New York – Labor laws are designed and passed to protect workers from work accident injuries. The ‎New York State Labor Law 240 is one such law that was written to prevent work-related injury by ‎requiring basic safety protocols and equipment for at-risk employees. Specifically, this so-called ‎‎“scaffold law” was an answer to a well-known and specific problem of construction accidents due to ‎hazardous conditions at work. However, some companies within the construction industry are ‎attempting to have lawmakers cancel the law in an effort for them to make more money. The goal and ‎specifics of the law were to require employers in construction companies to provide safety training ‎and equipment, such as harnesses, hard hat helmets, protective goggles and the like. The most ‎pressing of safety issues in construction sites is that of trip and fall accidents, especially a fall from a ‎height at work. These types of work accidents are common, especially in the dangerous confines of an ‎active construction zone.‎

When an employee reports that he fell at work or suffered some kind of on-the-job injury, the ‎employer should immediately investigate what went wrong that led to the work injury and what must ‎be done to prevent something similar in the future. Unfortunately, some bosses just care about ‎making money and simply refuse to buy expensive safety equipment. Others half-heartedly provide ‎some equipment but don’t provide the essential required training in the use and inspection of the ‎equipment. Many workers have complained that improper or negligent maintenance of safety ‎equipment is an even bigger problem than not providing the safety gear. They note that higher levels ‎of risk in dangerous situations may be taken while relying on the protection gear to operate properly. ‎However, when the gear breaks or malfunctions, the consequences can be devastating, including slip ‎and falls, head injury, spinal injury, nerve damage and even wrongful death. Read more about this ‎scaffold safety law as well as the attempts to cancel it here.‎

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