Nick Morgan, nbcrightnow.com
The Washington State Department of Labor & Industries says it could take months to properly investigate the Tuesday accident in the 1900 block of Lewis River Road in Woodland, but labor leaders critical of Rotschy, Inc.’s safety record believe that the injury was preventable.
A Clark-Cowlitz Fire Rescue spokesperson said the bucket from an excavator fell on the worker around 8:30 a.m. while he was in a trench.
L&I confirmed after the accident that Rotschy was the injured worker’s employer, and that the state agency opened an investigation.
Rotschy representative Nick Massie said in an email Wednesday that the company is unable to discuss personnel matters, but the company “is taking the situation very seriously.”
“We’re doing what we can to support the worker involved and are continuing to assess how we can best improve workplace safety and care moving forward,” Massie said.
Massie said earlier this week in a statement that Rotschy is fully complying with the investigation. According to an email from Dina Lorraine, a spokesperson with L&I public affairs, an investigation can take up to six months to complete.
“When conducting an investigation, inspectors look to see if there may have been any safety violations or if there are any continuing hazards,” Lorraine said.
Investigators conduct interviews with the business owner, workers and witnesses, and gather documents and other relevant information. Lorraine said the results generally can end in “anything from finding no safety issues to citations and fines.”
The job site was part of a planned 85-lot subdivision on Lewis River Road near the Insel Road intersection. The developer is listed in city of Woodland meeting records as Luke Sasse with Timberland, Inc., and the employee was working for contractor Rotschy at the site. Sasse did not respond to an emailed request seeking comment.
‘This is all preventable’
Multiple union labor leaders have criticized Rotschy — which is not a union shop — for its safety record, which notably includes a June 2023 incident where a 16-year-old worker lost his legs while operating a trencher on a job in La Center. Earlier this spring it was reported that L&I recommended that the Clark County Prosecutor’s Office charge the company with felony child labor law violations in connection with the 2023 incident.
Columbia Pacific Building Trades of Oregon City — which represents 16 unions in the region including the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers — shared with The Daily News correspondence sent May 5 and again on June 3 urging the Clark County Prosecutor’s Office to press criminal charges.
“In conclusion, and most importantly, we stand in solidarity with the young man whose life was forever changed due to no fault of his own,” the May 5 letter from Executive Secretary-Treasurer Randall Friesen said.
Terry Carlson, president of the Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Central Labor Council, is calling on the Port of Longview commissioners Dan Erickson and Jeff Wilson — who is also a Washington state senator — to rebid Rotschy’s $44.6 million construction contract for the port’s rail expansion project. He said he does not believe that the independent manager brought in to ensure the health and safety plan is being followed will protect workers.
“We can see how their safety plans have worked up to this point,” said Carlson, who unsuccessfully ran as a Democrat against Rep. Joel McEntire, R-Cathlamet, for the 19th District seat in November.
Another critic, Tara McElligott, an organizer with the Washington and Northern Idaho District Council of Laborers, made grave observations about Rotschy six days before the boom of an excavator fell on the Rotschy worker at the Woodland job site.
On May 28, McElligott told Port of Longview commissioners she saw workers underneath an excavator while checking out a Rotschy construction site in Ridgefield Heights.
“I drove out there, and I went and checked it out for myself — they had guys in a ditch underneath the boom of an excavator over the allotted depth,” McElligott said.
Earlier this spring, McElligott provided port commissioners with her findings in a records request from the Department of Labor and Industries showing Rotschy as having 188 violations between Jan. 1, 2022, and March 5 of this year. She mentioned the Ridgefield observation after highlighting what she saw as a common thread in the L&I violations: a lack of training and failing to follow training and safety protocols.
“We need to keep an eye on them,” McElligott told commissioners.
Carlson with the Cowlitz Wahkiakum Central Labor Council, called McElligott’s observation “actually haunting” in its accuracy.
Work under heavy machinery is a “no-no in any industry,” Carlson said. Staying “in the clear all the time” is a safety priority in any industry as commonsense as it gets — or at least it should be for a company with a culture of safety. Carlson said that at his job for Weyerhaeuser, even a failure to fasten a seatbelt on the job is a fireable offense.
“This is all preventable” Carlson said. “Everything on a Rotschy site isn’t an act of God.”
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