Introducing Callahan, Inc.
Brookline, like every other community in Massachusetts, is harmed when contractors use subcontractors who routinely commit wage theft and tax fraud.
SAFETY HAZARDS
Recently, 700 elementary school students were evacuated from a school in Fall River after a gas line ruptured on a Callahan job site just down the road. According to The Herald News, the amount of gas being shot into the air convinced firefighters to get students away from the scene quickly.
“I’ve never heard gas come out of a pipe like that,” District Chief Jeff Bacon said to The Herald. “Fortunately, it was escaping into the open air, where it could disperse. That was a lifesaver.”
WAGE THEFT
Force Corporation and its predecessor companies, Teles and Twin Pines, have been sued numerous times. In 2015, Force received a $91,000 OSHA fine for an “imminent danger situation.” Then, in 2016, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed lawsuits against Twin Pines seeking collection of more than $1.3 million in unpaid OSHA fines and fees. A month after these lawsuits were filed, the U.S. Department of Labor sued Force for widespread and intentional misclassification of its workforce. Less than two weeks later, a federal court in Boston approved a consent judgment requiring Force to pay over $2.3 million in back wages and damages in one of the biggest U.S. DOL settlements in recent history.
PROJECT DELAYS AND NEIGHBOR COMPLAINTS
The South Shore YMCA parking lot, a Callahan project, has officially taken more than twice as long to tear down and rebuild as the Empire State Building took to build.
This was just one of the many complaints voiced by a Quincy resident and South Shore YMCA neighbor, in an interview with The Patriot Ledger. The project has taken more than 30 months, as opposed to just 14 months for the Empire State Building. Neighbors say the construction noise and dust has been unbearable, and that the lack of a barrier between the parking lot construction and their homes has “disrupted the quality of their lives.”
A serious OSHA violation was also cited on the project.
Callahan is a general contractor with few direct employees of their own. Therefore, the practices of its regular subcontractors define Callahan’s business model. By lengthening the employee chain, Callahan attempts to distance itself from the situation, but Callahan is ultimately responsible for the consequences of choosing dangerous, illegal and unethical subcontractors. While not all of these actions took place on a Callahan-managed job site, all are attributable to regular Callahan subcontractors.
