The North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters is directing its members to stop working, effective Monday, due to unsafe working conditions amid the spread of coronavirus, according to the Boston Globe.
Thomas Flynn, the union’s executive director, wrote in a letter that “it has become apparent that working on construction sites in Massachusetts is abnormally dangerous, and that continuing to work on construction sites poses an immediate threat to the health and safety of my members and the public,” according to NBC Boston.
The move comes as the Massachusetts Building Trades Council is urging Gov. Charlie Baker to halt all non-emergency construction work across the state due to the coronavirus. The council’s executive board voted unanimously to suspend regular construction for one month.
While some municipalities have shut down construction sites, including Boston and Worcester, Gov. Charlie Baker has insisted that construction work continue, despite the public health emergency, under new guidance — and with extra precaution. That guidance includes rules like workers having to “self-certify” before each shift that they are not sick, and that other workers have their temperatures taken daily.
“There’s no question that if people are going to be working on construction and job sites, they need to have access to sinks, warm water, hand sanitizer and a commitment to implementing the physical distancing and the social distancing that we’ve all been talking about,” Baker said Wednesday. “There’s a lot to those guidances and those recommendations and those requirements, and local communities have made clear to us that they look forward to ensuring that the sites in their communities that are engaged in that activity live up to those standards, and if they don’t, they’ll do something about it, which is exactly as it should be.”
To read the full article, visit MassLive.com.
