Construction and real estate company executives are teaming with D.C. politicians to weaken laws that protect New York construction workers, who have some of the most dangerous jobs in the world.

The argument is that we need to decrease protections to increase the number of construction projects and meet the demand for new housing. While the city may need more housing, it can achieve that goal without sacrificing the safety of this essential workforce.

Upstate Republican Congressman Nick Langworthy has introduced the Infrastructure Expansion Act, which would preempt a 140-year-old New York State worker safety law, called the Scaffold Law, for federally funded projects. The Scaffold Law was introduced at the time of the first skyscrapers. It protects workers whose job requires them to work on scaffolding or certain other types of equipment that involve working at an elevated height.

Langworthy and the industry executives who back him argue that the Scaffold Law gives workers excessive protections, more than what workers get in other states, and in doing so makes insurance for construction projects too expensive.

What they don’t seem to understand is that New York is the most vertical city in the country. Construction workers are frequently performing tasks hundreds of feet above the street. The insurance........

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