Page 16 - New England Condominium January 2020

16 NEW ENGLAND CONDOMINIUM
-JANUARY 2020
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where the resident base tends to be young
and internet-savvy; app use in those com-
munities can be north of 90 percent of the
building population.
Kestenbaum says that for residents, the
learning curve is day-to-day. “It’s a hand-
holding process, and it develops over
time.” He cites the example of a resident
who in the past would perhaps report a
leaky faucet to the doorman, expecting
the doorman to then alert the super, who
would arrange for a repair. With Building-
Link or similar software, supported by the sional based in New York. She lives in
training they provide to staff members,
the doorman might now instead help the
resident enter that same repair request
into the online system. Shortly thereafter
– perhaps even on the way to the subway –
the resident will receive a text message or
email confirming the registration of their
complaint or request, and may even find
the problem resolved by the time they get
home. The idea is that these systems are
so seamless and efficient, the next time a
resident has a problem and needs to re-
port it, they’ll go straight to the platform
and do it themselves.
Smoothing the Transition
Dana Greco is a mental health profes-
a co-op building in the Bronx and has
served on its board. When it comes to
people’s comfort with and integration of
web-based technologies, she says that in
her view, the biggest hurdle is plain old
garden-variety embarrassment.
“Many people, particularly seniors,
didn’t grow up with these types of tech-
nologies,” she says. “They don’t find
them easily accessible. Often, they will
say they need to have their children or
grandchildren come help them learn how
to use it – almost to literally ‘decode’ the
mystery of how to use the technology for
them. They too easily accept as fact that
they ‘just can’t do it,’ when what they re-
ally mean is that they don’t want to do it.
They play dumb. They panic at the login
– and god forbid the login doesn’t work
for whatever reason. If there’s no tech
help, the game is over.”
Greco suggests that the best, most ef-
fective response to this kind of reaction
is patience, with a big helping of compas-
sion. One thing co-op and condo com-
munities can do to help all residents
– not just the older ones – gain comfort
and facility with new technologies is to
offer some training, with a bit of humor.
Running a free learning seminar for resi-
dents born, say, before 1970 to learn how
to use the new technology not only saves
face, but can help make people overcome
their self-doubt and see that what might
have initially seemed intimidating is ac-
tually very useful, and ultimately gets the
job done better and more easily.
That’s not to say there won’t always be
Luddites. As Lott says, “There’s always
going to be that one grumpy resident,”
but a little understanding, plus good-
faith efforts on the part of the board,
management, and technology supplier
can go a long way in making technologi-
cal innovation a part of a well-function-
ing community.
n
A J Sidransky is a staff writer/reporter for
New England Condominium, and a published
novelist.
INTRODUCING...
continued from page 15
misclassified, the association may owe
considerably more money than it antici-
pated.”
According to Gary Daddario, a part-
ner in the law firm of Marcus, Errico,
Emmer & Brooks, PC, in Massachusetts
and New Hampshire, “I try to have my
clients avoid most of these issues by
consistently advising them to avoid hav-
ing employees and to instead hire third-
party vendors to perform jobs. As long
as the association avoids being an ac-
tual employer, they avoid worker’s com-
pensation, disability and other types of
employee-related claims. In addition,
they avoid the responsibility of manag-
ing the employer-employee relationship,
as well as certain tax situations, such as
payroll taxes. Given the ample amount of
contractors attempting to gain business
relationships with condominiums, it is
not difficult for associations to hire third-
party vendors.”
Treese points out that the degree to
which you’re responsible for someone
working on the association’s behalf all
comes back to a simple definition of ‘em-
ployee’ as “someone under the employ-
er’s direction or control.” So if you have
a roofer working on site, and you’re in-
structing them to work on building 1 at
X time, and then on building 3 at Y time,
“You’ve potentially converted a contractor
to an employee of the association by con-
trolling the parameters of their work,” he
explains. “The thing to remember is that
the judgment call on an injured employee
is really left to an independent tribunal at
the state level that makes decisions about
coverage. So you have to make sure that
the contractor issues a certificate of lia-
bility insurance that shows workers’ com-
pensation, and you’ll have to look at the
expiration date to make sure that both of
those things haven’t expired before they
finish a job.”
IRL
Of course, even with all these organi-
zations, regulations, and protections, in
real life (IRL) accidents do still happen.
Sparer says that employees do sometimes
compromise their own safety by cutting
corners when they want to do some-
thing quickly—standing on a nearby
chair when getting an appropriate ladder
would be the proper way to reach some-
thing high up, for example—but at the
end of the day, when a building violates a
labor or safety law covering their employ-
ees, the owner is liable.
“The owner is responsible, whether it
is a cooperative, condominium, or rental,”
says Persanis. “The owner is ultimately
responsible for what goes on at the build-
ing. Consequences are usually fines.”
“If [an injury happens] on the job, if
the employer has been grossly negligent,
there could be exposure to litigation and
things along those lines,” says Sparer. “If
there’s an OSHA violation in connection
with it, even if the employer was trying
to be consistent, there could be penalties
there.” But Sparer also acknowledges that
“employers in New York are very sensi-
tive to the issue [of safety] for a variety
of reasons—not least of which is avoiding
injury for their employees.”
In the case of a clear-cut violation,
staff should first notify the building’s
managing agent of the situation, and let
them take it from there. The pros stress
that all violations of any kind should be
first brought up to the managing agent
so that they may be rectified as quickly
as possible. If that doesn’t work, then the
employees should kick it up the chain and
contact their union representative. For
violations of labor law and unfair labor
STAFF SAFETY
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