In a tense meeting Wednesday night, Port of Longview staff, trade union members and employees from the contractor Rotschy Inc. sparred over how to ensure workplace safety on the port’s $44.6 million rail terminal expansion project. Their solution was to review the contractor’s 109-page health and safety plan for the project.

The plan, which encompasses everything from worker training to injury reporting to railroad safety, is a typical part of a contractor’s project. What was unusual was port commissioners requesting a special meeting to gather public input because of widely publicized safety concerns about Rotschy.

“We took a very important step tonight to reassuring our constituents, our community, and above all the workers, that this is going to be an improved safety process,” said Jeff Wilson, a Port of Longview commissioner, who is also a state senator representing Southwest Washington.

Commissioners selected Battle Ground-based Rotschy as the contractor for the rail terminal expansion earlier this year, after the company offered the lowest bid on the work. The company’s safety record has since come under scrutiny for a number of state Labor & Industries violations.

The highest profile incident occurred in 2023 when a 16-year-old employee lost both his legs after they were caught in a walk-behind trenching machine. Safety worries were renewed earlier this month after an excavator bucket fell on a Rotschy employee who was standing in a trench during a construction project in Woodland, Washington.

“This is a safety culture from the top down. You can’t just come in here and say ‘OK, we’re going to make these changes and then all of a sudden everything’s going to change,” said Joe Gaylor, an organizer with the sheet metal workers Local 66.

Union employees peppered staff from the port and Rotschy with questions and suggestions for improvements on the health and safety plan. Still, port staff made it clear that as the contract awardees, Rotschy will work with their own employees and any changes to their operations would be up to them. As a consolation, Rotschy will have an outside construction management contractor from KBA Services overseeing safety on the project and the port will have an outside consultant doing safety audits of the job.

“Of course we are under the microscope,” said Nick Massie, corporate advocate for Rotschy. “We are just going to follow our same protocols we’ve had in place all along, with an addition of the daily huddle to make sure that everyone understands what they’re doing out here, what the safety requirements are for that and how they can work safer out here.”

Criticism from union members, according to Massie, boils down to the rail terminal project being awarded to a non-union employer.

“That’s what it’s all about here,” Massie said. “They don’t have the work that they need to do, and we do have the job. That’s why they’re upset with us.”

In the meantime, the project is underway.

Diana Winther, a lawyer for IBEW Local 48, echoed concerns that voluntary updates to the rail terminal health and safety plan would not be enough to change the company’s culture. As an example, she pointed to the recent accident in Woodland.

“At the end of the day, revising 109 pages of safety documentation doesn’t change what happens on the job site,” Winther said. “If it did, there wouldn’t be a guy in the hospital right now.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/06/12/port-longview-rotschy-safety-concern-rail-terminal-expansion/