Gary Puleio: Letter to Richard Soltan 2/13/2002

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”. .

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Letter to Richard Soltan 2/13/2002

I thank Soltan for his sympathy but told him Stranahan's callous dismissal of my concerns as MINOR in the newspaper had reached a far wider audience

2/13/02

Richard D. Soltan
Regional Administrator
OSHA
The Curtis Center
170 S. Independence Mall
Suite 740 West
Philadelphia, PA 19106-3309

Dear Mr. Soltan:

I am writing in response to your letter of 2/4/02 in which you again state that OSHA was not able to determine “exactly what happened” in the death of my brother, Gary Puleio, on 8/15/01 at Meadville Redi-Mix. I would certainly find this more plausible if I indeed knew all the findings of the investigation.

As you may know, some records of the investigation have been denied to me. I have filed an appeal to the Solicitor of Labor under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain these records (APPEAL # 020065). As the attached letter from Bruce Cohen, Deputy Associate Solicitor for Legislation and Legal Counsel, states the number of appeals is “substantial” so it may be a long time before my appeal is acted upon. Perhaps when it is, I will feel that the concerns raised in my appeal letter have been adequately addressed. By obtaining these records, I plan to find out the truthful circumstances surrounding my brother’s death despite the obfuscations of Meadville Redi-Mix which the local OSHA investigators accepted as irrefutable facts.

I do appreciate you responding to me all these months after my brother’s death, unlike Mr. Stranahan. He was certainly quick to respond and be quoted in the Meadville Tribune , in which he dismissed the discrepancies noted in the police report of my brother’s death as “minor”. Unfortunately for OSHA, his callous sounding comments reached a far wider audience of Gary’s co-workers, friends and family who reside in northwestern PA than your empathetic ones can do now.

I do realize that OSHA fines are not assessed as punishment for accidents. As a tax paying citizen in a free society, I do expect to have access to all the records concerning my brother’s death from an agency which is funded by my tax dollars and those of workers like my brother who perform risky jobs daily.

Sincerely,

Donna Puleio Spadaro MD
309 Warren Rd
Franklin, PA 16323
814-432-5450
814-437-7891

Enclosure: letter 1/9/02 Bruce Cohen, Deputy Associate Solicitor for Legislation and Legal Counsel

CC:Bruce Cohen, Deputy Associate Solicitor for Legislation and Legal Counsel, FOIA/PA Appeals Unit, Suite N-2428, 200 Constitution Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20210 ATTN APPEAL # 020065

CC:The Honorable John Henshaw, Assistant Secretary of Labor, US Department of Labor/OSHA, 200 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC. 20210

CC: The Honorable John Peterson, 115 West Spring St. Titusville PA 16354