Posted on 08/23/2010 9:14:33 AM PDT by Halfmanhalfamazing
Gary Heffernan has been a tuckpointer for 35 years. For the last 20, he has been in business for himself. He operates Heff's Tuckpointing out of his home in south St. Louis.
Heff's is a small company with two employees - Heffernan and his nephew. Still, it's a successful operation.
"We stay busy. We have about all the work we can handle, and it's all referrals," Heffernan told me.
It's almost all residential work. The occasional commercial job is usually a small, storefront business.
In April, Heffernan and his nephew were working on a house in the 6400 block of January Avenue. Heffernan had finished rebuilding the chimney and his nephew was finishing up the job when Heffernan left to bid a job in West County. While he was looking at the prospective new job, he got a call from his nephew. There was some kind of a problem with an inspector.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
There is a group of people who suck off the productive. They make rules then find infractions. They are the government’s iron fist brought home.
But harassing a small company like this is nothing short of government tyranny.
I’m afraid he’s gonna lose on the harness issue. Anything over 6’requires the use of fall arresting equipment now. They are very serious about it here in Georgia. Just to clarify...6’ is a ridiculously low height standard as most tie off lanyards are 5-6’ long.
it is time to make people ashamed to work for the governement and the government agencies.
Not that the communist in the WH really minds. Just gives him another opportunity to blame someone else for the ill effects his policies cause.
Welcome to Hopey Change.
You'll also probably see a resurgence of the hated BATF (which has been expanded to be the BATFE -- Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- that family friendly agency that torched the women and children in the infamous Waco compound during those fun Clinton years under Janet Reno -- that cuddly Attorney General...).
Yep -- the Obama Administration knows no bounds....
Obama is a Katrina for small businesses
Union member?
Some busy body neighbor didn't like where the truck was parked, or they started work to early and the govt got called. The govt sends out a ticket writer and they get more money.
How much you want to bet a competitor dropped a dime on the guy?
Wow, that sounds like a mafi styled shake-down. I wonder who reported him that prompted the OSHA inspector visit?
More and more small contractors are working alone and avoiding the responsibiity for employees If the work can be done by one, the margin and the lack of uncertainty are worth it.
Just driving around the neighborhood I could site any number of projects. Most employing illegals..the illegals would just walk away from these problems and start with a new name.
More and more small contractors are working alone and avoiding the responsibiity for employees If the work can be done by one, the margin and the lack of uncertainty are worth it.
Just driving around the neighborhood I could site any number of projects. Most employing illegals..the illegals would just walk away from these problems and start with a new name.
Bureaucrats do not leave their offices unless they have to.
That was my thought, too.
Anyway, I wish the guy luck. It’s an uphill battle dealing with bureaucrats indifferent to reality.
$10 Says the “caller” was a union contractor trying to subdue competition.
This sort of nonsense is getting to me more and more common.
Last year, our town implemented a special license test for my trade. They didn’t notify the several companies in our town that are in my trade though, we found out when we went to pull a building permit.
Ok, sounded OK, some towns have this. We only have a few guys, and they are all NATE certified (the hardest test to pass for national competency, very few HVAC guys have this certification), so we thought “easy peasy”.
We made the appointments and paid the fees for our guys (100 bucks a pop, and the appoints took over 2 months to get, which means we couldn’t even work in our own town for 2 months).
Now, here’s the kicker. During that 2 month period, the town rehabbed 4 large buildings downtown. Only 1 company could bid on the job, because only 1 company (the largest in our town) was able to bid, so it was basically a no-bid. He got the job, for around 1.4 million dollars. (We could have bid the job for around 20% of that, as would a couple of my competitors I am friends with).
That was a blow to the groin. But, here was the kicker, all of my guys failed their test, and can only test again in 6 months. They all reported the tests were easy, they couldn’t understand why they failed. I went and reviewed the test, and the answers they gave were very accurate, but I noticed the questions were very vague, and could have been interpreted in many different ways (which is odd for a technical test).
I asked where the test came from, and was told that they have an independent 3rd party administer the tests. I pushed and found out that the guy who made the test, and who is now in charge of the board of licensing is also the owner of that large company that got the city contract.
This seems like a total conflict of interest to us, but we really don’t know how to file a complaint or who to file it with. We have enough work, to not have to worry about it too much, but eventually we will get slow, and I’ll have to look into it more when I’m bored (probably over winter).
I’ve had contact with other guys in my trade who have had the same experience with the test, and maybe we’ll get together and get an attorney, because there is some monkey shines going on with all of this.
BTW, if anyone has any advice on the matter, we’d be more than happy to hear it.
The Chicago way is for the inspector to hustle his own bribes.
How much does it cost to make an inspector disappear?
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