NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS |
July 7, 2017 | PAGE 9
...Rampant safety violations contributed to near-fatal accident
sand, paint chips and other ma-
terial. The hose got stuck in a
metal piece covering a gap in the
scaffold, which caused him to
lose his balance and fall through
an unsecured 3-foot-wide ladder
access opening in the scaffold.
He fell 37 feet to a temporary
platform below, landing on his
son Christopher Montiel, who
was scraping paint near the base
of the ladder. After a fire depart-
ment ladder rescue, both were
taken to Oregon Health and Sci-
ence University hospital with
multiple injuries, including fa-
cial and other fractures and
bleeding on the brain.
“In most cases this type of fall
would have resulted in at least
one of the two employees being
a fatality,” OR-OSHA said in its
report.
Falls are the number one
killer of construction workers, so
OSHA rules are very strict about each shift, as required. Accord-
fall protection. But as detailed in ing to the manufacturer’s speci-
the OR-OSHA report, Abhe & fications, the scaffolds were sup-
Svoboda’s Ross Island Bridge posed to be set up with diagonal
project was ripe for a fatal acci- bracing for stability. None of the
scaffolds had diagonal bracing.
dent.
Working 37 feet above the
OR-OSHA found that no
guardrail had been set up near next level, at least eight employ-
the hatch to prevent Lilly’s fall. ees had been exposed to an un-
Nor was he wearing the required secured edge and floor openings
“personal fall arrest system” — with no kind of fall protection
a body harness with a lanyard system. Workers had been using
that’s attached to a securely an- a 14-inch-wide scaffold plank as
chored safety line. In fact, no a walkway and working surface
horizontal lifelines or fall protec- to do scraping, sanding, blasting
tion anchors had been installed. and painting on multiple levels.
Self-retracting lifelines had been OR-OSHA says workers aren’t
installed at ladder access points, supposed to climb ladders more
but employees were routinely than 35 feet high without a rest
disconnecting from them once platform installed part-way up,
they reached the upper level of but Abhe & Svoboda didn’t in-
the scaffold. Even when workers stall any rest platforms. In fact,
did wear and attach their har- workers often didn’t have lad-
nesses, they were using — as an- ders at all: To access some work
chor points — the aluminum areas, they had to climb up or
braces on the bottom of the scaf- down the scaffolding system it-
self, as well as
fold plank.
walk (foot to
Those braces
foot) along the
weren’t rated
“This is essentially an
outside support
for fall protec-
of the scaffold.
tion and would
employer who ignored
They also had
most likely
rules that we’ve had on
to step over
have failed if a
the books for some
holes ranging
“shock load”
time.”
from 3 inches
was placed on
— Oregon OSHA
to 24 or more
them, such as
spokesperson Aaron Corvin
inches. In some
when a person
cases, workers
falls.
would avoid
There was
holes by side-
much more.
Scaffolds had not been set up stepping along scaffold ledgers
under the direction of a compe- while holding onto the ledger
tent person qualified in scaffold above their head. On top of scaf-
erection, OR-OSHA found, nor fold platforms employees also
were they inspected for defects routinely stood on top of
by a competent person before makeshift 20-inch-tall wooden
Graphic courtesy of Oregon OSHA
From Page 1
OR-OSHA’s fines can’t undo
the injuries suffered by Lilly and
Martiel, but they do vindicate
one labor union’s campaign to
expose Abhe & Svoboda as a se-
rial safety violator at bridge
painting projects around the
country.
For years, the International
Union of Painters and Allied
Trades has tried to raise alarms
about nonunion Abhe & Svo-
boda. Then in 2016 it sent in or-
ganizer Omar Rubi as an under-
ground union “salt” on the Ross
Island Bridge repainting project.
At work underneath the bridge,
Rubi and other workers wit-
nessed and complained about se-
rious safety lapses, but were ig-
nored and even disciplined by
company management. Rubi
himself was sent home the day
before the accident after telling
co-workers at a company safety
meeting that they have the right
under federal law to talk to each
other, and to government agen-
cies, about safety concerns. A
week later, he was terminated. A
charge that his termination was
unlawful is currently under in-
vestigation by the National La-
bor Relations Board.
ODOT’s reaction: Safety is
super-important to us. Really.
Painters Local 10 member Orvin Dean — shown above at a union picket near
the Ross Island Bridge — worked for Abhe & Svoboda three years ago in New
Jersey and Florida, and says a company foreman chastised him for taking
the time to put on a safety harness.
boxes to increase their working
height.
Nearly every one of those vi-
olations had been exposing
workers to the risk of injury or
death — eight hours a day, five
days a week, for more than a
year.
“For them to have nine viola-
tions, two of them ‘willful,’ is a
pretty big deal,” said OR-OSHA
spokesperson Aaron Corvin.
“This is essentially an employer
who ignored rules that we’ve had
on the books for some time.”
In Renton, Washington, Lilly
and Montiel are still at home re-
covering from their injuries. The
accident that sidelined them
could easily have been pre-
vented.
OR-OSHA investigators said
the company’s site safety man-
ager, Thurman London, said he
knew that the scaffolding system
was not set up per OSHA rules.
[As we reported in our April 21
issue, London is a former federal
OSHA compliance officer who
was convicted of theft of gov-
ernment property.] Meanwhile,
Abhe & Svoboda’s corporate
safety manager Rick Pendleton
told investigators that the com-
pany follows federal OSHA
rules, but he doesn’t worry about
the state’s OSHA rules because
they “change too much.”
OR-OSHA says Abhe & Svo-
boda remedied some of the haz-
ards shortly after the accident.
The company was given until
June 23 to remedy other viola-
tions — such as having a quali-
fied person to construct the scaf-
fold.
Oregon Department of Trans-
portation reacted to news of OR-
OSHA’s fines with an unattrib-
uted official statement: “Nothing
matters more to ODOT than en-
suring the safety of workers on
our projects, whether they are
ODOT employees or contractor
employees,” the agency said.
Could OSHA’s findings lead
to some loss of ODOT business
for Abhe & Svoboda? ODOT
spokesperson Don Hamilton said
ODOT has the option to revoke
or suspend a contractor from the
“pre-qualified” bidder list.
“We’re going to have to take
a look at the report and make
some decisions about that as we
go forward,” Hamilton said.
“One violation is generally not
sufficient to remove someone
from the pre-qualification list,
but we have to look at the sub-
stance of what OSHA has found
here.”
Abhe & Svoboda has been
fined before for safety violations
in Oregon: Nearly $30,000 in
2011 for dozens of OSHA vio-
lations on the Astoria-Megler
Bridge. The company was also
fined $15,500 for three serious
OSHA violations in Hawaii in
2012.