NEW YORK (CNN) - Two undocumented workers from Mexico and one from Ecuador have reached the settlement in court for months total $ 3.85 million for damage to New York construction-site accident, a lawyer for the men announced Wednesday.
"All three cases involve the construction and very dangerous working conditions," the lawyer, Brian O'Dwyer, said in a news conference. "We are here to re-emphasize - as we have in the past - to the Latino community and all undocumented workers that they have the same rights on the job as New York residents."
A 33-year-old undocumented plumber from Mexico who scalded by exploding in the Wall Street pipeline construction site in 2004, he settled a claim for damage to $ 2.5 million, according to a statement given to reporters at the news conference. Married father of two, who said he still has nightmares from the accident, hopes to open a restaurant or bar with the settlement money, his cousin to the journalist.
In a separate statement, the owner of the Wall Street site only said that the plumber injury is "work directly by [the] contractor and not by property owners and management agents." Achieved through public relations company, a spokesperson for the contractor, Equities swig, did not have comments.
Other undocumented Mexican workers suffered severe injury to the left leg and other parts of the body when a steel beam fell on the lower body in a building in downtown Manhattan site, a statement said the news conference. The 52-year-old he settled a claim against damage Beway Realty Corp. and FJ Sciame Construction Co. Inc. for $ 750,000, according to the statement.
David Koeppel, the members Beway Realty, said he was not familiar with the case. FJ Sciame Construction, the contractor's site, does not answer the question.
A 36-year-old Ecuadorian laborers who work in the Arverne by the Sea community in Queens - an environment The New York Times called "bright spot" in the housing market to a strong sales and low foreclosure rates - that settled the damage claim for $ 600,000, news conference statement said. He was injured when three 44x10-foot trusses, each weighing 200 pounds, to collapse on him in August 2007, fracturing his hip and caused other injuries, according to the statement.
Father of three, who has worked in construction for more than a decade and the companies own the property at the time of the accident, said he was very sad after the accident because he does not know how he will support his family. Two sons, now 7 and 8, and 16-year-old daughter was born in the United States.
"The contractors are trying to blame me," he said at the news conference, speaking in Spanish. What message it will give other workers? "Do not be afraid to talk to a lawyer."
Although he has not been enough to return to continue the construction work, he hopes to use the settlement money to build a house for his family in New Jersey.
Left a message for the Beechwood Organization, developers of Arverne by the Sea, could not be found.
Joel Magallan, executive director of Asociacion Tepeyac, an immigrant advocacy group, said that while construction work is often dangerous, undocumented workers tend to work on a site that does not have the equipment safety and OSHA regulations.
"This is a day for undocumented immigrants," said Magallan. "They need to know today that they have rights - the same rights as other workers who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents."
"Many workers who are threatened by their employers with deportation if they discharge or take cases to court," said O'Dwyer. "What we found is usually working on site in New York is a death that occurred in the proportion of far documented their work in the workplace, and that is because of the fact that they did not receive the protection of safety," he said.
In 2005, O'Dwyer won the historic $ 4 million settlement for 33-year-old Mexican worker who was killed on the 30th floor a building accident in the Bronx. Workers who are injured, hospitalized during the four months and seven surgeries after the accident in 2001, told CNN on Wednesday that the workers - documented or undocumented - should not be afraid to defend their rights.
Although illegal for employers to knowingly hire undocumented workers, according to New York City Mayor's Office of Immigration Affairs, if undocumented workers who are hired by a company, then he is entitled to be paid minimum wage and overtime, the right to protection of health and safety, and rights to improve conditions for workers.
"Each of these people have been injured in the course they are working on the construction site, immigration status and they are not relevant to their right to seek redress for their injuries," O'Dwyer explained in a statement. "Enforce the law requiring a safe workplace to serve the interests of all Americans, whether they are citizens or not."
The people involved in the settlement say they choose to remain anonymous to protect the family outside of the United States, which can be a target of the abduction scheme if they become a residential community.
thx to (CNN)
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