Former employee shoots video of alleged hazards in complaint to OSHA

More than 90 percent of all of the OSHA inspections that cause  employers to retain our consulting group were prompted by an employee complaint. 

Now, this week in Dallas, a former contractor employee may be carrying the process to a new level:  His complaint to the local OSHA office included actual videotape of alleged neglected hazards and violations of federal safety requirements.

The former employee of McCarthy Construction, who was injured on the job, claims that his former bosses required him to perform unsafe acts.  His only choices, he alleges, were to do the dangerous work or be fired.

McCarthy is the general contractor for a $2 billion construction project at D/FW Airport.

The complaint launched an inspection now underway and an avalanche of media attention.  One television news report quotes experts as describing the alleged violations caught on video as "flagrant and dangerous."

The complaining former worker provided TV news reporters with a  pile of frayed slings, broken cables and a hook with a damaged safety latch.  This kind of defective equipment was used during lifts of loads   weighing several tons, he said.

Then there is the video that former employee James Lockridge shot as a way to document unsafe work operations.  It shows some construction workers walking on a beam around 80 feet off the ground wearing body harnesses but with no tie-off to an anchor point.  One man working on a high beam was not wearing a harness.

Lockridge told reporters that his former employer placed a higher priority on getting the job done and staying "on schedule" than worker safety.   The 28-year-old construction worker suffered nerve damage in his leg while working for McCarthy at the job site.  He fell from one of the "People Mover" columns. 

Although he was wearing a safety harness at the time, "I fell between the beams -- that's where my safety harness caught me," Lockridge said. "What happened then or how I got down, I don't know."

Lockridge said that he and fellow workers were ordered to perform high beam work in the rain and at night.  Lighting and two-way radios were not provided, he told reporters.

The former employee also alleges that he was wrongly terminated following his injury, costing him back pay and medical benefits.

His personal investigation of job site safety where he used to work  began last month.  Alleged violations that he showed to TV news reporters included:

• Compressed gas bottles that were not secured from falling

• Employees who hid behind plastic sheeting as he videotaped their lack of personal protective equipment

• Use of bailing wire to hoist heavy loads

• Sections of concrete reinforcing rebar extending out over a crane basket

Safety experts retained by the TV station specifically focused on one part of the video that showed personnel working a 100,000-pound piece of concrete being lowered to the ground.  

Interviewed by the TV station, OSHA Area Director Dean Wingo said that he was disappointed after viewing the video.  "It kind of brings my heart in my throat a bit, because those guys are out there just trying to make a living -- they don't have to take those risks,"  

After viewing Lockridge's video and additional tape shot by the TV station, OSHA commenced a formal investigation.

Following the news report, Lockridge returned to the airport construction site to document safety violations of other contractors.

Although videotaped violations are difficult to contest, all of the facts regarding this specific incident should be weighed only after results of the OSHA investigation and the company's response are available.  (A spokesperson for McCarthy declined comment to the TV station pending the completion of OSHA's investigation.)  

However, what is unfolding in Dallas does suggest some lessons -- or at least points for very serious consideration -- to ALL general contractors, subcontractors and property owners. 

First, they should consider how bystander videos are holding police departments to a new and intensive level of public scrutiny.  The same techniques can be easily applied to a public job site, or anyplace where off-site cameras can capture views deemed to be in the public domain.

Second, what ARE your company's or organization's in-house procedures for self-auditing safety and basic OSHA compliance?  Do you utilize third-party, independent surveys and inspections to help document areas where safety is being performed correctly? 

Third, how are injury incidents and workers' compensation claims investigated and managed?  Can you document investigation of contributing hazards, unsafe conditions and behaviors that contributed to each injury?  Do you genuinely track "near misses?"

And last, general contractors should consider just exactly where their "bottom line" really rests.  If the property owner or project client is held up to extended public scrutiny and bad publicity (for whatever reason), this affects THEIR bottom line and corporate credibility.