Shoddy Construction at HISD Schools

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Passing this along from the Harris County AFL-CIO Labor Council.

The Harris County AFL-CIO Council will be conducting a news conference on Tuesday, July 21, 2009, at 10:30 a.m. at the site of HISD’s East East Early College High School construction site located at 220 N. Milby in the 3700 block of Navigation Blvd., 77003. The AFL-CIO Council will reveal the results of the most recent inspections of Electrical Code Violations and shoddy craftsmanship in four recently completed schools and will provide a list of other schools that should be re-inspected prior to the opening of the school year.

The AFL-CIO Council submitted a report with detailed pictures of electrical code violations and shoddy craftsmanship found in four elementary schools to the Houston ISD Board of Trustees in June. These schools detailed in the report are Coop, Highland Heights, Lantrip and Travis. This report was prepared by representatives of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Local 716. Following this report, representatives of the IBEW, Local 716, accompanied the HISD Maintenance Department to show them each picture source and to re-inspect the entire electrical installations in these schools.

“What they found,” said Richard Shaw “was even worse than the pictures. There were more violations and extremely serious grounding issues in two of the schools. The IBEW’s early pictures in the construction project failed to capture the enormity of the danger to the children and staff in these schools.”

The AFL-CIO had submitted a previous report to the HISD in September 2007 of other inspections of schools by the IBEW where they had found unlicensed electricians performing electrical work and workers being underpaid the HISD mandated wages for Electricians. All Electricians performing electrical installations must be licensed with the State of Texas and these licenses can be verified online.

“The news conference will take place at the East End Early College High School,” continued Shaw, “because the IBEW found two unlicensed electricians there working on this current project. It is apparent that HISD is continuing its practice of looking the other way letting contractors cheat the taxpayers and place children and staff in danger,” concluded Shaw.

The AFL-CIO Council will reveal a list of all schools in question along with recommendations for re-inspection and recommended action against those responsible.

[elehhhhna]

1. Yanno KBR is one of HISD's preferred construction contractors.

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2. They're doing as good a job here

as they are in Iraq.