Christian Barranco, a union electrician and founder of an online think tank – Square Deal NJ – issued the following statement regarding Governor Phil Murphy’s shut down of construction projects

Governor Murphy has relented on the executive order he created in early April that closed down all non-essential construction jobs. I’m glad he is allowing people to go back to work today – but, was the stoppage necessary in the first place?

While the state struggled to define what is an essential vs. non-essential construction project, the fact is that thousands of trades people were out of work for six weeks; while thousands more, who do the same work, were allowed to keep working.

Those without work suffered the financial and emotional stress of being unemployed and facing unrelenting onslaught of financial obligations to pay their mortgages, car loans and credit card bills. The fact that the governor made the initial executive order indefinite, only added to the workers’ stress. Many applied for unemployment, but from what I have read and heard, the NJ Unemployment office is so backlogged no one is sure when the unemployed will get their checks.

The key point here is just because the government takes it unto itself to “do something” about a health emergency, should it? Is doing something, the right thing?

In his announcement this week re-opening all construction sites, the governor says work may resume if the project managers and workers have sensible safeguards in place, including the prevention of overcrowding, requiring face coverings, prohibiting non-essential visitors, staggering work hours and breaks, and ensuring proper sanitation. (I have worked construction for decades and I don’t recall a stream of visitors browsing around constructions sites just for the heck of it.)
The governor and his ministers could have provided the same guidelines that are in place now six weeks ago and no one would have lost their jobs. Families would be less stressed and the state would have collected more tax money. Why are government bureaucrats so incapable of thinking rationally BEFORE, they act?

A six-week shutdown may not sound like much of a hardship, but to people who are self-employed contractors, or journeymen masons, plumbers, carpenters, or electricians; losing weeks of employment in the prime working season is devastating. Many construction jobs shut down in the frigid and icy winter weather; the prime working months for construction are in the spring, summer and early fall. The weeks men and women lost while sidelined by the government may not be made up this year.
And in the end, what was accomplished? Did shutting down non-essential construction projects have a big impact on public health? Is there any evidence to suggest that those who kept working construction jobs came down with the Covid-19 virus at greater numbers than other people in the population? I haven’t seen any data to support that.

I’m all for the government acting to protecting the public’s health, but I am opposed to heavy handed edicts issued by a lone executive without adequate supporting evidence that the executive’s actions are wise or necessary.

As we work through this pandemic let’s hope our leaders do a better job or doing the right thing, rather than just doing something.

Christian Barranco is a journeyman member IBEW Local 102 and has worked as a project manager and supervisor on many large industrial and critical energy infrastructure projects in New Jersey. He is also the founder of Square Deal for NJ, an organization founded to encourage ideas to address New Jersey’s many problems