Deadly work crushes immigrants' dreams

Antonio Romano took a journey like thousands before him: He left a town in Mexico so small it's not on the map and trekked over the border through Arizona's desert to work in the New York skyline, dreaming of returning home to build his own grand house.

Early May 16, as he headed to work, Romano told his fiancé he hoped he'd finally get paid that day, his eighth toiling at a swank upper East Side building. "I'll bring meat tacos home for dinner," he promised, squeezing her hand goodbye when he left her on the No. 6 train.

Romano, 41, wore no hardhat as he worked inside 33 E. 61st St., a gutted, five-story brick townhouse supported by metal floor plates that allegedly were not fastened to beams or to the outside walls. For hours, workers piled cinderblocks on the top floor. That afternoon, the building collapsed. The force of the cascading steel and concrete broke Romano's bones and lacerated his spleen, kidney and major blood vessels, causing his death, the medical examiner would later say.

Like many before him, Romano completed his journey home in a coffin, at a cost of $1,000 more than what a coyote had charged to smuggle him.

He was one of a group of seemingly expendable people: undocumented, exploited laborers who have reshaped the city's construction scene.

But his tragic death may bring change at a time when construction accidents are soaring. In an apparently unprecedented case, the contractor and foreman at the site of the fatal accident were charged Oct. 1 with manslaughter in Romano's death.

Prosecutors charged that general contractor Shukun (Michael) Tam, 49, and foreman Cheung Keat (Ken) Ai, 33, ignored dangerous conditions and took "none of the usual safety precautions" for their day laborers.

Brian O'Dwyer, a lawyer handling injury lawsuits for immigrant workers, called the indictments "the most significant development in protecting undocumented workers that I've ever seen."

"If more and more people are held accountable, they'll treat the people whose lives they're jeopardizing more carefully," said Richard Weiss of Local 79 of the laborers union. "It's all to save money ... the human element doesn't mean anything."

"I certainly hope it would bring major change in this industry," said Louis Colletti, president of the Building Trades Employers Association. "If we're going to get serious about change, and protect workers and the public's safety, contractors must hire a skilled worker. Owners must use legitimate contractors."

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who brought the indictment, followed it up a week later with the indictment of another contractor, Phillip Minucci of Tri-State Scaffolding. He was charged with five counts of manslaughter in an Oct. 24, 2001, scaffolding collapse on Park Ave. that killed five men, all undocumented workers from Mexico or Ecuador.

Morgenthau's office is continuing to probe other accidents that injured or killed workers.

As of Sept. 1, there were 290 building accidents in the city, compared with 202 for all of last year, a 43% increase. Most involve construction sites.

Construction fatalities in the city are also on the rise, according to state and federal statistics: 21 from last October through September, seven during the previous period and 16 in the 12 months before that.

Weiss said nearly all accidents occur at jobs employing off-the-books workers recruited on streetcorners or by word of mouth. The E. 61st St. job was such a site.

City Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster said she is calling a "safety summit" next month with representatives from unions and construction firms. She said she favors licensing general contractors and barring them from working in the city if they have safety violations.

But some say the core of the problem is that immigration laws do not address an intractable situation: Thousands of Mexicans yearning for a better living will still stream here.

"The big change should be legalizing these workers because the country needs people to do this work," said Brother Joel Magallan of the Tepeyac Association, a New York-based advocacy group for Mexicans. "They are coming to all the cities, and they usually have this dream to build a house back home ... you see a lot of new houses in their towns; they are empty houses."

He lived in Coyahualco, in Guerrero, a state along the Pacific Coast, working as an albanil, or mason. "He did floors, walls, he could build a whole house by himself," his fiancé, Lucia Reyes, also of Coyahualco, said through an interpreter.

She was 10 years younger than him, and she was attracted to his maturity. "He didn't drink or smoke. He was nice," she said.

Romano gave her an 18-carat gold engagement ring with a red pearl. She left it with her family when she came to New York in October 2000. She had always wanted to live here, she said.

She paid $2,000 to a coyote to help Romano cross the border and join her in New York. "He said it was real difficult. Sometimes they ate, sometimes they didn't," she said. Romano told her he and a friend were mugged by gunmen during the ordeal.

After two weeks, the coyote asked for plane fare to New York. Reyes wired about $250, and Romano arrived at Kennedy Airport in February. "Once he got here, he was really sad, skinny," said Reyes.

They lived in an apartment with Reyes' aunt at E. 115th St. and Madison Ave. and spent their few free moments in Central Park or at friends' parties.

Romano worked as a dishwasher at a 34th St. pizzeria until May, when he saw a flyer for the E. 61st St. construction job.

He was supposed to make about $50 a day but was never paid. "The boss kept telling him 'I'll pay you tomorrow,'" said Raul Garcia, a lawyer with O'Dwyer and Bernstein who is helping Reyes.

Romano's last words to Reyes as she stayed on the subway to her job in Brooklyn were, "Take care of yourself, have a good day."

She came home that night to learn Romano had been injured. She rushed to New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, but he was already dead.

She sought help from Tepeyac, which has handled many construction tragedies involving Mexicans.

"People come to our office because they have no financial support to send the bodies to Mexico, and we call people in the neighborhood to give donations, set up a place and time for mourning," said Magallan.

"These young people came here as sole support for their families, who now have nothing," he said.

He estimated that 90% of the 500,000 Mexicans living in the city are undocumented. Some 30% of the young men work in construction, the others in restaurants, he said.

"Some of the construction companies go to Mexico to recruit workers, make connections for them to cross the border, help the workers pay the coyotes, and many of the men are told to tell their brothers and uncles to come here," Magallan said, noting that Central Americans, Africans and Chinese face a similar plight.

The accident that killed Romano also severely injured three workers from China and Malaysia. Tam and Ai have been charged with assault.

Tam is himself an immigrant story. Born in Hong Kong, he came here in 1980 and became a citizen in 1985. He had worked in construction for years before starting his own company, Tamco, in Brooklyn.

Bespectacled, with gray hair and a gray mustache, Tam would not talk to a reporter at an Oct. 17 court appearance.

Prosecutors say he had performed residential renovations, but this was his first commercial job. He had an architect, a structural engineer and all the proper permits.

Tamco was hired to renovate the townhouse, between Park and Madison Aves., which is owned by Fabio Granato, owner of Serafina restaurant next door. Granato planned to put a Japanese restaurant on the two bottom floors and a triplex apartment on top.

Prosecutors said Tamco had gutted the structure, removed its wooden beams and replaced them with improperly installed metal joists. The building was not strong enough to support the concrete blocks, each weighing 64 pounds, that had been brought to the top floor.

Two hours before the collapse, two Local 79 business agents had visited the site to organize workers.

They testified before the grand jury, as did others who had complained that the building appeared unsafe.

Tam was "a subcontractor who took on the dimensions of a contractor to save money," said lawyer John Yu, who represented Tam at arraignment. "This is the state of construction affairs in New York City."

Robert Swetnick, Granato's lawyer, said he expects no charges to be filed against his client.

So is the construction at 33 E. 61st St., but with a new contractor, Ox Contracting of Brooklyn, which was awarded the building permit in August.

The building is shrouded in black protective netting, and workers in hardhats could be seen working on the upper floors.

"I feel very happy that they have arrested the owner of the construction company," said Reyes.

Meanwhile, Magallan just returned from Puebla, Mexico, where he visited schools in small towns.

"I asked the sixth-grade children to raise their hand if their brother or sister was in New York, and all of them did," he said. "I asked them, 'Who wants to come to New York?' and all of them raised their hands."

As of Sept. 1, there were 290 building accidents in the city, compared with 202 for all of last year, a 43% increase. Most involve construction sites.

Weiss said nearly all accidents occur at jobs employing off-the-books workers recruited on streetcorners or by word of mouth.

That 43% increase in accidents doesn't happen to coincide with any signifcant increase in the use of illegal aliens would it? Companies that hire illegals should be punished and their illegal workers deported. All either do is hurt America.

That 43% increase in accidents doesn't happen to coincide with any signifcant increase in the use of illegal aliens would it?

Just doing the work Americans won't do anymore - for minimal or no pay.

If he were not breaking the law, he would still be alive. I hope they arrest his girlfriend ship her back where she belongs.

The employer should be charged with employing a criminal alien instead on manslauter.

Only by reading between the lines of immigrant sob-story articles like this can you glean that there is any downside to illegal immigration other than for some unfortunate immigrants, like the fact that Americans don't work at these jobs anymore because half a million illegal Mexicans who will work for crap under terrible conditions are now available, having waltzed across the border and traveled to NYC unhindered.

The employer should be charged with employing a criminal alien instead on manslauter.

Actually he should be charged with both. It is unconscionable to have unskilled workers doing work that is inherently dangerous.

Ah haaaa. . . Ya sea? Eye tollja sew, dint eye???

It wasn't Atta's plane crashing antics that brought down the Trade Center towers. . . it was those sloppy illegal Mexican workers that did it !!!

There are plenty of Americans who can and would do this type of work.
The construction firms just don't want to pay their fair share of social security and payroll taxes, and the Mexican workers don't want to pay their fair share either like everyone else does, even though they get to use the same facilities (hospitals, schools, etc)as taxpayers do.
It's gotten so bad that Americans can't get jobs working side by side with these Mexicans because the Mexicans don't like Americans who don't speak their language or might rat on them.
And by the way, does anyone really think these people will help fight for this country if we are attacked?

Clearly the wrong workers were involved. If they had been the kind of workers who pay more taxes (the kind who volunteer to fight for the government when useful), not to mention more government inspectors to inspect, and more government schools to insure that these workers were properly educated in English, then of course more government hospitals to treat those who might be injured in an accident, this never could have happened.

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