DA Candidate: Will Ensure That City Agencies Inspect

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang THE WATCHFUL EYE: Manhattan District Attorney candidate Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said Aug. 6 that if elected his office would monitor agencies that have oversight of construction and demolition sites in order to enhance worker safety standards. At right is Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which endorsed Mr. Vance at City Hall.

Manhattan District Attorney candidate Cyrus R. Vance Jr. last week vowed that if elected he would take an aggressive approach towards prosecuting companies that fail to pay workers the prevailing wage and work with the Fire and Buildings Departments to ensure compliance with worker safety standards.

While accepting the endorsement of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union on the steps of City Hall Aug. 6, Mr. Vance said, "We have to be increasingly aggressive about prevailing-wage issues to make sure that those investigations are treated seriously. It results in loss of tax revenue. It results in unions not getting the financial support that they are entitled to under the agreements."

He added that these investigations "tend to be treated not as seriously, but they are a big deal."

Cites Inspection Failures

Mr. Vance invoked the Deutsche Bank building fire of 2007, in which two Firefighters died. A Manhattan DA's Office investigation found that contractors at the building, which was undergoing a simultaneous abatement and demolition, had violated numerous provisions of the Building and Fire Codes that contributed to the two deaths, and that the FDNY and DOB failed to execute their inspection responsibilities. Mr. Vance said that the next DA would have to commit to "double-checking" that oversight agencies in construction and demolition sites are carrying out their mandates.

"There is obviously communication between those agencies; I think it just has to be increased, [and] access to information made seamless so that the DA's Office can be in total partnership with the regulators as well as with the unions themselves whose workers are put at risk," Mr. Vance said.

He promised that the DA's Office under his leadership would bring "effective monitoring to make sure that all the rules are being adhered to on an ongoing basis."

Union: Puts Employers on Notice

RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said, "Cy Vance's plan to increase criminal prosecution of labor law violators puts employers who would abuse workers on notice. Wage theft, abusing immigrant workers, willful health-and-safety violations and refusal to pay prevailing wage rates will not be tolerated. And those employers who choose to break the law will be held accountable."

Mr. Vance faces two candidates in the Democratic primary for Manhattan DA, both of whom have also received major labor support. Richard Aborn is endorsed by the Working Families Party and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1500— which is affiliated with the same international union as the RWDSU— and former Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Leslie Crocker Snyder has the backing of numerous law-enforcement unions and the Uniformed Firefighters Association.

All three once worked for Manhattan DA Robert M. Morgenthau, who is retiring at the end of this term.