Workers Anonymously Voice Safety Concerns After Crane Tipped Over At Charlevoix Job Site

“It’s just not safe; they don’t act safely.”

A tipped over crane at a work site in Charlevoix County has prompted workers to reach out to Northern Michigan’s News Leader with their safety concerns.

Yesterday the crane tipped at St. Marys Cement, but the investigation into what exactly happened is ongoing.

No one was hurt at the Charlevoix plant, but now some workers are saying this is not the first unsafe incident at that job site.

9&10’s Blayke Roznowski has more details after talking to one of the workers.

It started with several people sending us photos of the tipped over crane Wednesday.

But more workers started stepping forward saying there was more to the story.

“They don’t seem to care about other workers. They’ll drop sparks, drop things,  everybody is working in the same area and they don’t seem to respect others,” a foreman at St. Marys Cement said.

He like many of the people we talked to, did not want to be identified out of concern for losing his job for standing up over safety concerns.

Several workers came to us saying the tipped over crane is one of many incidents at St. Marys Cement since two companies, IPEC and Vizer came in.

“Nuts and bolts come flying down, you just don’t want to get hit and hurt and then you say something or if you swear then they’ll say well we’ll have to get rid of you for that and no that’s not how it works,” he said.

The foreman says one man even broke his leg about a month ago.

“They were moving steel on steel and steel is not a good idea the steel forces it to slide really easy and it moves down and they grabbed it they moved it and it slid right off the forks and hit the guy from behind in the leg.”

In regards to the tipped over crane, St. Marys Cement would not do an interview, but released this statement saying they were working with the mine safety and health administration to safely bring the crane back upright.

But many of the workers worry what might happen if nothing changes.

“It’s sad, it’s like going to have to come to that before something gets addressed about it.”

We did reach out to IPEC and Vizer, but did not hear back.

MSHA does say they are looking into the situation.

It’s unclear why exactly the crane tipped over.