Rotschy has an excellent safety record, and someone (possibly the union, upset about the Port of Longview project?) seems to be providing out of context information to try and get the media to paint a false picture to the public, illustrating Rotschy as dangerous, greedy and unsafe. Many anecdotes could be related attesting to the impeccable moral standards and community focused approach to business ingrained in the culture at Rotschy, but as that is more difficult to quantify in numbers, let’s just look at the safety portion: Rotschy and union contractors.
Out of the five contractors that bid on the Industrial Rail Corridor Expansion Project for the
Port of Longview, WA Department of Labor and Industries has calculated that Rotschy
is the second most safe (ironically, safer than both union contractors).
LNI’s calculations show the two union contractors (Scarsella and Goodfellow) to be 70% more of a safety risk than Rotschy Inc. The union hasn’t publicized that their proposed heroes of safety - the two union contractors that bid on the project - are also listed by WA Department of Labor and Industries as being the HIGHEST SAFETY RISK out of everyone who bid on this project.
The Reflector and other news outlets have also published Rotschy’s “six figure fines” many times over but they have neglected to publish Goodfellow Bros $591,931 in workers injury claims over the last five years, with far less employees covered by LNI than Rotschy.
If the news is going to be rehashing Rotschy prior injuries, can we balance it out with the complaining union prior injuries as well? How did Goodfellow Bros. incur so much injury cost? From the filed claims of the union companies and their safety ratings, it appears there would be an abundance of fodder for rehashing old injuries in the union.
There have been two unfortunate incidents with Rotschy Inc. in the last several years, and
it's easy to focus on these. Of course it would be ideal if there were no accidents (union or not), but there is a risk of injury in construction, and based on history, Rotschy has done far better than average in managing this risk for its employees.
The news coverage to date has also neglected to include commentary from subcontractors,
suppliers, and customers of Rotschy Inc. The vast majority of these have witnessed first hand the highly safety conscious culture present at Rotschy Inc., and due to the dearth of input from this group in the news coverage, I hope this letter will provide a little more insight into who Rotschy is and how their approach to safety lines up with their (unscrutinized) union detractors.
Leo Koskiniemi
Yacolt
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