jury-trial-jpg-2

BREESE — A Breese contractor could be facing tens of thousands of dollars in fines after the U.S. Department of Labor found the company ignored a city engineer’s repeated verbal and written instructions to use trench cave-in protection.

Groundworks Contracting Inc. reportedly put workers at risk by failing to provide required cave-in protection and head protection and by not training employees to recognize cave-in hazards.

In addition, OSHA found Groundworks had no competent person on site to inspect trenches before workers entered and, on one occasion, failed to protect a laborer as they were hoisted in an excavator’s bucket to work over a 15-foot-deep trench.

According to OSHA, they were acting on a referral from the City of Waterloo when inspectors found five employees of Groundworks Contracting Inc. in trenches as deep as 18 feet on five occasions during its investigation from Nov. 30, 2022, to Jan. 20, 2023.

The agency is suggesting the company be fined $77,000 for the violations.