Across the United States, construction workers were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Not to diminish the hardships and sacrifices of other essential workers and industries affected by the pandemic, Susannah Jacob of the Atlantic highlights the ongoing dangers and overshadowed accounts of construction laborers, specifically immigrant laborers. 

Along with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, her piece "The Dark Side of America's Gleaming Skyscrapers" expands on working conditions and on-site casualties. "Immigrant laborers have been dying tragic, sometimes grisly deaths on construction sites across the country. These deaths rarely make news, but they tell the story of an industry indifferent to the lives of its workers."

Within her coverage, she recounts the stories of Eric Mendoza, Nelson Salinas, Gregory Echevarria, Juan Chonillo, Carlos Moncayo, and Mario Salas Vittorio. How their deaths, along with countless others, are examples of the realities immigrant construction workers face. She dives into union versus nonunion labor contracts and how they affect worker protection and safety guidelines. "Setting aside the pandemic, construction workers are dying on the job at alarmingly high rates," she explains. "According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nationwide, 20 percent of all worker fatalities in 2019 occurred on private construction sites." 

Jacob recounts that while last March reflected staggering closures and increased unemployment rates across the nation, many construction sites still remained open. Laborers had to choose between risking their lives or risk losing their paychecks. On-top of regular site risks, the pandemic posed an added danger. Last May, Archinect's coverage of the struggles construction workers faced dove into reports from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics and Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) report.

"Ensuring the safety and fair pay of construction workers has traditionally been the chief function of their unions, and New York City was once home to the most powerful unions in the nation," she states. "Their influence, however, has waned in recent decades." While the industry's risks and mishandled labor force come to no surprise, her informative coverage is a sad reminder of these construction casualties.

As clients, firms, and passersby admire these massive spectacles we call skyscrapers, their shiny facades and "impressive heights" often overshadow the underrepresented hands that build these structures. The construction industry remains one of the most dangerous jobs in the building industry within the U.S. Still, as Jacob points out, "this is one of the most dangerous times in generations to be an immigrant construction worker in New York City."