MK Sheli Yachimovitch (Hamachane Hatzioni) is proposing a law that would require a plaque installed in any building in which a construction worker died during the construction of that building. The plaque would commemorate the dead construction worker.
Yachimovitch says the public is not aware of the issue of construction workers dying on the construction sites, and this would raise awareness and thereby also cause greater enforcement of the safety laws in the construction industry.
The idea is that if people knew someone had died while building the building, they wouldn't buy an apartment in that building. Yachimovitch says she herself didn't buy in a building she had planned on buying in because she discovered that a worker had died there. If people won't buy in such buildings because they'll be aware of the death, the kablanim will have to start taking more safety precautions to protect their construction workers.
source: The Marker
I don't like the idea. Buildings should sit empty in order to enforce safety laws? Find a better way to enforce the laws. Someone who sold material to construction companies in the United States once expressed his surprise when first coming to Israel and seeing buildings being built and the workers on the site were not wearing hard hats or cabled down when high up. The culture needs to change, and there should first be other methods to do that before causing buildings to sit empty. That seems fairly extreme and should only happen if other methods if enforcement do not work.
On the other hand, this might also solve the housing crisis. Kablanim will have to slash prices drastically to get people to buy in such buildings, making them affordable to young couples and the like.
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