Community calls for better safety measures after deadly Dilworth scaffolding collapse

CHARLOTTE — A tribute was held Friday night in Uptown for the three construction workers who died in a scaffolding collapse on Jan. 2.

It was a chance for the community to come together and address safety at the workplace.

The accident happened at a construction site for an apartment complex on East Morehead Street in Dilworth.

José Canaca, Jesús Olivares, and Gilberto Fernández died after falling 70 feet. Two other workers were hurt.

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Canaca’s uncle said the vigil also continues the call for better working conditions in the construction industry.

“We got a lot of questions and no answers,” Jorge Bonilla said. “Nobody has reached out to us. We still don’t know why the scaffolding fell, what shape this equipment was, who installed this equipment, none of that. We have no answers.”

Betsy Rosen, who lives near the construction site, said she heard the three men were not wearing safety harnesses.

“I can’t imagine being a family member and my loved one went to work and never came home,” Rosen said.

Rosen said the city skyline should be a reminder of the men and women who built it -- the same men and women deserve proper safety measures on the job site.

“These men died building a building where a starting unit is probably half-a-million dollars,” she said. “Three men die and there’s a Facebook page so they can raise money to hold funerals. Somethings wrong here, guys.”

Organizers of the vigil want the community to remember what happened and act.

“The fines for workplace injury and workplace fatality need to be higher,” said Ashley Hawkins, the president of the Charlotte Metrolina Labor Council. “They are 75% lower in North Carolina than the national average.”

Hawkins said change needs to happen to protect Latino workers.

“All workers, regardless of their union representation, regardless of their immigration status, have the right to say, ‘I will not perform this work until it is made safe for me to do so,’” Hawkins said.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has not released its findings.

There were 1,008 construction fatalities in the U.S. and of those, 351 of them were falls.

Work on the Dilworth apartment building was suspended indefinitely after the incident.

VIDEO: More construction companies ask for OSHA training after deadly scaffolding collapse

More construction companies ask for OSHA training after deadly scaffolding collapse

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