Thread by @freddieoconnell

This #LaborDay, I’m thinking about Gustavo Enrique Ramirez, a 16yo who fell to his death on a Nashville construction site that lacked sufficient safety standards.

Over the past 5 years, we’ve had too many injuries and deaths on construction sites in Nashville, including in District 19. We can do better.

How do I know? Because last term, we passed the “Do Better” bill. Transparency, including safety records, with access to public dollars improves worker safety.

nashville.gov/mc/ordinances/…

What more could we do? For starters, I’m waiting to hear back from @NashFinance on ways we could better incorporate safety records into our procurement process.

But I think there’s more to be done. I think we could explore legislatively overhauling the Procurement Standards Board, which currently lacks a labor representative and could potentially focus more on worker safety.

Given the spread of #COVID19 at construction sites, I also think there’s scope for @NashvilleHealth to be more active in worker safety initiatives.

Finally, I think there’s an opportunity to pursue an incentive-driven approach through permit acceleration like Travis County’s Better Builder program.

traviscountytx.gov/purchasing/con…

These are all completely reasonable reforms that focus on the intersection of private and public sectors and produce better outcomes for workers.

As Nashvillians, we should want to prevent minors from dying on unsafe job sites. We should want _all_ workers to be safe. I think we can work harder to ensure they are.