Letters to the Editor | Dec. 13, 2022

Those of us who work in the construction industry face significant threats to our health and safety on a daily basis. We accept those risks as part of the job, but sometimes we encounter construction site practices that simply defy logic. Not requiring breaks for tower crane operators is one such practice that needs to be abolished (”City mulls bill on required breaks for crane operators,” Dec. 8). As a former safety director and friend to many union members of Operating Engineers Local 542, I know firsthand that builders’ insistence that tower crane operators remain in the cramped cab for eight hours — forcing them to use the same small space as a bathroom and lunch room — is unsafe and inhumane. I applaud City Councilmembers Mark Squilla and Mike Driscoll, as well as the city Department of Labor, for supporting commonsense legislation that will bring an end to this abusive mistreatment of crane operators.

Mark Lynch Jr., business manager, IBEW Local 98, Philadelphia

How ironic is it that the week in which Republican litigants asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that courts should not be able to oversee or regulate legislatures throughout the United States, the Republican leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives filed a lawsuit asking the courts to prohibit the House Democratic leader from calling an election in February to fill the three vacant House seats? Did Republican State Rep. Bryan Cutler, who until the recent elections was speaker of the state House, not know what was happening at the U.S. Supreme Court, or did he not care that his lawsuit sought the very type of relief that his party’s national counterparts were trying to prevent? Is there no limit to the hypocrisy of our Republican Party?

Ben Zuckerman, Philadelphia

In your front-page featured article, “Safety issues go far beyond Dobbins,” there’s much hand-wringing about the destructive conduct of too many public school students. Clearly, they have an outsized impact on the delivery of knowledge, wisdom, and reasonable social norms.

If only the essential Philadelphia educational system would define itself as a learning organization. If it did, the administrators could take a proactive approach to disallowing behaviors of “a tiny percentage of kids” who have an outsized impact in the classroom while stealing scores of educational hours per day from their combined group of classmates.

Perhaps it’s time to redefine the purpose of urban school systems. Everyone may be entitled to an education, but if you’re unwilling to adopt and display an attitude that fosters learning, you’ve lost your right to it until you’re ready. The removal of disruptive individuals will have multiple advantages: the demonstration of a learning culture will be established in the schools, those who wish to partake will gain opportunity and advantages, attracting and retaining teachers will be simpler, and those removed will be educated in one of the most important of life lessons: Simply stated, you can be master of your own ship, but it’s up to you.

Stew Bolno, graduate, Germantown High School, Philadelphia

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