The U.S. Department of Labor slapped a drywall contractor with 14 violations and nearly $75,000 in fines after a worker died at a Miami Beach spec home construction site.
Stucco Works, the Homestead-based firm led by Christopher Jimenez and Miguel Jiminez, is contesting all 14 of the citations, according to a press release. This follows the July death of a 22-year-old worker who died from blunt force trauma to the head in an accident at the Miami Beach work site.
The worker was fatally struck by a pulley system while hoisting buckets of cement to the second floor of the residential construction site at 1096 North Venetian Way, according to the release.
Stucco Works could not be immediately reached for comment.
The department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) deemed 12 of the 14 citations “serious.” The serious citations included assessments that Stucco Works exposed workers to “struck-by hazards,” allowed them to use unsafe scaffolding, and failed to develop both a hazard communication program and an accident prevention program, according to the OSHA report.
“Stucco Works’ failure to make employee safety a priority led to the loss of a young worker’s life,” Condell Eastmond, OSHA area office director said in the release. “Employers are required to follow the federal standards that are meant to protect workers from the hazards that caused this tragedy.”
The Venetian Islands project site where the death occurred is owned by GB Investments I, a Florida entity managed by the Boschetti Group’s Jose Boschetti, Jr., records show. The firm filed a notice of commencement for a new single-family home in 2022, according to property records.