Pike Employee electrocuted in North Carolina

A 54-year-old man from Zebulon was killed Thursday when he was electrocuted while working on a Pike Electrical line on N.C. 58.

Nash County sheriff’s Sgt. Jeremy Worrell said deputies responded around 1:30 p.m. to a field behind 9192 South N.C. 58 after a Pike employee called 911 to report his coworker had been injured. Worrell said the employee was in a bucket truck working on a power line when the victim touched the truck and was shocked.

Nash County Emergency Medical Service personnel transported the victim to Nash General Hospital where he died. The victim’s name is being withheld until his family is notified.

Sounds to Me like the lineman was in the bucket working and the victim
was on the ground. Somehow the truck became energized? and the guy on the ground touched the truck.

Pike has been very carefull to not release many details because of guys like me.
They hate it when people take a good look at there work and safety practices.
Seroiusly,,,, what the hell type of ariel device could they posibly be using around energized conductors that wasn't dielectrically tested and insulated??? Maybe a pin on bucket? I can almost bet they blame the poor guy on the ground that was killed. They'll say the employee failed to follow established work and safety rules. There gonna say the guy should've been wearing his gloves. Pike is off to another steller year executing workers. Shouldn't they be using death row inmates for there energized work? Hell they could save the state a boatload of money.

I have a Telelect D-800 with a 6' dielectric fiberglass extension. Any pin on bucket used properly is as safe as any bucket. They have always been a extra unit for the companies I worked for and never was a replacement unit. Hell Par and JF Electric has warehouses of pin on buckets never mounted, but will use one if the need arises. You should have to use this rig. That was all they had before Californian started gloving. We used it to hot sticking flying primary taps.

I watched a program the other night where a boss hides as an employee. The company was Mastec, a rat utility contractor and they put this poor schmuck, the boss, on heavy machinery with no training what so ever and expected him to act safely. One scene was where two wanna be linemen were terminating underground. Had no clue about what they were doing.

It was a great show on why RAT contractors kill way more workers than a union contractor. Any safety minded individual could easily have spotted multi safety violation as the show went on.

Well with that new school that started about a year ago in Kentucky that is backed by Pike it surely won't affect their man power. 8 weeks of training and your ready to dive in head first.

Beyond Pike for a moment and this is just my assumption based on my own thoughts; why don't the individual themselves take responsibility and realize they don't need to be performing such a task. Is it the wow factor with a mixture of cockiness know it all attitude or what? Where is the root cause of all this?

Ken: what show was this that you saw? I'd like to see that.

Steve: Great pictures my friend. I remember seeing that pin on picture before back when pin on buckets where brought up in the past. You make excellent point; pin on have their place but not a main rig.

rcdallas™ wrote:Ken: what show was this that you saw? I'd like to see that.

Steve: Great pictures my friend. I remember seeing that pin on picture before back when pin on buckets where brought up in the past. You make excellent point; pin on have their place but not a main rig.

http://www.cbs.com/shows/undercover_boss/video/ Here you go, unfortunatly ya got to sit through a few comercials.

Yeah I watched some of that video. Pretty cheesy. How many places are going to allow a guy the first day on the job, to operate equipment? It was all set up I thought. Not very real.

I noticed they never spoke of the numerous electrical contact fatalities Mastec has had over the years. I guess the editors edited out that Part. In my opinion Mastec is just another ratty outfit with tons of repete OSHA violations.

Utility worker shocked in Fayetteville

CUMBERLAND COUNTY, N.C. -- A Fayetteville man is in critical condition with third-degree burns after being shocked by a transformer.

It happened just after 10 a.m. Monday morning on Hoke Loop Road in western Cumberland County.

Emergency officials say Allen George, 24, was working on the transformer and didn’t realize electricity was running when he touched the live wires. He has electrical burns to 70 percent of his body.

George was airlifted to the Jaycees Burn Center.

Funny, you didn't here this story line on undercover boss.

Lawsuit alleges unpaid overtime
By JENNIFER LIBERTO
Published July 8, 2005


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TAMPA - A group of Tampa Bay area wire installers have filed a class-action lawsuit against their South Florida employer for withholding overtime pay, according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday.

Eleven former and current employees who live in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Hernando counties allege publicly traded MasTec Inc. didn't pay overtime and pressured them not to report overtime hours worked, according to the lawsuit and employees.

"They want us to work six days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day, and they're wanting us to lie about our time," said Jose A. Gonzalez of Brandon, who was fired in March. Gonzalez has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board saying he was fired in retaliation for his union organizing.

Coral Gables-based MasTec specializes in installing wire and cable infrastructure for utility, telephone, Internet and television companies. DirecTV and Comcast Cable Communications are among the company's biggest contracts.

MasTec is also one of the largest Hispanic-owned companies in the nation. Chairman Jorge Mas Jr. took over the reins from his late father, a Cuban exile and founder of the Cuban American National Foundation. The Mas family owns 42 percent of the company, according to federal records. The company has a reputation for hiring workers of Hispanic descent nationwide. Five plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit are Hispanic.

A MasTec attorney said the company follows federal standards for overtime pay. He said the company does pay overtime.

"We're certain our practices in the Tampa office are appropriate," said Michael Nearing. "It's an unhappy event when the first remedy employees seek is to air our laundry in public."

MasTec had weathered an accounting scandal in recent years and has been fighting debt. The company recently cut its employee force to 6,500 from about 10,000 and folded its international operations in Brazil and Spain. MasTec president Austin Shanfelter said in a June presentation with analysts that the company is focused on improving its margins and reaching profitability.

Local employees say they're the ones suffering from the company's cost cutting.

Several employees involved in the lawsuit had also started a union organizing drive with the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-Communications Workers of America during their off hours. Unpaid overtime was an issue often discussed by those contemplating a union.

For example, they complained that employees were required to attend mandatory 6 a.m. company meetings that would last 45 minutes, Gonzalez said. But they couldn't get compensated for time spent at the meeting.

Some employees said the company charged them if they took the company van home overnight. Or they wouldn't get paid for the time it took them to drive to an installation appointment.

Former employee James Stahl is leading the overtime complaint in federal court. "You were told not to put down hours if you want work," said Stahl, who was fired in March. "If you put down overtime, sometimes they'd change it, or they'd screw up your payroll and dock you money."

Stahl helped direct union organizing until he was fired, and he has also filed an NLRB complaint alleging retaliation.

Stahl had filed a couple of safety violation complaints against MasTec with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Nearing, the MasTec attorney, called Stahl a "chronic complainer." He denied the accusation that the company docked workers and manipulated pay records, saying it takes pay practices very seriously. The federal lawsuit has no basis, he said.

Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Jennifer Liberto can be reached at 813 226-3403 or liberto@sptimes.com

wtdoor67 wrote:Yeah I watched some of that video. Pretty cheesy. How many places are going to allow a guy the first day on the job, to operate equipment? It was all set up I thought. Not very real.

remember the penelec strike a few years ago..... Mastec was one of the scab rat contractors who crossed the picket line. I think l will have to expose mastecs greed and corporate corruption in a new thread. I think you will find hose mas is not the feel good carring ceo we are led to believe in undercover boss.

Maybe this is why the RATBASTARD deleted hi post bragging abou how good the show was about Mastec and how good they were.

topgroove wrote:A 54-year-old man from Zebulon was killed Thursday when he was electrocuted while working on a Pike Electrical line on N.C. 58.

Nash County sheriff’s Sgt. Jeremy Worrell said deputies responded around 1:30 p.m. to a field behind 9192 South N.C. 58 after a Pike employee called 911 to report his coworker had been injured. Worrell said the employee was in a bucket truck working on a power line when the victim touched the truck and was shocked.

Nash County Emergency Medical Service personnel transported the victim to Nash General Hospital where he died. The victim’s name is being withheld until his family is notified.

Sounds to Me like the lineman was in the bucket working and the victim
was on the ground. Somehow the truck became energized? and the guy on the ground touched the truck.

Pike has been very carefull to not release many details because of guys like me.
They hate it when people take a good look at there work and safety practices.
Seroiusly,,,, what the hell type of ariel device could they posibly be using around energized conductors that wasn't dielectrically tested and insulated??? Maybe a pin on bucket? I can almost bet they blame the poor guy on the ground that was killed. They'll say the employee failed to follow established work and safety rules. There gonna say the guy should've been wearing his gloves. Pike is off to another steller year executing workers. Shouldn't they be using death row inmates for there energized work? Hell they could save the state a boatload of money.

word on the street is;
Guy in the bucket stuck the truck ground on the primary. Thought it was a shielded system and neutral was on top. Guy on ground didn't have overshoes or gloves on. That's what they've told us

This is a classic example of how a get-r-done mentality can kill. you think they did a tailboard? You think the guy in the bucket tested dead before he threw that ground on? I'ld Love to see how they had the ground installed at the ground where the worker was killed. I bet Pike will never release that info. the victim touched the truck and was killed?

Well here is the quencher of the Pike ordeal, Klondyke from Phoenix AZ is owned by Pike. This gives them a Union entity. And guess what……they are just naturally very wormy!


http://www.klondykeinc.com/default.htm

August 2, 2011

Pike Expands Capabilities in the West; Purchases Pine Valley Power, Inc.

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June 30, 2010

Pike Expands Reach to Southwest; Purchases Phoenix-based Klondyke Construction, LLC

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Pike purchases Charlotte-based Facilities Planning and Siting (PLLC)

Expands Energy Solutions Portfolio
June 30, 2009


http://www.pike.com/PressRoom/WhatsNew.aspx