osha is on my job site right now!! we had a disgruntled employee report our project. the employee was the foreman of the crew and the competent person on the crew. he allowed a groundman into a straight wall trench and took pictures. he then reported us to osha. have any of ever experienced this? what have you done or heard done?
Sounds like a strange story to me. You know, if this was the case then the foreman is also in hot water for allowing the guy to go into the trench... An employer is responsible for ensuring employee safety. The employer just doesn't mean the owner of the company, but includes the foreman as well. Maybe this disgruntled foreman has been witnessing many unsafe conditions on the job and decided to do someting about it? If so, probably not a good way to go about it. I'm just spectulating here. More of the story to follow hopefully?
the former employee threatened us with pictures of the groundman in the trench if we didn't pay him unemployment after he quit.
LOL! Let him go to it! He put him in the trench!! lol
we did let him hit the road. he left us a voice mail that he was quitting then confronted the superintendent with the pictures telling the super if he didn't fire him he was going to turn us into osha. he wanted his unemployment pretty bad.
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Lol...my head is starting to hurt....
You should have kicked his ass so he'd have something to cry about ! I hate useless people like that.
the same guy cut a phone cable and refused to get out of the machine and apologize to the phone man as he was making the repair. at our company it is a policy not only to not cut lines but also to do what ever the utility man needs to make the repair. part of this has got to be apologizing to for damaging a line that was already vac'ed our and cleared.
Be thankful he only called OSHA. I was the project engineer on a federally funded highway project about 3 years ago. The contractor had hired a foreman, he quit w/o notice after about 3 weeks. He then (we found out later) called FWHA and reported the engineer allowed the contractor to build a bridge deck w/o all the rebar specified. The bridge was on an adjacent project by the same contractor, the employee never worked on that project. The feds showed up unannounced (we were called told we could meet them on the job in 1/2 hour if we wanted to be present for the initial investigation, that was the first we heard of the investigation). and played "detective" on and off for about 2 months. They had the state "x-ray" the deck and then drill holes to verify the steel was all there (it was). (My boss was pissed that they drilled holes in a brand new bridge deck ). They went thru all the inspectors reports, concrete tickets, rebar certs, payrolls you name it. All on the accusations of an ex employee (3 weeks in tenure) that never worked on the project in question. The contractor had "dropped" a concrete I-beam about 18 inches to the bridge seat when setting it (Crane brake slipped?). We had the beam inspected for damage by the beam producer and testing company. They found no damage so we reset it. The foreman had heard the story somehow and made the allegation that we had used a damaged beam. (It was the same bridge we supposedly left some of the steel out) Fortunately, I had a report from the producer and testers and it was in the file. Not a fun experience.
Don't know about your state, but we had (what we thought was) an iron clad unemployment case. Employee "separated himself from employment" by not showing up to plow, failed to answer his company-provided phone that was ringing as a result of his not showing up to plow, and then plowed his own accounts instead. We had phone records blah blah blah, . . . we lost - he got unemployment. MN is an EMPLOYEE state!!! I think we need to become employees -
we work in montana and north dakota. montana is a union state and there would probably be no chance of unemployment ever being denied. north dakota is a right to work state and things are pretty honest and fair with north dakota. if he quit he quit and won't get unemployment. btw, osha came back two days later. they finally met with our super and said they were happy with our safety program and could accept what they saw our crews doing. they suggested some things we improve and then checked our crews again. so far i think things are going to be okay.
Not sure on your local osha, but I know that there are partnering programs with OSHA. In general, you have to have no will full violations, and an approved safety plan. One contractor I worked for in Ohio was involved with a program like this. Maybe this is something you could use out of this encounter?
In my book, in this country ( UK ) I am pretty darn sure that the ex employee could be looking at a charge of attempted blackmail.
I am with Atlas Rob - Talk to the cops about extortion or blackmail if this guy is trying it on you he has probably tried similar to others
Unreal how much power they have