In a scathing press release issued on December 17, OSHA fined Force Corporation, a Woburn, MA carpentry subcontractor with ties to Callahan, Inc., $91,000 in what OSHA is calling an “imminent danger situation” on a roofing project in Andover, MA.
“These employees were one slip, trip or misstep away from a deadly or disabling fall,” said Anthony Covello, OSHA’s area director. “Even after the employees donned fall protection equipment, it was defective and inadequate at preventing falls. Force Corp.’s disregard of this safety requirement placed its employees at risk needlessly. This is unacceptable behavior that must change before a worker’s life or career is destroyed.”
Force Corporation was the wood-frame subcontractor on Callahan’s Pinehills Independent Living project in Plymouth, and is rumored to be a candidate for the framing on Callahan’s Assembly Square project in Somerville.
In 2013, the company, which was then known as Twin Pines, was fined $290,700, also for willful and repeat fall hazards. “The sizable penalties proposed here reflect the gravity and recurring nature of these hazards, plus this employer’s knowledge of and refusal to correct them,” said OSHA’s area director at the time.
Force Corp was also in the news (Boston Globe,11/26/15) recently for accusations of wage theft on the CATS academy project in Braintree, where workers have come forward to report that they did not receive proper overtime pay and did not have the proper taxes taken out of their paychecks.
This habitual disregard for worker safety is endemic to Callahan’s subcontractors.
