Safety Records

Safety Records

May 2001: More Colonial Mechanical Safety Violations and Fines

Two of the clearest signs of a construction company cutting corners are a sloppy worksite and employees forced to use unsafe equipment. Unfortunately, those are also conditions that can lead to serious injury, death and lawsuits seeking astronomical awards.

The Virginia Department of Labor and Industry documented these very problems when visiting a Colonial Mechanical Corporation’s jobsite on May 22, 2001. According to Virginia Occupational Safety and Health Program inspection report (#304127079), employees for Colonial Mechanical working at the Richmond Convention Center in Richmond, Virginia were exposed to trips and falls because of debris piled adjacent to walkways, work areas, portable toilets, first aid stations and dumpsters.

The debris was comprised of pieces of bricks, duct work, piping, metal studding, sheet rock, plywood, lumber, wire and swept piles of trash. There was so much trash that the company was cited for violating the state’s safety laws. That was not the end of the story.

Inspectors also discovered that Colonial Mechanical employees had constructed ladders made of insufficient and unsafe design in order to access the ballroom roof and the exhibit hall. After Colonial Mechanical was issued two citations for violating state law, the company rented a stair tower to access the exhibit hall and constructed stairs to access the ballroom roof.

The state’s inspection was followed by four months of investigation by federal OSHA inspectors, who cited Colonial Mechanical for two safety violations.

Many Safety Violations Admitted by Colonial Mechanical

With the evidence of a troubling rate of accidents at Colonial Mechanical, one might also expect to find evidence of violations of safety rules at Colonial. Colonial Mechanical’s own work sight audit found over 140 violations of safety rules at its own job sites in a one-year period. This included 45 cases of workers who lacked required safety glasses. These violations may explain the 13 eye injuries suffered by Colonial Mechanical workers during the same time period.

There are other indications that safety problems are worsening at Colonial Mechanical. A Colonial worker who was working at the Norfolk International Airport in Virginia recently fell fifteen feet to the floor below, suffering traumatic injuries. As a result, in June 2001, the Virginia Occupational Safety and Health Compliance issued a serious violation and proposed a $1,625 fine against Colonial Mechanical for breaking safety regulations regarding protecting workers from fall hazards. The violation states: "... an employee working outside the perimeter of the guard rail system ... without wearing his fall arrest system and therefore fell 15 feet to the floor below, resulting in traumatic body injury."

Construction Customers Take Note

These statistics are very important to the customers of Colonial Mechanical Corporation and to every customer of a construction and maintenance company. Any of those 100 injured workers at Colonial Mechanical is a potential plaintiff in a lawsuit against you, the customer of Colonial Mechanical, especially if the injury took place while Colonial was working at your place of business.

So far in 2001, only 8 out of 30 jobs have gone two months without a safety violation or lost time injury.

Colonial Mechanical itself urges its supervisors to carefully investigate accidents. Policy asks employees "to document facts and preserve evidence in case law suits are filed later." Colonial Mechanical is not the only company that will be sued by its injured workers.

If the injury takes place at your facility, or even if the injury takes place at Colonial’s fabrication shop, and the workers are manufacturing materials for installation at your facility, you, the Colonial Mechanical customer, may be the one who gets sued.

With scores of Colonial Mechanical construction workers injured every year, the odds are good that some one will be injured at your facility while Colonial is working there. While the Colonial Mechanical newsletter for the second quarter of 2001 announced over 30 new construction and maintenance jobs for Colonial, the same newsletter could only list eight jobs that had gone only two months without a safety violation or lost time injury.