GUILDERLAND — Three-and-a-half years after a day laborer died tangled in a woodchipper, a judge from the United States Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission has ruled that his employer, Tony Watson of Countryside Tree Service, will
ALBANY — “There was a weird noise coming from the chipper,” said tree climber Brendon John Andres, crying on the witness stand last week at an Occupational Safety and Health Administration hearing in Albany as he recalled the death over a year ago of a co-worker.
Recent cuts to federal funds for the agency that inspects and enforces safety rules is wrong. We urge our state to support criminal prosecution in egregious cases.
Countryside Tree Care and OSHA have been unable to come to an agreement through informal conferences, and the case is now set to go for trial in October.
Six months after Justus Booze died in a woodchipper on his first day on the job with a tree service, the employer who hired him for the day but did not train him is fined $141,800 by OSHA.
