Low pay, safety concerns plague South Florida's construction sector | WLRN

A new report is sounding alarms about the fast-growing construction industry in South Florida, the backbone of the thriving real estate business that is one of the region’s largest industries.

Low pay, safety issues and access to benefits for construction workers are highlighted.

The report, titled Behind the Skylines: Labor Conditions in South Florida’s Commercial Construction Industry, was released by WeCount!, a nonprofit workers organization based in Homestead.

More than 80% of construction workers surveyed for the report said they did not having enough money to pay rent or mortgage during the previous year, and over half reported trouble affording groceries, utilities and medical care.

One in four workers reported having access to employer-provided medical insurance, while less than a quarter had access to paid sick days, paid vacation time and employer-provided life insurance policies.

The average earnings of all respondents was $19 an hour, with equipment operators, sheetrock installers, ironworkers and electricians earning the highest wages on average. About half of laborers earned less than $15 an hour. The minimum wage in Florida is currently $13 an hour.

'Barely scraping by'

Those wages are far too low to meet the basic needs in a region deemed by Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge as “the epicenter” of an affordable housing crisis in the nation, the report argues.

"You have these workers who are building South Florida, and those same workers really can't afford to live there anymore," Nik Theodore, a University of Illinois at Chicago researcher who helped conduct the survey, told WLRN. "This is a growing industry, but it's growing on the backs of people who are barely scraping by."

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The survey was based on a survey of 302 construction workers who are currently building projects in Miami and Fort Lauderdale with a minimum value of $10 million. A full 99% of surveyed construction workers were employed full time, working 40 hours or more per week.

Respondents were given $25 gift cards to participate in the survey, which took 15-20 minutes to complete.

Theodore said South Florida construction sector wages have increased since a study he conducted on Southern construction labor in 2016, when the median construction wage in Miami was $14 an hour. But the increase has fallen far behind what is needed to keep up with inflation. The county government-defined living wage in Miami-Dade County was $14.69 for a job with no benefits back when he did that first study. In 2024, the living wage is $21.26, according to the county government.

It means construction workers are falling further behind: In 2016, the median construction worker hourly wage was 69 cents under the living wage. Now, it's $2.26 behind.

Recent reports and industry groups have called attention to a significant and pervasive labor shortage in the South Florida construction industry.

"Simple supply and demand should tell us that wages should improve and working conditions should improve when you have this kind of labor shortage, but that doesn't appear to be happening like we would expect," said Theodore. "This suggests that maybe there's a shortage because the wages are too low."

Concerns about wage theft were prevalent in the study, with nearly a third of respondents saying they do not receive overtime pay despite working over 40 hours a week, as required by law.

“It’s kind of a race to the bottom. We’re trying to say: Enough is enough. We need to see a change to protect these workers. It’s not sustainable,” Zaina Alsous, the Miami project director for WeCount! told WLRN.

Seeking worker protections

WeCount! has been at the forefront of worker protections in Florida and on a national level. In 2023, after years of advocacy from the group, the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners considered the first local government protections against extreme heat for outdoor workers in the nation. The proposal called for making sure that outdoor workers have access to water and giving them 10-minute breaks in the shade every two hours when the heat index reaches at least 95 degrees. The proposed ordinance cleared its first hurdle with unanimous support, with liberals and conservatives all voting in favor.

The Florida Legislature responded to the effort by banning any local ordinances requiring extreme heat protections, overriding the Miami-Dade ordinance before it was finalized. The Biden Administration then began the process of developing a federal rule to provide many of the protections WeCount! sought, on a national level. Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su announced the rule proposal in Broward County in June.

In the midst of this tug-of-war with local, state and federal government on extreme heat policies, the report cites the topic as a core concern for workers.

Despite months of record heat during this past summer, 14% of respondents to the WeCount! survey reported being allowed no break on the job aside from their lunch break. Three-quarters of workers reported one additional break per shift. A majority of workers reported that their employer or general contractor provides water, while 6% reported no water is available on the worksite.

Troublingly, one-quarter of respondents said they have either seen someone faint on a construction worksite, or they have fainted themselves.

"The issues of heat and the very high heat indices were some of the most surprising findings for me. These are issues that have got to be on the radar or workers and employers," said Theodore.

One worker death every four days

The report cites Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that in 2022, the latest year for which data is available, 91 construction workers in Florida died at work, amounting to one death every four days.

A total of 46 of the 91 deaths were from falls, slips and trips. Most of the construction-related deaths were in the specialty contractor sub-industry, according to the federal data.

Ten percent of surveyed workers reported being injured on the job. In almost all cases medical expenses for those injuries were paid by business owners or company insurance policies. Nearly three quarters of workers reported having meetings or trainings on workplace safety.

A partial solution to the issues highlighted by the survey would be unionizing more of the construction labor workforce, the report argues.

“According to a 2022 report published by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute: on average, union construction workers earn 46% higher incomes, are 6% less likely to live in poverty, are 34% more likely to have private health insurance coverage, and are 6% less likely to rely on Medicaid," reads the report.

Just 7% of South Florida construction workers surveyed were members of a trade union, while 62% expressed interest in joining a union.

In its early days, South Florida once had a largely unionized construction industry. A sharp decline began after the arrival of Cuban refugees in the 1960s, since unions were segregated and did not allow Cubans to join. This led to Cuban refugees launching their own, non-unionized construction firms.

In its heyday, South Florida's unionized construction industry made significant gains for workers, including contract provisions to address extreme heat conditions.

In the early 1900s, union carpenters negotiated a deal to receive double pay for overtime work, above the national standard time and a half. This was negotiated specifically because workers labored in the humid South Florida heat. In the book Working in the Magic City, author Thomas Castillo Jr. described this contract provision as being unique to Miami’s harsh, humid and hot environment, and he did not find evidence of similar provisions in any other labor market in the U.S.