Want to keep tolls down on the new Tappan Zee Bridge — and maybe elsewhere? There’s a simple way to do that: Reform New York’s archaic Scaffold Law.
This welfare for lawyers is bleeding New Yorkers dry. We’re the only state in America with such wacky, corrosive rules. It’s long past time Albany did something about it.
Fortunately, there’s Democratic-sponsored legislation that could end the nightmare right now.
I am enthusiastically supporting it — and I wrote to President Obama about it, too. Kudos to the president for making the new Tappan Zee a priority and visiting us recently. Now I hope he’ll push this reform and help us slice the cost of the new bridge by hundreds of millions of dollars.
What is the Scaffold Law? It’s an outdated piece of legislation that imposes “absolute liability” on builders and property owners for any elevation-related injuries.
If a worker is drunk on the job, falls and injures himself, the builder bears responsibility. Full responsibility.
This sends insurance costs here soaring, making everything more expensive. Every infrastructure and construction project here costs 10 percent more than it should, including the new Tappan Zee Bridge project.
Reforming the Scaffold Law wouldn’t mean workers have no protections. Quite the contrary, workplace injuries have gone down in the two decades since Illinois repealed its Scaffold Law.
If New York enacted scaffold reform, workers would still be able to sue for any employer negligence that caused their injury.
But it would mean that contractors or small businesses can defend themselves if the employee’s own negligence, bad behavior or intoxication caused the injury.
Employers and property owners will still lose in court if they cut corners so they have a significant incentive to keep the work site safe. But if an employee flagrantly ignores safety rules, the employer and property owner have a defense in court.
In short, Scaffold reform is a balanced approach that protects worker safety, employers, property owners and taxpayers. And it could mean the difference between getting federal support for a critical infrastructure project and not getting it.
As the president has said, funding for major infrastructure upgrades are at risk.
Projects like the Tappan Zee are expensive, and Congress is wary of wasteful spending. Congress is right to be concerned when a single, outdated regulation drives up the cost of the Tappan Zee by 10 percent. That’s $390 million in taxpayer cash going to waste because of a regulation designed as a giveaway to lawyers.
Congress is less likely to approve funding for New York’s infrastructure needs with the Scaffold Law in place.
After all, why would a senator from Idaho or a congressman from Georgia support funding for projects that come with a 10 percent premium because we have a ridiculous law on the books?
More important, no one in New York likes paying high tolls. And yet, some estimates of the toll for the new Tappan Zee Bridge are as high as $15. That’s outrageous!
Middle-class families can’t afford to pay $15 to cross a bridge. Yet it is New York’s out-of-control regulation — like the Scaffold Law, in particular — that are inflating the cost of the bridge and leading to sky-high tolls.
We can invest all we want in infrastructure, but if we end up with tolls that make it an economic hardship for a typical family to cross a bridge, what’s the point?
Scaffold Law reform would be a powerful step toward convincing Congress to support infrastructure investment in New York. Obama should make that clear to Albany.
As for us, we owe it to federal and state taxpayers to deliver infrastructure investments at the lowest cost possible.
We also owe it to New Yorkers to do everything we can to keep tolls and other costs low.
New York state Assemblyman Kieran Michael Lalor (R) represents Dutchess County