On January 13, 2021, Magno Alberto Valdez Sanchez was helping complete a retaining wall construction project at Hajoca’s Hendersonville Profit Center in North Carolina. But according to his later lawsuit, the general contractor in Henderson County hadn’t made sure the new wall could withstand a load before backfilling it with dirt.
That morning, the wall collapsed onto Valdez Sanchez and other crew members. He was buried under tons of concrete and dirt while remaining conscious, the suit alleged. Valdez Sanchez survived with serious injuries, but crew member Marcelino Rendon Hernandez died.
Nearly 60 construction workers died in North Carolina workplaces between Jan. 2021 and Sep. 2023 in North Carolina, according to Occupational Fatality Inspection Review data from the NC Department of Labor.
The construction industry has had the highest number of deaths in the state almost every year for the past 14 years. Since 2009, more than 250 construction workers have died in workplaces across North Carolina according to NCDOL data.
Nationally, construction and extraction workers had the second-most fatalities in 2022, after transportation and material movers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Construction and extraction worker fatalities increased by 11% from 2021 to 2022.
The numbers also increased in North Carolina, from 18 construction workers to 23 in that same time period.
North Carolina’s rate of workplace fatalities in construction was 11.5 in 2022, slightly higher than the average of 10.7 across 43 states, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Latino workers have died at higher rates from workplace incidents than other races, according to a 2019 North Carolina Justice Center report, largely because they are overrepresented in construction.
Latino workers accounted for over 25% of workplace fatalities in 2020 from NCDOL data, but were just over 10% of the state population, according to the U.S. Census.
Statewide issue at construction sites
John McCabe, a Cary-based lawyer who works with workers’ compensation and wrongful death cases, is Valdez Sanchez’s lawyer. He said he has cases across the state, not just metro areas.
McCabe said he’s seen multiple cases where leadership fails to properly assess safety at a site. Instead, they often wait until someone is injured or killed before calling in an engineer, he said.
“Why don’t they do it on the front end?” he said. “They’re trying to cut corners.”
Workers often died from being struck by something, such as a bulldozer, or falling from a height, according to labor department data.
In Duplin County in 2023, a construction worker removed a hole covering to hoist materials up, but fell through and died, as described in a DOL fatality activity summary.
Another worker died of a fall in Pasquotank County in 2023 after walking backward onto a skylight. A worker in Guilford County in 2023 also died of a fall when cutting a floor slab for removal.
Staffing state inspectors
NCDOL’s Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Division investigates all reports of work-related fatalities, as well as OSH complaints.
Advocates have pushed for stronger consequences from the government over the years for worker fatalities. NCDOL often handed out fewer willful violations than the national average from 2013 to 2018, according to the NC Justice Center report.
“Willful” means the employer either deliberately violated a legal requirement or “acted with plain indifference to employee safety,” which forces employers to face a much higher penalty.
Jennifer Haigwood, Deputy Commissioner of the OSH Division, and Paul Sullivan, Assistant Deputy Commissioner, said by email they could not respond specifically to the number of willful violations because they did not have the national level information, but the state exceeds the national average when looking at a combination of serious, repeat and willful violations per inspection.
The department needs more resources from the General Assembly to hire additional inspectors to perform compliance investigations, said Clermont Ripley, co-director of the North Carolina Justice Center’s Workers’ Rights Project.
While some employers try to provide a safe workplace no matter what, others who prioritize cost over safety, she said. For employees who may be paid by how much they get done regardless of hours, she said they’re incentivized to work faster and possibly make dangerous mistakes.
“If you never think that you are going to get in trouble, then you’re not motivated to comply, especially for businesses that are operating on a really tight budget,” she said.
The OSH Division faces “similar” staffing challenges to other state agencies and private companies, and prioritizes filling vacant compliance officer positions, Haigwood and Sullivan wrote in an email.
The division reduced vacancies over the past year through “sign on and retention bonuses, higher starting salaries, enhanced leave benefits and hybrid flexibility,” the spokesperson wrote.
The department requested salary increases from the General Assembly in each of the last three sessions, and received funding for general salary increases but not specifically for compliance officers, according to Haigwood and Sullivan.
OSH Compliance did 953 programmed inspections in fiscal year 2023, or inspections that weren’t in response to a fatality or accident, Haigwood and Sullivan wrote. That made up a little more than half of the 1,761 total inspections, with the others conducted because of a complaint, referral or fatality or other reason.
Leveling harsher penalties
Valdez Sanchez worked for Robert Crawford Masonry, whom the Hajoca center manager Andrew Weymouth hired to rebuild the damaged wall, according to the suit.
Valdez Sanchez and his wife sued Hajoca, Weymouth, building owner W.D. Building Rentals, and the grading subcontractor, Pinnacle Grading Company. Litigation is ongoing.
After the wall’s collapse, the NCDOL, cited Hajoca Corporation and Robert Crawford Masonry for “serious” violations and imposed a penalty of around $30,000 for the former and $27,000 for the latter. The state cited Pinnacle Grading for a serious violation as well and fined the company $2,800.
A spokesperson for Hajoca Corporation said in an emailed statement that because Hajoca was renting the building adjacent to the retaining wall, it was the landlord’s responsibility to repair it. So the landlord hired and paid those working on the project.
“Contrary to the allegations in the lawsuit and your proposed story, Hajoca neither hired the contractors, nor directed the methods of their work,” the spokesperson wrote. “Hajoca continues to send its heartfelt sympathies and prayers to the families, friends and colleagues affected by this tragic incident.”
The spokesperson also noted that Hajoca is a wholesale supplier of plumbing materials, not a general contractor working on construction sites.
Weymouth directed requests for comment to Hajoca Corporation communications. Robert Crawford Masonry did not respond to requests for comment. Pinnacle Grading Company and W.D. Building Rentals declined to comment.
While Hajoca and Robert Crawford Masonry received steep fines, advocates say that’s not always been the case.
North Carolina’s fines used to be far below the national average, according to the report. But that changed in 2022, when North Carolina more than doubled its maximum OSH penalties to match the federal maximums.
Still, Ripley said penalties can be negotiated down if violators appeal their penalties and the violation type.
The NC Justice Center report showed that inspectors often gave harsher citations initially, then backed down after negotiation with the employer.
Employers contested more than 4% of compliance cases in the last federal fiscal year, according to Haigwood and Sullivan, which is consistent with recent years. The division prefers informal settlement agreements that usually require the employer “to take additional safety and health measures in exchange for a reduction in penalty and/or revised citations,” Haigwood and Sullivan wrote.
In the last federal fiscal year, North Carolina retained almost 83% of its initial penalties compared to the national average of 72%, according to Haigwood and Sullivan.
Construction industry perspective
Jacob Garmon is the director of Safety, Suppliers & Sponsorships for the Carolinas AGC, or Association of General Contractors. Construction by nature can be a dangerous industry, but that’s why there are numerous safety regulations, Garmon said. The association members are “proactive” about safety, he said.
The association has an alliance agreement with the North and South Carolina labor departments, meaning the AGC’s safety committee and other members and staff meet with government representatives regularly to discuss new regulations or trends in incidents.
“It’s kind of an open forum between the contractor and the Departments of Labor, to hear those issues, to work through them, get ahead of problems and hopefully prevent accidents before they even happen,” he said.
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