After a 16-year-old boy lost both legs last June in a preventable workplace accident in La Center, a follow-up investigation by Washington Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) found that his employer Rotschy LLC has committed dozens of child labor law violations.
Rotschy is a non-union construction excavation company based in Southwest Washington. In December, L&I fined the company more than $156,000 — the maximum penalty — for allowing a minor to operate equipment without appropriate training or experience. The boy was dragged beneath the blade of a walk-behind trencher he was using to dig a channel for fence posts — while participating in a work-based learning program that allows students to earn class credit for jobs outside the classroom. His injuries were so severe that both legs had to be amputated.
Rotschy appealed the fine. The decision on whether to overturn the fine lies with the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals, which has set a mediation conference for April 8. If the conference does not result in a settlement, the board will forward the case to a hearings judge for a trial.
On March 19, L&I issued an additional $51,800 in fines because a follow-up workplace investigation revealed that Rotschy let seven minors use dangerous heavy equipment on at least 35 occasions.
“There are some jobs that state law says minor workers just can’t do, for their own safety. But the law can only prevent tragic injuries like this when they’re followed,” L&I Employment Standards Program Manager Bryan Templeton said in a prepared statement. “Rotschy knew the rules, but still put seven different teenage workers in harm’s way nearly three dozen times.”
The investigation also found that Rotschy denied 11 minor workers meal breaks required under state law at least 45 times, and it worked eight teenage workers for more hours than state law allows on more than 150 occasions. In one incident, the company started a teen’s workday before 5 a.m.
Rotschy declined an interview with the Labor Press. In an article by the Columbian in Vancouver, it denied the other child labor law violations.
“We do not make our employees work later than necessary. We have never not given them meal breaks,” a company representative told the Columbian.
At the time of the accident in June, Rotschy had a minor work permit, which allowed it to hire young workers, and a student learner exemption, which let minors use some power tools, including circular saws and metal-forming machines, that are otherwise prohibited by state law. On a podcast with the Battle Ground School District in November, Rotschy manager Nick Massie said the company was “kind of nervous about hiring minors because of the perceived rules and regulations that got put in with it,” but the exemption eased some restrictions on what student workers could do.
“When this came in, we started hiring more and more minors,” Massie said in the school district podcast. Massie is also a member of the board of Workforce Southwest Washington, a federally funded nonprofit that oversees the disbursement of public workforce training dollars for Clark, Cowlitz, and Wahkiakum counties.
However, Rotschy’s exemption does not allow the use of heavy machinery, like a walk-behind trencher. L&I suspended Rotschy’s exemption in December as part of the penalty for the accident.
The company still has permission to hire minors in other roles. Rotschy told KATU in January that the boy who lost his legs returned to work for the company in an office role.
Both Massie and Rotschy should be put in the slam where sunlight world be piped to him. Additionally, he should be denied a license to work in the industry. Clearly, he thumbed his nose at the rules and yet L & I allowed him to hire. All three should be culpable for negligence. Shame on L & I.
I agreemwith you Allan; prison with hard labor should be the norm for employers who comit regular and severe violations of labor laws.
This is the normal for Apostolic Lutherans in North Clark County.