie executed at a grander scale, in all the floors of that building, to maximize the savings? What impact does this kind of practice have on the soundness of that building?

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Parkside also allegedly achieved other savings through Mr. Duta, who says they stole wages from him regularly and had him paying money into a non-existent healthcare plan, which payments he assumes they kept for themselves.

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Danny Coleman and RNC

Danny Coleman, a carpenter, worked for 6 years at RNC Industries. Like Parkside, RNC is a big New York open-shop contractor, has been cited for many violations, and their worksite negligence led to the death of one worker.

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That death may have been on Mr. Coleman’s mind the day he quit RNC because of their attitude toward work site safety. He describes how one morning on the job someone discovered a faulty safety pin holding a critical steel rod in a crane. Mr. Coleman explains how that safety pin was replaced with jury-rigged tire wire and duct tape. The crane was then put to use all day long lifting heavy construction materials over the heads of workers with this slapped-together solution.

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On that day Mr. Coleman also had on his mind a deck collapse that happened on the site 10 days before, which he says was because RNC was using old and less-reliable construction materials. “That shouldn’t happen” on a building in New York City, he said.

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So, when Mr. Coleman witnessed the duct-taped crane he objected to his supervisors, insisted they do a proper repair, and challenged them, “we have to be better than that.” And when those supervisors insisted that the team keep working with the crane in its current condition, Mr. Coleman walked off the job site and never returned. He is now a member of the New York City Carpenters Union.

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As a sad and ironic side note, in 2016 a 43-year-old crane operator named Paul Kennedy, who was working on a Parkside job site in Brooklyn, was killed when a metal part from a crane dislodged and hit him in the head. The Department of Buildings shut down the site and fined Parkside. Mr. Coleman’s caution on the RNC job illustrates that accidents like these are avoidable when a safety-first culture is fostered.

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Mr. Coleman’s experience raises more questions about the quality of non-union construction. What type of supplies did RNC use to repair that deck collapse – more of the same dated materials? In how many buildings were they using these items and as a result, are those buildings less stable than they could or should be? And how many workers have been put in jeopardy by their cavalier approach to safety?

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Eddie Perez and Mountco

Eddie Perez used to work for Mountco Construction and Development and then for Mega Construction, two open-shop contractors. Mr. Perez was working on a high-rise in New York when he told his supervisor that OSHA law requires construction employers to provide their crew with safety harnesses. Mr. Perez tells how the manager reached into his compound bucket and pulled out a harness. As he tossed it at Mr. Perez he said, “here’s your harness.”

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Mr. Perez saw immediately that the harness was for a much smaller person, it would never fit him. He said “This is baby-gap approved, not OSHA approved.” The manager told him “You can take this, or you can go talk to management,” which many workers on open-shop job sites take as “go over my head and you’re fired.” Mr. Perez worked without a harness. He’s now in the New York City Carpenters Union.

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All three of these men say there are many, many more stories like these that they and countless other workers can share about working on a non-union construction team. These testimonies cause any listener to become suspect of the quality of those buildings. If workers are forced to cut corners on engineering and then told to lie about it to inspectors, are not given safety training or safety equipment, and have to worry about whether they will be paid for the hours they put in, or suspect that they don’t actually have the healthcare coverage they’re paying into – those workers are not being set up to do professional quality work.

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Each of these three workers made their way into NYC unions and they now see and speak of the stark difference between non-union work and working in a union. Their stories issue a warning to anyone looking to buy or rent in New York: Ask who built the building, because while the difference on the surface may not be huge, what lies beneath the surface could be very costly.