Posted on 04/17/2005 8:14:32 AM PDT by SmithL
It turns out that the whistle-blower whose call to the FBI triggered the big investigation into alleged faulty welds on the new Bay Bridge hadn't even been calling about welds.
In fact, apprentice welder Gustave Link, who phoned the FBI's public corruption hot line in February, more than a year after he quit his job, was only complaining about what he thought were dangerous working conditions at the bridge site -- issues that he says had fallen on the deaf ears of both construction managers and his union bosses.
"If it wasn't for the FBI bringing it up, the issues of welding would have probably been buried in concrete," Link, 38, told us last week after the story broke.
Link said he had wanted to talk to the FBI about the union's lack of collective bargaining and about exposure to manganese and other welding fumes, as well as the hot and cramped working conditions on the skyway construction project.
But Link said agents were more interested in discussing issues around welding joints -- though he says the specifics of the conversation are a bit hazy. In any event, the talks definitely caught the bureau's interest.
Coincidentally on Feb. 4, about the same time Link was contacting the FBI, the Oakland Tribune filed a request with Caltrans under the state Public Records Act, asking for inspectors' records and other documents detailing bridge welding tests -- part of the inquiry that led to the paper's report that 15 former and current welders had complained about potentially faulty welds.
One thing led to another, other welders were contacted and before long Mark Mershon, the FBI's agent in charge in San Francisco, said the feds were looking into allegations of "a pattern of substandard welds on the bridge."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
--and, as usual, the taxpayers will get to take it on the chin---
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