I am perplexed why it was two years into the Henley Bridge project before anyone could determine that three of the seven piers were damaged to the point of needing replacement. I'm not alone.
John Stewart of Bridges to Justice, a worker-community alliance watchdog organization that grew out of safety questions from two construction deaths at the site, said in a Wednesday interview, "I'm no civil engineer, but there are ways of examining concrete with X-ray devices and other things that should have provided that information from the beginning."
It was announced Monday that bridge construction would continue beyond the June 30 deadline. The structure now is expected to open to traffic in February 2014, but all work won't be completed until June 2014.
Stewart is a political scientist whose specialty is workforce analysis. He spent two decades in congressional oversight of NASA workers. He is involved with Bridges to Justice through his affiliation with Interfaith Worker Justice and Jobs with Justice, which have also brought in Iron Workers Local No. 384 and Laborers Local No. 818.
"It's not about organizing," Stewart said. "It's about trying to provide a safe working environment. It's about broad public safety issues."
The group was initially concerned about the loss of life. John Womac and Solin Estrada-Jiminez died in January and May, respectively, of 2011. "Both were in absolutely preventable accidents," Stewart said. Britton Bridge projects in Memphis and Chattanooga had deaths on the job in 2010 and 2012.
Stewart said that the Tennessee Department of Transportation doesn't look at safety records when awarding contracts. It simply looks at the cheapest bids and who can get the work done the most quickly. "Schedule demands and safety are often at odds with each other," Stewart observed.
One of the biggest concerns of Bridges to Justice over the last few months has been that of Dewayne Sweat and Carlos Guzman, two Britton workers at the Henley Bridge site who are on strike under a provision in National Labor Relations Board law that provides for "concerted action" by two or more workers on a job site.
"It all takes a long time. Usually some kind of settlement is worked out," Stewart said. Jerry Britton, the owner of Britton Bridges, offered to meet with Sweat. When Sweat said that he would meet with him, but only if the meeting also included Guzman, Walter Davis of Jobs with Justice and John Gill, pastor at Church of the Savior United Church of Christ, Britton refused, Stewart said.
The two men complain that the company should fix safety problems on the site, provide more training for skills and safety, treat injured workers fairly, initiate a process for complaints and discipline, and pay decent wages and benefits.
TDOT Commission John Schroer has met with Bridges to Justice representatives, but he has refused to meet with Sweat and Guzman. He says that their complaints should be addressed to the Tennessee Department of Labor. Stewart says that's misguided.
"What Dewayne and Carlos have to say has to do with this project," Stewart said. "Schroer is reading reports when he says there are no safety problems. You can't get what you need from reports. You need to talk to the workers. I know he means well, but he can't be a bureaucrat and find out what he needs to find out."
Perhaps Schroer should take some time to meet with Sweat and Guzman. For the same reasons that TDOT should have taken a pre-emptive look at those piers.
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Comments » 25
Destroyer2112 writes:
"Stewart is a political scientist whose specialty is workforce analysis. He spent two decades in congressional oversight of NASA workers. He is involved with Bridges to Justice through his affiliation with Interfaith Worker Justice and Jobs with Justice, which have also brought in Iron Workers Local No. 384 and Laborers Local No. 818.
"It's not about organizing," Stewart said. "It's about trying to provide a safe working environment. It's about broad public safety issues."
So...it's about Union organizing then.
Pam, previously you have mentioned that you were a teacher who was focussed on writing and English. Where did the following sentence originate?
"It simply looks at the cheapest bids and who can get the work done the most quickly. "
If the answer was "In your head" then I understand why you no longer teach writing classes.
My other question on this has to do with why, on God's Green Earth, would someone want a meeting with the company leader and insist upon including another worker, someone from "Jobs for Justice" and a pastor? I'm guessing this is more political and 'dog-n-pony show' than safety related. I also notice that they are protesting for, "...more training for skills and safety, treat injured workers fairly, initiate a process for complaints and discipline, and pay decent wages and benefits."
That all boils down to more money, right?
rainbow6 writes:
Turn the entire project over to the Army Corps of Engineers adn we will have new , safe bridge by October this year.
burpee_von_rotweiler_IV writes:
SHAME ON PAM STRICKLAND!
(labor article dispute)
nattybumpo writes:
"I'm no civil engineer" - John Stewart
Nuff said!
upfront writes:
Maybe this "political scientist" should take some civil engineering courses before taking over bridge construction.
Galaxie500XL writes:
I agree! Pam should stick to writing about something she knows about, like........
.....I'm sure there must be SOMETHING, we've just not see it written in any of her previous columns.
SidelineReporter writes:
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Galaxie500XL writes:
I'm no fan of Pam's, but, yeah, that's rather harsh-can't follow you there.
1voiceofreason writes:
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
richvol writes:
There's a reason that bids are cheaper than everyone elses. As I have stated before...they will NEVER finish that bridge.
1voiceofreason writes:
That didnt take long. Thanks for proving my point Pammy.
Sequoyah writes:
But she's a liberal and they know everything and aren't shy about telling you so. What do you think the "FKA" credential that follows her name on her business cards stand for???
Ed_Hominem writes:
Are you speaking as a civil engineer? I'm not, but I wonder too if not enough upfront investigation was done before a job of this magnitude was initiated. I know that there is GPR testing that can be performed on concrete that identifies deterioration mapping. I don't know if it would be effective in this instant. Again, I am no professional. But I would like to see some answers. If it there was a prenvestigative tool available and it was ruled out for expense, I would think that people in South Knoxville would be interested in that.
Galaxie500XL writes:
Well, the contractor based their cost and time on information provided by TDOT. Obviously, TDOT did no do sufficient testing prior to letting the contract. Odd that everyone seems to be blaming the contractor for information TDOT would have been responsible for PRIOR to work beginning.
Ed_Hominem writes:
I wasn't blaming anyone. I simply indicated that I would be interested to see if more upfront engineering and design might have forestalled some of these delays.
"Odd" that people are leaping to the defense of this contractor with all of the preventable problems they seem to regularly incur. Including two deaths! That is not the norm.
pamstrickland#312363 writes:
Have you had business cards printed for me that I haven't seen?
If something is deleted it is because it violates the user agreement. And the user agreement is fairly straightforward, "You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy."
Galaxie500XL writes:
What's "odd" is that you attempt, as Ms. Strickland did, to link two completely unrelated issues to make a "point".
Pretty weak stuff.
1voiceofreason writes:
you left out - "....or any comment or view that shows Pam in a negative light or otherwise proves her to be a partisan hack."
pamstrickland#312363 writes:
No, I didn't. It's professionals who understand the meaning of "off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy."
Besides, I don't do the deleting. Someone else does that, actually one of a team, most of whom I don't know, so the judgment isn't made by me but by one of a team of people. And they have objective criteria, which is put to good use.
Ed_Hominem writes:
I wasnt linking anything. The contractor is the link to the two issues. They may be completely innocent on the design issue. I don't know.
But an accidental, preventable death, much less two, is inexcusable, and speaks to a serious and dubious safety environment. I have made up my mind on that. I wasn't going to bring that up until you insinuated that I was blaming the contractor in merely noting an interest in the engineering and design completeness.
1voiceofreason writes:
Uh huh. Sure. Other opinion writers dont seem to have the problem of innocuous or sarcastic comments being removed.
Actually maybe you dont do the deleting, you just do the flagging which causes the deleting.
Destroyer2112 writes:
"And they have..."
Beginning a sentence with a conjunction again?
Yeah, I knew the comment about your previous article would be blasted.
Incidentally, since the comment you made (being responded to here) is "off topic", how do you justify it's existence on this thread?
Is it because nobody cries and slams the "suggest removal" button like you do?
I guess the unfettered freedom of speech doesn't apply for you even though you like to trumpet it when you say things that don't make sense.
Classof81 writes:
The part about Pam's own comment being off topic is pretty good.
It's hard to tell exactly what is "off topic."
Last week I posted a link to the video of Pam speaking about Tim Burchett. My post was deleted, presumably because it was "off-topic." I posted it in direct response to a comment that questioned Pam's public speaking background.
leon writes:
I simply do not understand those who do not realize that elitists have much more freedom of expression than those on the right. It is just the Democrat way.
Did you not hear Queen Hillary when she asked "What difference does it make?"
nemesis443 writes:
"I am perplexed why it was two years into the Henley Bridge project before anyone could determine that three of the seven piers were damaged to the point of needing replacement."
Pammy the engineer!
Let's see. They have to take down the road deck and disassemble most of the structure before they can get at the main columns. Did you think Superman was going to come along and use his x-ray vision? This bridge was built before most of us were born. You just don't start digging and drilling into load bearing structures while they are still supporting the load. You don't have to be an engineer to figure out that bad things will happen if you do that.
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