Workers face death and injury on O k highway jobs
Most of us are told by our
parents not to be in the streets. For
many Department of Transportation
employees that’s part of their jobs
— a dangerous part.
The death of Tony Collier,
26, a resident of Keizer and a mem
ber of the Association of Engineer
ing Employees, and the severe in
jury of Mike Salisbury, of
Scappoose, an OPEU member who
works out of the North Portland
maintenance yard, bring this home
again.
MEMBER INJURED
Salisbury, who is still in the hospital
with head injuries, two broken legs,
and a broken arm, was called back to
work on a day off, the Memorial Day
holiday this year, to remove pallets
that had fallen off a truck traveling
south on Interstate 5 in Portland.
According to OPEU Shop
Steward Jim McNamee, Salisbury
was hit by a truck that didn’t have
the room it needed to maneuver to
avoid hitting either Salisbury or one
of the pallets.
The truck that hit Salisbury
was following a larger truck. “The
driver had few choices,” said
McNamee. “It couldn’t go left be
cause there was a pallet in the road,
so it maneuvered right and there was
Mike.”
FREEWAYS DANGER
OUS - The freeways are especially
dangerous, said McNamee. “You’re
never able to take your eye off the
traffic as the vehicles go by at 55-60
miles per hour.”
Collier was
killed in the north
bound lane of Interstate
5 about two miles north
of Gold Hill while
working on a survey
crew. His work de
manded that he straddle
the white line, known
as the fog line, with his
back to the oncoming
traffic on the right side
of the road. The driver
who hit Collier was
cited for careless driv
ing, which carries a
maximum fine of $470,
since there is no evi
dence the driver was
speeding, weaving
across the
roadway,
OPEU member Mike Salisbury was injured badly
driving
on Memorial Day working on 1*5.
drunk, or
otherwise creating a
ODOT began its “Give ‘Em
hazard, which would
a Brake” campaign in 1989 to edu
be necessary for a more
cate drivers about the importance of
serious charge of
driving carefully through construc
criminally negligent
tion zones. Between 1986 and 1993,
homicide.
the state has averaged 11 to 12 deaths
Getting driv
per year from traffic accidents in
ers to slow down and
construction zones, with a peak of
pay special attention
16 in 1989. Those numbers include
toconstruction zones
deaths of motorists and pedestrians,
or workers working in the road
as well as construction workers.
way has always been an uphill
To combat the problem of
battle, workers say.
deaths and injuries to highway work
ers, ODOT will examine the cir
cumstances around Collier’s
death and Salisbury’s injury, try
to draw some conclusions from,
them and develop some policy
and training programs.
“We’re not taking this
lightly,” said Dave White, manage
ment of ODOT’s safety and em
ployee services section.
DANGER PERSISTS -
Still, the problem of danger on the
highways for workers persists. As
this article was being prepared a
flagger, an employee of an ODOT
contractor, was run over by some
one on a motorcycle. ODOT work
ers tell of aggressive action taken
against them by motorists. At
the worksite on Highway 217
west of Portland, a flagger was
punched by a motorist.
The first recorded fatal
ity of a maintenance flagger for
which records still are available
occurred in 1939 in the vicinity
of Cascade Locks. Since then,
there have been 61 more.
The workers are in a bit
of a bind: They can’t work scared
because they can’t work effi
ciently that way. But, they can’t
let their guard down. There is a
danger of becoming complacent
as you become accustomed to a
life of work with cars whizzing
by at 55-60 miles per hour.
7 workers find ways to save $900,000 a year
„ Seven state employees f -
four of them OPEU/SEIU Local 503
members — were honored recently
for suggestions which could achieve
first-year savings of nearly $900,000.
Employees who submit sug
gestions with verified cost reduction
receive a cash award of 5% to 10%
of the first-year savings up to $5,000.
The program has generated
a combined first-year savings of al
most $12 million since its initiation
in 1980.
• Welfare Office Worker
Local 461 Bob LeDoux and a co
worker, both budget analysts, share
the award for the largest savings,
$292,500. Their idea is to recom-
mend better checking of client medi
cal claims to obtain federal match
ing dollars, offsetting state expense.
• Consumer and Business
Services Local 440 activist Judy
Sugnet, an OrOSHA resource cen
ter coordinator, suggested eliminat
ing publication and distribution of
rule changes which duplicate fed
eral regulations for a savings of
$228,011.
• Administrative Services
Local 125 member Bettie Lou Cline,
a motor pool automotive mechanic,
showed that the motor pool could
extend maintenance schedules with
out damaging vehicles, compromis
ing safety, or violating warranties
for a first-year savings of $ 190,000.
• Justice Local 137 member
Kelly Tremaine, a child support
agent, found that parents owing child
support could be located through
Fish and Wildlife licensing records
and save $50,000.
• A State Police telecommu
nications maintenance worker sug
gested that employees construct 17
small utility buildings as part of regu
lar duties in lieu of contracting out
the work and save $69,000.
• A Forestry Department
map inventory planning assistant
devised a method of converting data
into a form usable by a high-tech
mapping process, saving $59,540.
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