A towering target
by Libby Tucker
04/10/2006
Daily Journal of Commerce Photo
The Benson Tower has come under increasing scrutiny since Vancouver, B.C.-based general contractor ITC began construction on the luxury condominiums early in 2005.
The building, going up at Southwest 11th Avenue and Clay Street in Portland's West End, has received close attention throughout construction from trade unions protesting what they say are unfair labor practices.
The project team, which was the city's first high-rise to completely exclude union labor, now includes union workers in the electrical, sheet metal, and iron workers trades. The unions have since turned much of their attention to safety practices at the site.
Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division (OSHA) inspectors have visited the site nearly every month since September of 2005, prompted by calls made mostly by workers on the site, with one complaint coming from a union representative.
Ten stories of the 26-story structure have yet to be completed. But the regulatory agency has already conducted 14 inspections on multiple employers at the site.
Five of the inspections are still open and no violations have yet been reported. Of the remaining nine inspections, four resulted in the discovery of what OSHA called serious safety violations.
OSHA inspectors to the site noted missing guardrails, necessary for fall protection, and uncapped steel rebar protruding from concrete structures that is capable of impaling workers.
As a result, OSHA issued citations to ITC as well as subcontractors New Way Forming Inc. and R2M2 Rebar and Stressing Inc.
"The sort of violations that we're talking about here are the sort that kill workers," said Michael Wood, an OSHA administrator. "So I hesitate to indicate that they're normal business. But they are not unusual violations."
The number of violations issued, Wood said, was "not extraordinary" for a project of this size.
But OSHA rarely makes so many visits to a single site in a year, he said.
"These are violations that can and should be prevented by a contractor focusing on the issues and planning to work appropriately," Wood said. "Frankly, I would view (guardrails and capping) as good operating practice that I would expect from a company operating in any industrialized country."
ITC project managers and an owner's representative for Benson Towers LLC, the project's developer, declined to comment when contacted by phone.
Nearby site doesn't suffer same problems
By comparison, OSHA has visited the site of the Eliot Tower, a condominium project near completion three blocks from the Benson Tower site at Southwest 10th Avenue and Jefferson Street, just once in the two years the building has been under construction. OSHA has not yet issued its findings on that inspection, which was opened March 7.
The Eliot's general contractor, Howard S. Wright Construction Co., began in June 2004 constructing the 23-story building, which the contractor expects to complete by May 1.
"It's been almost a textbook project for us," said Troy Dickson, Howard S. Wright's project manager for the Eliot Tower. He credits the project's success to an experienced management team and the "exhaustive" job hazard analysis conducted by the contractor, which is based in Seattle but maintains a Portland office.
"The (Eliot's) architect, the owner and the contractor have worked together before," Dickson said. "It's an environment that the decisions are made quickly, which is critical to the schedule. It creates the ability for the contractor to move forward when issues arise."
Trade unions oppose financier Weston's direction
The Benson Tower would have been Vancouver native Erick van Doorninck's first development effort in Portland, but after van Doorninck died May 29, 2005 in a plane crash, Portland financier Joe Weston took over the project.
Weston's team looked outside Portland for a contractor and instead hired ITC to build the slender tower - with a mere 13,000-square-foot footprint - and cited the Canadian company's experience constructing similar buildings in Vancouver.
Trade unions oppose the deal and have held numerous strikes at the job site, picketing and urging ITC to hire local subcontractors that utilize union labor. The unions have demanded that all workers at the site receive standard wages and health benefits and that on-site safety conditions be improved.
ITC, said Cliff Puckett, a representative for Carpenters Local 247, "is a lowball company that, anywhere they can, they're going to cut corners."
Puckett worked on the Benson Tower before being fired from the job for attempting to organize workers on the site.
"You don't see the local contractors with a lot of these safety issues," Puckett said. "We have to stand our ground because all of the wages and safety conditions we (the unions) have fought so hard for are going to go down the tubes" if ITC pursues further projects in Portland.
Unions monitoring the Benson's progress from across the street say they've observed a general improvement in safety on the site in the last three months, said Bill Hoffman, an organizer with the Laborers Northwest Regional Organizing Coalition.
The unions' persistence in calling attention to the issue led to the changes in safety conditions, Hoffman said.
Wood, the OSHA administrator, said he's "heartened that they (union representatives) believe that they and we (OSHA) have made an impact."
But, Wood said, "I don't think I have enough information to draw that conclusion."
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