‘Workers end up paying the price’: laborers call for safer building sites

Falls, slips and trips accounted for 865 worker fatalities in 2022 - more than 400 of whom worked in construction

Wooden planks with nails covered the site where Antonio, a construction day laborer in Houston, Texas, was helping clear large fencing last December. The contractor that hired him provided no protection, he said - so when he slipped, and a nail struck him just above the ankle, it became really swollen".

Antonio was given hydrogen peroxide, and the contractor promised to get him medical attention the next day. But after developing a fever overnight, and with his ankle still swollen, he took himself to the emergency room.