Gary Puleio: Fairfax to Spadaro 09/04/02

Gary Puleio

Gary was killed on the job at a concrete plant on August 15, 2001. He had been employed there only 3 months as a non-union cement truck driver and fell 25 feet to his death, from a cement tower, while shoveling gravel off the hopper to clean it. The company claimed Gary just wandered up there on his own, without wearing any safety equipment, at the end of his driving shift rather than being assigned this dangerous task because he was the “new man”. OSHA accepted this implausible story and after admitting no wrong doing, the company paid a $6000 fine for REPEAT violations for not posting danger signs at a confined space and not implementing measures to prevent unauthorized entry. This company had multiple serious violations issued only months before Gary was killed which were informally settled with reduced fines. Corporations routinely “negotiate” with OSHA to downgrade fines through a process called “abatement. ” Aggrieved families of dead workers have no such access to OSHA, face hurdles in obtaining information under the Freedom of Information Act, have their concerns condescendingly dismissed and ultimately are told that no further action can be taken once 6 months have passed since the “alleged violation”. .

Monday, June 25, 2007

Fairfax to Spadaro 09/04/02

FIVE MONTHS after Shapiro asked him to review the case, Fairfax finally answers with some thing other than just resending an old letter of 11/08/2001. Gary is now dead 13 months. Of course he concludes everything was done appropriately in the first place.

FIVE MONTHS after my letter of 4/13/02 , and after being contacted by Senators Specter and Santorum, Fairfax FINALLY answered my certified letter with this letter again reiterating the same implausible conclusions...that as there were no eyewitnesses, OSHA accepted Redi-Mix's claim that Gary just 'wandered up there on his own"