Report Finds New York Construction Fatalities Remain High
New York’s Deadly Skyline Report Shows Construction Workers Still Face Preventable Risks
Every year, construction workers across New York State leave for a job site and don’t come home. The scaffold that wasn’t properly braced. The roof with no fall protection. The work zone where safety training wasn’t provided, often in a language the worker could understand. Behind every construction accident is a worker with a family, and New York has been losing too many of them for too long.
In May 2026, the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health released its annual Deadly Skyline report on construction fatalities in New York State. The report draws on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the New York City Department of Buildings. Its central finding: 55 construction workers died across New York State in 2024, and while that number is down from the alarming peak of 74 deaths in 2023, it remains far too high.
Our New York City construction accident lawyers at Pasternack Tilker Ziegler Walsh Stanton & Romano, LLP have been fighting for injured construction workers and their families for over 90 years. The patterns documented in the report reflect what we see far too often: preventable deaths driven by safety violations, inadequate training, and declining enforcement.
How Many Construction Workers Died In New York In 2024?
The 2026 Deadly Skyline report documents 55 construction worker deaths across New York State in 2024. In New York City alone, 19 workers died that year, down from 30 fatalities in 2023, which was the highest single-year total recorded during the decade spanning 2015 to 2024. Between 2015 and 2024, at least 587 construction workers died on the job across New York State, and 218 of those deaths occurred within New York City, averaging roughly 22 fatalities per year in the city alone.
Even with last year’s decline, the fatality rate for construction workers remains strikingly high compared with the broader workforce. The construction fatality rate in New York City was 9.4 deaths per 100,000 workers in 2024. The overall fatality rate for all workers in New York City was just 1.5 per 100,000. That means a construction worker in New York City is more than six times as likely to suffer a fatal workplace incident as the average worker citywide. That gap doesn’t represent an acceptable risk. It represents a system that’s still failing the people who build this city.
Which Types Of Construction Accidents Kill The Most Workers?
OSHA has long identified what it calls the “Fatal Four,” the four categories of construction accidents responsible for the largest share of worker deaths nationwide. The Deadly Skyline report confirms that these same hazard categories dominate New York’s fatality picture, and that year after year, workers are still dying from causes that are well understood and legally preventable.
The Fatal Four are:
- Falls: The leading cause of construction worker deaths, including falls from scaffolding, ladders, rooftops, unprotected edges, and elevated surfaces. These accidents are exactly why New York has strong protections for workers exposed to scaffolding and elevation-related hazards.
- Struck By Object: Workers can be killed by falling tools, construction materials, equipment, or vehicles. Dense urban construction environments in New York City create particular risk, with overhead work happening close to ground-level workers. Falling object accidents are often preventable when materials are properly secured and workers below are protected.
- Electrocution: Contact with power lines, energized equipment, or extension cords can lead to fatal injuries. Electrocution accidents are often connected to poor safety planning, exposed wiring, or failure to de-energize equipment before workers begin tasks nearby.
- Caught-In Or Caught-Between: Workers may be killed or critically injured when caught in rotating equipment, between machinery and fixed structures, or in trench or building collapses. These incidents are often sudden and leave workers with no opportunity to escape.
The report also flagged a growing concern specific to outdoor construction in New York: heat. NYCOSH identified four construction worker fatalities in 2024 that occurred when temperatures at the job site met or exceeded 80 degrees Fahrenheit. One death occurred during an extreme heat event when temperatures reached approximately 96 degrees. OSHA data nationally shows that outdoor workers have died of heat stroke when the day’s heat index reached just 86 degrees, a temperature common across New York during the summer construction season.
Who Is Most At Risk On New York Construction Sites?
One of the most significant findings in the 2026 Deadly Skyline report involves who is dying. The data doesn’t show risk distributed evenly across the construction workforce. Two groups stand out clearly: non-union workers and Latino workers.
NYCOSH analyzed OSHA’s 31 New York State construction fatality investigations in 2024 and found that 81 percent of the workers who died were non-union. That concentration reflects a broader reality. Unionized workers typically have greater access to safety training, stronger workplace protections, and formal mechanisms for reporting hazards. Non-union workers, particularly those on smaller or less-regulated projects, are far more likely to face inadequate oversight, limited training, and pressure to prioritize speed over safety.
The data on Latino workers is equally stark. Latino workers make up an estimated 18.6 percent of New York State’s workforce, but in 2024, they accounted for 25.8 percent of total worker fatalities. NYCOSH found that this disparity is driven by a combination of dangerous job assignments, limited access to safety training in workers’ native languages, and barriers to reporting unsafe conditions. Fear of retaliation and concerns about immigration status can discourage workers from raising safety concerns or refusing dangerous tasks, which means hazardous conditions go unreported and workers remain exposed to preventable risks.
Are OSHA Fines And Inspections Keeping New York Workers Safe?
The short answer, according to the NYCOSH report, is no. Two enforcement trends in the data raise serious questions about whether current systems are doing enough to protect construction workers in New York.
First, OSHA fines for construction fatality cases in New York have been declining. The average fine amount in 2024 was $25,295, down from $32,123 in 2023 and the lowest average since 2017. For context, fines had risen significantly between 2018 and 2021 following a 2016 rule change that increased the penalties OSHA could impose. That progress has reversed. A fine of $25,000 for a workplace death isn’t likely to change the behavior of construction companies operating on contracts worth millions.
Second, OSHA inspections in New York State remain well below pre-pandemic levels. In 2025, OSHA conducted 3,162 inspections statewide, representing a 7.3 percent decrease from 3,411 inspections in 2024 and a 29.1 percent decrease compared to the 4,455 inspections conducted in 2019. The drop in inspection activity coincides with a dramatic decline in OSHA press releases for the New York region: just three in 2025, compared to 21 in 2019. Fewer inspections and less public enforcement activity mean less accountability for employers and less deterrence for the safety violations that lead to worker deaths.
The report underscores an additional accountability gap: in 77 percent of OSHA-investigated fatality cases in New York State in 2024, the worksite where a worker died also had concurrent OSHA violations. Employers were commonly cited for failing to provide required safety training and for failing to implement fall protection measures such as harnesses, guardrails, or safety nets. Despite those violations and the deaths that followed, there are currently no legal barriers preventing those same employers from continuing to receive public subsidy dollars or government contracts.
What Protections Does New York Law Provide For Injured Construction Workers?
New York has some of the strongest worker protection laws in the country, and for construction workers injured on the job, two legal frameworks are especially important to understand.
New York’s workers’ compensation system covers most construction workers regardless of fault. Workers’ compensation benefits can cover:
- The full cost of reasonable and necessary medical treatment.
- Partial wage replacement while a worker can’t work.
- Loss-of-use benefits for workers with permanent injuries.
- Death benefits for eligible family members after a fatal workplace injury.
New York Labor Law Section 240, known as the Scaffold Safety Law, goes further. It makes property owners and general contractors strictly liable for gravity-related accidents, including falls from heights and injuries caused by falling objects. If you were injured in a fall from a ladder, scaffold, roof, or elevated surface, the Scaffold Safety Law may allow you or your family to pursue compensation beyond what workers’ comp provides, including pain and suffering. The NYCOSH report specifically calls for preserving and strengthening this law, describing it as a foundation of worker health and safety in New York.
Beyond the Scaffold Safety Law, New York workers hurt because of defective equipment, negligent contractors, subcontractors, or site owners may have the right to file third-party workplace injury claims. These lawsuits can provide compensation for losses that workers’ compensation doesn’t cover. In serious construction accident cases, workers may be able to pursue both workers’ comp benefits and a third-party lawsuit when someone other than their direct employer contributed to the accident.
Why Evidence Matters After A Construction Accident
After a serious construction accident, the evidence needed to prove what happened can disappear quickly. Job sites change. Equipment gets moved. Contractors fix hazards. Witnesses scatter to other projects. Inspection records, photos, safety logs, incident reports, and surveillance footage can become difficult to obtain if no one acts quickly.
That’s why injured workers and families should preserve as much information as possible after a New York construction accident, including photographs of the scene, names of witnesses, medical records, incident reports, contractor information, and any communication from the employer or insurance company. Strong evidence can make the difference between a claim that’s fully developed and one the insurance company tries to minimize.
How Can A New York City Construction Accident Lawyer Help You?
The numbers in the NYCOSH report represent real workers, people who went to work on a New York job site and were killed because a scaffold wasn’t braced, a harness wasn’t provided, or a contractor decided a safety step wasn’t worth the time. Their families are left to navigate a legal and insurance system that isn’t designed to make things easy for them. An attorney can make the difference between a family receiving the full compensation they’re owed and walking away with far less than that.
At Pasternack Tilker Ziegler Walsh Stanton & Romano, LLP, we’ve been representing injured construction workers and their families in New York for more than nine decades. We know New York’s Scaffold Safety Law, workers’ compensation law, and third-party claims against contractors and property owners when their negligence caused or contributed to a worker’s injuries. Our attorneys represent union and non-union workers across every construction trade.
We represent injured workers on a contingency fee basis, which means you don’t pay us anything unless we recover compensation for you. If you or someone in your family was hurt in a construction accident anywhere in New York City, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Long Island, or anywhere else in New York State, contact us today for a free consultation. We have 12 offices conveniently located across New York, including five offices in New York City. Don’t wait, important deadlines apply to workers’ comp claims and personal injury lawsuits, and acting quickly protects your rights.
"If ever you find yourself in need of a workers' compensation attorney, I'd call this firm before all others." - Nyieshia W., ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐