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On the Insights in Touch podcast, today we are joined by Elizabeth Crowley, the head of the Building Trade Employers Association.
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Thank you so much for being here, Elizabeth.
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Thank you, Kristen.
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Thanks for having me on Insights in Touch.
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Happy to join you today.
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Yeah, I'm really looking forward to getting into it.
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Let's start first with I know you just did the Scaffold Law report.
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Can you take me a little bit through what you learned and why you're why you're on this, why this is so important to you?
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Because I know you and I have been talking for quite a while.
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What would you like people to know about that?
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Well, first, um, I represent a large uh association of union contractors and builders.
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We have many, many contractors, big and small, but all of our contractors pay far too much for insurance.
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And so much so where it's even hurt our businesses.
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We've had a in in recent months, we've had businesses uh change the way they do business or even go so far as to close down their construction end of the business or close their business altogether because of the costs of insurance.
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So it was always, or shall I say, it was always more expensive to build here in New York than in other cities.
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But when it comes to building now, it's so unaffordable.
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Uh and insurance contributes to that greatly.
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And while it was a contributor and has been for a very, very long time, it is uh a situation that has gone from bad to worse, and it's unattainable.
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We need real reform, and we need reform of this so-called scaffold law, which is labor law in New York State 240-241.
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When you say businesses are doing things differently, I get the closing thing.
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We know that they're closing.
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What do you mean by differently?
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Well, you know, like I had a company that used to uh build scaffolding, and now they're just becoming a supplier and lending the equipment that they once had, men working on.
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And that was the money-making end of their business.
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So they're no longer they're no longer in that section of the business, they're no longer doing real construction work like they once did.
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So they don't need that general liability insurance when they're uh just selling and renting equipment.
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And that's huge.
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I mean, that was the the bread and butter in the vast majority of the work that that company did.
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So um we we could say they're closing down business.
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Um, but you know, we like to joke uh or we shouldn't joke when it comes to this, but well, what else do you think some folks will say we'll go so far as to wrap our workers in bubble tape to make sure that they just don't get hurt, and you really can't do that.
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Um and so we we we have and will continue to prioritize safety, you know, as industry leaders and as an association, and certainly our companies do.
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They get work depending on their DNR numbers, which is connected to the amount of and the rates of incidence on job sites.
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Bring me through the scaffold log report that you worked on.
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Right, okay.
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Well, you know, we've always said this, New York, it's the most expensive place to build.
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Well, and and and and you know, you hear uh those who are against reform say, oh, we blame it on the insurance industry, or uh, you know, show me the real numbers.
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That's such an exaggeration.
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So we went to over 50 different established companies that either build or contractors, insure, um, and uh we went across those to the companies that do work not only here in New York, but in other cities, and we got the real data.
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And with over 54 companies that contributed, uh the data shows that in New York, insurance five times as much, five times as much as very expensive places to build, like California, five times as much as our neighboring state, New Jersey, five times as much as Connecticut.
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And that total cost amounts to over 10% of a construction project costs.
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In real dollars, it's it's every year hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars wasted.
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When you look at big projects, like the president talks about renovating Penn Station,$7 billion, or the governor uh she has a dream to bring a new rail from Queens to Brooksland, IBX.
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Right now, engineers are drafting up plans on how to put that to fruition.
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Those projects need money.
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And when you add 10% to the premium, it's an added invisible tax.
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And all New Yorkers are paying for it.
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Let's talk a little bit about the governor and her auto reforms.
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Why are you how do you feel about these?
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Why are you excited about them?
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They don't necessarily affect,
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although you I'm sure you have auto issues as well, your members do.
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What do you think?
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Yeah, you're you're absolutely right, uh, Kristen, in that you know, it doesn't affect our industry as much as it affects the average family and household that has an automobile, the consumers.
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But the consumers are the voters, right?
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It's easy to understand what you pay in car insurance when you've been driving or owning a car for 10, 20 years.
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You've seen how much it's changed.
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And uh you feel that in your pocket.
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When uh you look at why your insurance costs have gone up so much, it has a direct correlation to the velocity of claims, so the sheer number of times lawsuits are placed uh based on injuries, pain and suffering, um, and then similar to construction, uh, a driver can be at fault, can be under the influence, and still get a very large uh cash sum payout for pain and suffering.
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This is uh not you know practice in the vast majority of the country.
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And while it's driven up our car insurance rates in comparison to other states, we pay about 50% more.
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Seems like a lot, but earlier I said construction costs are five times as much.
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So that's 500%.
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But back to why I think it's important, the governor is taking a stance, and she's going head-to-head against the trial lawyers.
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And the trial lawyers are an entrenched special interest lobby in Albany, in New York State, and they've really been an obstacle in the way of reforming the scaffold law, and they're an obstacle right now as the governor tries to negotiate and works to negotiate a fair budget for New Yorkers.
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And, you know, this encouraging aspect that the governor is willing to take on this fight is more than any other governor has done in any recent time.
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And I think she's being a real champion for the New Yorkers, and our hope is that she continues to champion insurance reform and uh carries progress into next year, into the next budget with a real reform for the scaffold law.
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Yeah.
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But we're not waiting for the state.
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We're we're focused right now on Washington and we're focused on 2026 and the Surface Transit Reauthorization Act, which funds big billion-dollar projects like Penn Station.
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Let's talk about that.
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Bring me through what you're doing at the federal level.
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So, right now, uh this year, there's a lot happening, a lot of important bills in Congress uh that are waiting to get their chance to have uh airtime on the floor for debate.
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And one of those important bills is known as the Surface Transit Reauthorization Act.
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We say reauthorization because it pays for highways, bridges, it's dependent upon it to be funded uh continuously.
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And in tradition, it's a five-year extended bill, and it is set to sunset in September of this year.
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And so as we speak, Congressman Sam Graves from Missouri is the Republican chairing the Transportation Infrastructure Committee in Washington, for which this new bill is getting drafted in.
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And is our focus right now to have a scaffold or preemption in that bill for those federal dollars that will come to New York that could potentially fund a deck over Sunnyside yards, so that our new mayor, who has a plan to build more and more housing, hundreds of thousands of units of housing, can do so there, but do so with uh the dollar stretching so much further.
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It's important to get this reform on those federal dollars because they're formula dollars, and that means that when one dollar comes to uh a municipality or a state, it gets multiplied with the local dollars' monies and it goes that much further.
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And so attaching these types of common sense reforms that 49 other states have makes sense and it's only right and fair to the American people.
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Bring people through if they're unfamiliar with what this when you say a scaffold law pre-exemption, uh, what does that mean?
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It's like, you know, uh when you have uh money and you're willing to give it, so to say, even though people say, Oh, it's our tax dollars, we're getting it back.
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Um well, a lot of that is discretionary.
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And when you have federal projects, there's often regulations that get attached to that.
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Certain amount of money should go towards spending and hiring small businesses, uh certain amount towards disadvantaged businesses, a certain amount that will help former veterans and for all of this money so that it doesn't have to do with New York, it has to have to be subject to New York's unique liability laws that have the pockets of trial lawyers and literally are not spent where the funds are being allocated, it should be allocated to be spent.
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So it's it's a rule, it's like an amendment that gets attached to a bill that those who agree uh to take and spend the money, including contractors who are building and workers who enter on to a construction site, they're gonna abide by this contract's rule.
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And if there is an injury on a job site, there'll be a level of comparative negligence.
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Whose fault
was it?
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Did the contractor provide you with a safety harness or protective equipment?
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Were you in an area that you were told that you needed to stay out of?
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Um, who who is at fault?
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Did you come to work under the influence?
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Um, asking all these questions that should be asked.
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But but generally, if if uh a worker does get hurt, right away we want to make sure that they get what they're entitled to.
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And right away, uh put a worker, you know, after the worker gets uh help and and uh attention to the injuries, and if that worker can no longer come to work and perform work, that they are taken care of uh with workers' compensation, um and if they're they're no longer to work in that profession, then we believe they're entitled to compensation.
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But when you look at these paths that these trialers are getting on for injuries, it's like they're almost encouraging these injuries.
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It's it's like you go into the subway, you see uh posters, there's billboards when you walk down the street.
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They even have like these vans that have live images showing construction workers getting hurt.
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Well, almost encouraging and enticing.
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Can I tell you the funniest story?
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So this last weekend I went and saw Michael McIntyre, he's a British comedian, and this is his first tour in the U.S.
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And here I am sitting at King's Theater, not a few days ago, and he's talking about what he's noticing about New York and Americans.
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And he said, I couldn't believe it.
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You guys have these billboards up everywhere with these lawyers because you guys get cuts in New York four anywhere else because he says, you know, in the UK, we don't have billboards because you're supposed to be driving, not looking at the billboards.
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And so he did this whole thing, and I need to find it.
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I want to write to his people and get it because even he, a Brit here, can tell that there is something not right with this.
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Right.
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I can't listen to the radio anymore because every ad you hear is about have you been injured at work?
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Coalition such and such firm.
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It's it's gotten to a point where some of our contractors feel like workers are more careless because they think if they do get hurt, there's going to be a windfall of cash.
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And it's it's sad.
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It's sad that we're subjected to this culture here in New York.
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You have settlements in other states when accidents happen.
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And when a contractor is at fault and negligent, they should be held accountable.
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Absolutely.
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But as you see, this city is unique, and these Bill Boyd lawyers are hurting our industry.
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Let's, and that's just why I think the federal workaround is so creative, and and you know, essentially it would deny any federal funding for projects that don't have comparative negligence, or in other words, projects that have absolute liabilities.
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And I think this is great because the feds do have the ability to make these decisions.
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It's not as as Congressman Lankworthy was pointing out to me.
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It certainly is not fair that a taxpayer intends it for 50 to have to pay for our law.
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I mean, that just makes no sense.
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So I think this is really creative.
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I'm really eager to see how it all goes about, but you're throwing your whole support behind this.
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Oh, yes.
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Oh, absolutely.
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We are we went down to Washington, uh, we've met with uh a number of elected officials, Congress members, we're keeping the pressure on.
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We're going back at the end of May, we're meeting with uh senators, we're meeting with committee staff.
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We feel very strongly that we've gained a lot of support and a lot of momentum.
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So we're not going to take our foot off the gas pedal, so to say.
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We're we're we're focused on reform.
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It's only fair for the New Yorkers here that we could really get to spend those dollars on the much needed resources, and then we start something that needs to expand.
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Because we have a lot of needs here.
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We need more housing.
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Absolutely.
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It's true when uh the politicians say New York is facing the crisis.
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It's just not affordable to build here.
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And as we close here, what do you want people to know about how these nuclear verdicts, these uh you know, everything we see going on in the space, the staged accidents, what does this mean to your members?
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I mean, you speak for them.
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What does this mean?
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This means that they don't stay working.
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And when they're not working, they're not putting, they're not just not putting the men in their shop that they once put or the women that are out and want to be seen, building our schools, uh building in our more reliable transportation system.
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It it means that we suffer.
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It means that New Yorkers are paying more.
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We're paying more for housing.
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It's an invisible tax.
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We're paying more when we're waiting uh to get on the train, when the the uh you know there's an outage because uh electrical panels haven't been updated in X amount of years because it's just too expensive to do the work and the money is not there.
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We're paying.
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At the end of the day, people may not feel sensitivity towards the high rate of insurance that the construction companies pay that are building, but that just gets transferred down to what every day New Yorkers pay.
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And it has a lot to do with just how affordable, how unaffordable New York is.
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Elizabeth Crowley with the BCEA, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.
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Thanks for having me.