A Walk in the Clouds

Skyscraper window washers take a walk in the clouds: The pay’s good, you get great views of the city and constant challenges. If this sounds like your dream job, you should either become a Wall Street big shot or a far riskier option a Manhattan skyscraper window washer. In spite of recent scaffolding accidents, hundreds of Hispanics take the risk of hanging hundreds of feet above the ground to make big buildings glisten. “The first months, my knees were shaking,” says Daniel Peña (pictured), a Puerto Rican who’s been in the business 20 years. Recently, he’s been cleaning up the windows of Columbus Circle’s Time Warner Center. It took him two years to finish the job. “When you’re high up, wind gusts are so high your scaffolding trembles and you need to stop the work until it’s over,” says Peña. “You get used to being up there, but some people are cut for this work, some are not.” Last week, a cherry picker holding two window washers at a downtown Manhattan building tipped over, killing both men. Police identified the victims as 35-year-old Robert Fabrizio of Las Vegas and his cousin 37-year-old Darin Fabrizio of Milford, Penn. According to SEIU Local 32BJ, the largest building service workers union in the country, the Department of Buildings has sanctioned some 700 window cleaners in New York. It’s estimated that more than half are Hispanics. One of them was Ecuadorian Edgar Moreno, who died last December after his scaffolding suddenly collapsed and he plunged 43 stories to the sidewalk when he was washing windows on an upper East Side skyscraper. His brother Alcides, who was with him, miraculously survived. “What happened with Edgar was a tragedy,” says Peña about his ex coworker. “Both him and his brother were very professional.” Peña, who worked with Moreno for a while, says they had become close friends. “In this job your partner can’t be your enemy. You have to trust him 100%” says Peña. “And I trusted Edgar.” Although risky, cleaning building windows can be profitable. Unionized workers earn some $50,000 a years, an out-of-reach sum for other cleaning workers, and get some of the best occupational accident medical benefits payment in the industry. “This kind of job can be dangerous but many Hispanics take it because the pay’s good,” says Oscar Paredes Morales, executive director of The Latin American Workers Project. “But some employers take advantage of undocumented workers and press them to work without proper security measures,” Paredes adds. According to a recent federal investigation, Hispanics workers suffer more fatal accidents than other ethnic group. “Employers are responsible for the well being of the workers, providing proper training and a rigorous equipment maintenance,” said State Labor Commissioner Patricia Smith. Asked about the Moreno brothers tragedy, she said, “our agency is doing everything under our control to prevent this kind of accidents in the future.”

Window Cleaners Do Not Get A Second Chance

NYC window washer deaths underscore job hazards: NEW YORK - For more than two decades, Andrew Horton was content with his job as a window washer. But one day, hanging off the 86th floor of the Empire State Building with just a belt tying him to a window, "I did say to myself, there's got to be a better way to make a living! "Horton, 52, now runs New York City's main safety training program for window washers, teaching them how to reduce the risks of an occupation that has claimed three lives in the city in the past year alone. The latest accident happened after midnight Tuesday. Two men, working in a cherry picker off the World Financial Center, tumbled to their deaths when the machine tipped over and fell 40 feet to the ground, police said. The men, both in their 30s, were not immediately identified. A woman who answered the telephone at Total Building Services of Elizabeth, N.J., said one was employed by Total and the other was his cousin, a retired window washer.New York has about 600 unionized window washers, members of Local 32BJ of the Services Employees International Union. It's the largest group of unionized window washers in the country. Another 800 or so work independently and without formal safety training, earning far less. Of the thousands of window washers across the country, industry experts say about 95 percent are non-union workers who on average make about $7 an hour. Safety standards vary by state, with New York having among the strictest regulations. Although the federal Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) doesn't have specific regulations that apply only to window washers, the agency enforces general industry safety standards for equipment and employee training, according to OSHA spokeswoman Sharon Worthy in Washington. In New York, commercial window washers are protected by a special labor law that makes a building owner liable for injuries due to defective equipment such as a safety harness or scaffold. "If the job is not safe, you have the right not to work," said Mark E. Seitelman, a lawyer who represents a window washer injured when his arm got lodged in a hole in the scaffolding on a skyscraper last year. In New York, unionized window washers must learn basic regulations, and also how the equipment works, whether it's a ladder, scaffold or belt anchored to a window. Apprentices earn a $35,000 salary for the first two years in the union safety program, but can make up to $70,000 a year after earning journeyman status. Horton says many of New York's non-union workers are immigrants who get paid off the books in cash. He described a similar situation elsewhere in the country, with families sharing jobs among themselves and their friends. In California, workers are often offered piece work - for example, washing 20 windows at $3 apiece. "It's cash business, and they don't ask for qualifications," Horton said. "If you have a bucket and a belt, that's all it takes. "The largest unionized window-washing company in Chicago, Corporate Cleaning Services, says that about 80 percent of its 66 workers come from one tiny town in Mexico, with window-washing jobs passing from one generation of men to the next. Among New York's union workers, there has not been a lethal accident in 25 years, according to the union. During that time, non-union workers have had about 200 accidents, including more than 70 fatalities, said union spokesman Matt Nerzig. In December 2007, a team of two brothers plummeted from their scaffold 47 stories above an Upper East Side street. One died, while the other miraculously survived the fall and is now recovering. An OSHA investigator determined that a device that holds a lifeline for workers on the scaffold was improperly installed and cited the company that operated the scaffold for workplace safety violations. Horton knows what it feels like to dangle from the side of the skyscraper, having done so for more than two decades before calling it quits two years ago to lead the safety training program. "Safety is our number one topic," Horton said. "Window cleaners do not get a second chance."
Following on from the blog, yesterday & today.

R.I.P. Darin and Robert Fabrizio

'DEATH' MACHINE HAD LEAK - NEW CLUE IN WINDOW WASHERS' TRAGEDY:

A fellow worker at the World Financial Center site where a cherry picker toppled over today, sending two window washers to their doom, said he saw fluid leaking from ill-fated machine just a week ago. The so-called "man lift" fell over at about 12:45 a.m. Cousins Darin and Robert Fabrizio were cleaning the glass near the building's famous Winter Garden when the massive unit suddenly tipped over. They were rushed to New York Downtown Hospital, where they were pronounced dead early this morning. Officials said that they were about 40 feet in the air when the tragedy occurred. It wasn't clear if one or both of the men were in the vehicle's basket.
Today, investigators from the federal Occupational Safety and Heath Administration and the New York State Department of Labor were at the downtown site, investigating the incident.
Neither agency could explain the cause of accident. "We're going to be looking at the equipment itself, the mechanical parts, talking to witnesses," said Department of Labor spokesman Leo Rosales. But one worker at the site said he saw the cherry picker being serviced last week.
"It was leaking fluid," he said. "But it was fixed." Police said that Darin Fabrizio, 37, lived in Milford, Pa., and Robert Fabrizio lived in Las Vegas. One worked for Total Building Services of Linden, NJ, and the other was his cousin, a retired window washer, the company said. The orange and yellow cherry picker has a four-wheeled base with a motor, and a long scissoring arm with a basket on the end. The arm can extend about 80 feet in the air, and it is commonly used to wash the windows on the lowest floors of high-rises. Rosales said that the World Financial Center had the proper permits to operate the lift for window washing: See yesterday.

ANOTHER HEADLINE TELLING OF THE TRADEDY:
Two window washers working across the street from Ground Zero fell more than 40 feet to their deaths early Tuesday after their cherry picker tipped over and catapulted them through the air, officials said. Investigators believe the cherry picker rolled over a dip in the pavement, causing it to topple and eject them from the truck bucket as they cleaned the windows of the World Financial Center, a police source said. Cousins Robert Fabrizio, 35, and Darin Fabrizio, 37, both died at New York Downtown Hospital minutes after the 12:45 a.m. accident, police said. "I heard a boom," said a maintenance worker who was buffing the floors inside 2 World Financial Center as the cousins cleaned the skyscraper's exterior windows. Other workers ran to the cherry picker, which had flipped onto its side on the inclined sidewalk outside the building. "I saw them on the [ground]. ... There was a lot of blood on their heads and faces," said the shift supervisor, Alex Garcia. "I saw one of them trying to breathe, but the other one didn't move." Darin Fabrizio, a longtime window washer, was engaged to be married this year, according to a woman who answered the phone at his Milford, Pa., home. "The family is really hurting," said the woman, who declined to give her name. Other relatives said Robert Fabrizio split his time between Staten Island and Las Vegas. Both cousins worked for Total Building Services of Linden, N.J., a cleaning service that had been hired by Shepard Industries of Cedar Knolls, N.J., to wash the skyscraper complex's windows. An employee who answered the phone at Total Building Services said, "There's really no story here" before ending the call. A spokeswoman for Shepard Industries expressed her condolences to the Fabrizio family but declined further comment. A state Department of Labor spokesman said the agency was investigating whether the cherry picker or the company had received any previous violations at the World Financial Center site.